It was a busy year for city crews involved in rehabilitating Prince George’s network of roads and sidewalks. City council will receive a report at the Monday, December 5 meeting indicating approximately 44 lane-kilometres of roads and 3,095 lineal metres of sidewalks received maintenance in 2022. In addition, the city installed 633 metres of new sidewalks.
City workers completed 41 road and eight sidewalk projects during the 2022 road construction season, including two significant road repaving efforts from Northwood Pulpmill Road to its emergency pullout and southbound Ospika Boulevard to Tyner Boulevard. Baker Road, Wilson Crescent, and Kerry Street received new sidewalk installations under the 2022 New Sidewalk Program.
Council budget deliberations earlier this year reduced the proposed 2022 roads budget from $5.95 million to $5.5 million. However, council also approved an increase to the sidewalk rehabilitation budget from $700,000 (in 2021) to $1.25 million and earmarked an additional $400,000 for new sidewalks.
The sidewalk rehabilitation budget was enough to complete roughly two per cent of the current road path pedestrian network. The most recent pedestrian network study concluded 44 per cent of the road path network is in fair to poor condition.
Every three years, the City of Prince George evaluates the condition of three roadways categories within the municipal transportation network:
- Arterial
- Collector
- Local
The city uses these assessments to monitor the state of paved areas. Segments are inspected and assigned a score based on their condition, which assists with prioritizing renewal projects and help create the annual paving rehabilitation program.