The issue came up in early 2003 and was quickly killed by a new county council in 2004 during budget talks – and it has been a itch waiting for a scratch ever since.
The issue is roads rationalization. It means that Wellington County and its seven lower tier municipalities should consider their entire roads system, and decide which roads should really be owned and operated by the county, and which should be owned and operated by local government.
After those decisions, they should find a way to make the decisions revenue neutral, which means giving up as many roads as one gets.
County council discussed the issue again prior to the 2006 municipal election, and decided it should again consider it. Since then, it has mainly sat in limbo while people talked.
On Oct. 30, county council considered a report from engineer Gord Ough, who pointed out that in March, there was a consensus that county bridges on local roads should be addressed and resolved as part of the current roads rationalization effort.
Such a list was created, as Ough noted, “many moons ago.” It stated the bridges being considered met the following criteria:
– if it had a span of six metres or greater and it was located on a boundary road between two of the county’s local municipalities (that existed prior to 1999);
– if it had a span of greater than six metres and was located on a boundary road between a county local municipality and a neighbouring county; and
– if it was deemed at the time to be too big for a local municipality and a neighbouring county, it was on the list.
Ough reminded the committee that prior to 1996, the provincial government offered municipalities regular subsidies to maintain the road systems, and counties could apply for special funding for bridges that the Ministry of Transportation had classified as “county bridges on local roads.”
Ough said that if the application for a subsidy for such a bridge was denied one year, municipalities simply waited until another round of funding was available, and applied again.
But, he said, “The ‘county bridges on local roads’ program was notoriously underfunded and these bridges across the province were left to deteriorate. Consequently, there is a large, underfunded liability associated with these bridges.”
Ough wrote that except for the county helping to pay for the Irvine River bridge in Elora in 2003 (about $3-million), there had been “very little” spent on county bridges on local roads over recent years.
He said the committee has to make decisions about several issues:
– the amalgamation report stated the county should assume financial responsibilities for all bridges in the county. The county council rejected that recommendation several years ago, so does the committee want to reconsider that decision.
– should the county download the looming financial liability associated with county bridges on local roads?
– should the county keep those bridges on download them as they are rehabilitated or replaced? Two current candidates for downloading with that approach would be the Irvine River bridge on David Street in Elora, and the Hagan’s bridge on Jones Baseline, which was replaced in 1994.
– should the county download these bridges with the commitment that the county will fund 80% of the cost of a future upgrade? A requirement for local municipal cost sharing in a future upgrade may encourage a reasonable approach to the future upgrade.
Councillor Carl Hall, the roads committee chairman, told council that his committee would like to meet with the mayors of all the lower tier municipalities on Nov. 6 when the entire council is invited to consider its five year plan at a meeting at Wellington Place.
Council approved the roads committee recommendation that it will wait for further work on roads rationalization until the meeting with the mayors has taken place.
