A Primer on Lake Country Roads

Greg Buchholz, Lake Country new Manager of Operations, has taken the initiative to prepare a few primers on a number of services we provide. The first one is on road infrastructure. The primer deals with basic information and will be posted on our web site at http://www.lakecountry.bc.ca

The concepts/facts we are trying to convey deal with maintenance of infrastructure. With respect to roads we need to be aware of two fundamental facts:
• infrastructure begins to deteriorate immediately after installation; and
• the level of service provided dictates cost (and vice versa).

In his primer Greg shows a graph which explains the level of deterioration of a road based on its use during a certain period of time. In addition we need to know that:
1. The District maintains 200 km of roads. 3/4 of our paved surfaces were installed over 30 years ago;
2. The bare replacement cost of a road is approximately $300 per metre (just to replace what exists)
3. The District runs an estimated yearly road infrastructure deficit of $2,000,000.
Based on these facts, our total road infrastructure deficit is estimated to be in excess of $30,000,000. If we do not take greater preventative actions, our roads can be expected to degrade at greatly accelerated rates - Engineering projects that by 2020 our roads debt will more than double. The challenge I have as an administrator is to balance fiscal responsibilities, sustainability and infrastructure needs with the least impact to the taxpayers. Wish me good luck!

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Road Safety in Lake Country - Part 2

Yes there is a part 2 to Road Safety and I hope that there will be many more parts until the roads are safe and people will be able to enjoy long walks without concerns for vehicular traffic. It'll take time but we will get there.

First, I wish to share with you a video that was sent to me by our Bylaw Enforcement Officer, John Mellor. John describes the video as follows: This is the new "wear your seatbelt" ad the UK is doing - started by some
one not hired to do it, but because the cause is important to him, he came
up with this idea, and now it's being hailed across the world as a
beautiful' commercial. ...And now the video has gone "viral" - [which means,
has become so popular with the general public that people are forwarding it
to friends/family on their own so quickly that it has spread all over the
world in a very short time.]
"

The video can be seen at the following web address:
http://embracethis.co.uk/

Then I wish to say that our Road Safety Team is working on a number of initiatives to improve road safety in Lake Country. In fact they are preparing a Discussion Paper that we hope to present to Council pretty soon. Obviously some things can be done immediately but others will require financial considerations that will involve Council decisions.

We appreciate the collaboration and assistance of many people and students and we will continue to keep you posted as things progress.
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