Mountain View County’s Township Road 292 upgrade project is for a 14 kilometer stretch of road way between Range Road 13 and Highway 766 along with two bridge replacements.
Reeve Angela Aalbers points out that an extra $4 million in funding for it was approved by County council earlier this month. She says council is being very fiscally responsible but price escalation is hitting every industry and municipalities are not sheltered from that cost increase. Reeve Aalbers says “I think it is just important for everyone to realize that this is a 65 per cent plus increase over what we would spend on that same equivalent road in 2014, but yet back in 2014 we were getting somewhere in the order of $5 million through the Municipal Sustainable Initiative grant from the province and now our infrastructure costs have gone up significantly and we get a reduced somewhere around $3 million through the Local Government Fiscal framework (LGFF) initiative from the province.”
According to Reeve Aalbers, council went with an option that allows the County to upgrade Township Road 292 to a major collector standard but reduces the asphalt on the road for a phasing approach. She says “so the first phase of the approach will have a 90 millimeter asphalt overlay. It will still require a road ban in the spring but council has the option to look at a second overlay of 60mm or something else to increase that road to a non-ban standard in the future.”
The total for the Township Road 292 upgrade project is now just over $20 million. Reeve Aalbers adds, cost overruns are never great but council does have a long-range infrastructure plan and when the project comes back to council it will also include a funding strategy.
