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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