YORKTON - A clear sign of summer in Yorkton isn’t just the coming and going of the annual fair, or the flower barrels in full bloom, but also the sight of city crews out working on city streets.
While every time a pothole is covered over with new pavement is a good thing, the city is still very much fighting a losing battle.
Take an alternate route to avoid construction and you are likely to still be dodging potholes, or bouncing over raised areas where repairs have been made.
It is an old lament but Yorkton’s core infrastructure, pavement, sidewalks, water and sewer lines are old and with age comes deterioration. Infrastructure, like most things, has an expiration date and much of it in the city is past what the life expectancy was. It’s sort of living on borrowed time before it breaks down, and the clock continues to tick.
Yorkton is not unique in this. As has been stated here before, other long-established cities and towns across the province and country face the same issue.
The city and its councillors know it too.
The question though is how to replace infrastructure more quickly?
There has simply not been the funds to fast track replacement, nor the will to make the hugely tough choices which might provide more dollars for new pavement and water lines and sidewalks.
At some point more money needs to be found, and while that has typically meant higher taxes, the appetite for that – even to address a serious infrastructure issue – doesn’t seem to be there from Council or taxpayers.
Yet, ultimately higher targeted taxes are likely to be required.
However, how the city spends current dollars needs to be looked at too.
Here we are not talking holding the line on spending, as much as reallocating dollars in a significant way.
For example through recent budget deliberations was it ever discussed to sell Deer Park Golf Course to avoid the $7.5 million invested in a new clubhouse and associated infrastructure, leaving those dollars to more paving in the city?
Major projects need to be measured against the core needs the city faces. We might live without replacing the second ice surface in the city, but should sewer and water lines collapse to a significant area of the city it would be a disaster.
The city has been trying, but it ends up being baby steps.
The shave and pave to replace the pavement on Broadway Street might have made for a smoother ride down the main street of the community, but it is sort of the lipstick on a pig scenario, where scratch through a few inches of new asphalt and old substructure and waterworks remain.
The work on York Road is more inclusive in terms of upgrading, but is also the biggest project ever in terms of price tag and really takes the replacement budget for several years ahead – and it is only one road.
Let’s hope the funding of crucial infrastructure replacement is figured out before major problems manifest through structural collapses.
