Steeves’ claims on North Dakota road repair incorrect

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This article was published 30/09/2014 (3488 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mayoral candidate Gord Steeves relied on two myths Wednesday morning as he expanded on his infrastructure policy.

Standing alongside a pothole-riddled street in Transcona, Steeves repeated the vow he makes at almost every event, to make road building his top priority if elected mayor.

Steeves said he would ensure roads are built to a better standard and more quickly, then trotted out the myth that roads are built better in North Dakota than they are in Winnipeg.

“Winnipeggers constantly compare our roads to those in North Dakota,” Steeves said.

“In North Dakota they build roads properly. They dig down, they lay four to five feet of rock and they lay concrete and, in some cases, they lay asphalt over top. The end result is they will have a road that lasts.”

In fact, residential streets in North Dakota are not built to any such standards as Steeves claims.

The City of Fargo engineering department provided the Free Press with copies of road-building standards for concrete and asphalt streets. The documents show in Fargo, concrete roads are built atop a crushed gravel bed that is only 8-12 inches deep, depending on the width of the road. The concrete thickness varies from 8-10 inches.

For asphalt roads, the crushed aggregate bed is only eight inches deep.

Winnipeg roads are built to similar standards.

Steeves later repeated how he would finance the road work: cancelling the BRT project and raising $150 million from the sale of four city golf courses ($100 million) and the new police headquarters building and the nearby Millennium Library parkade ($50 million).

Steeves first announced his plan to sell golf courses at the end of July, claiming it would raise $100 million. But Steeves based his estimate on acreages for three city courses that were almost double what the golf courses actually comprise (440 acres versus 256 acres according to civic documents) and he greatly overestimated what the development industry believes the land is worth.

The best guess by analysts from the sale of the golf courses ranged from $37 million to $49 million.

On the sale of the new police headquarters building, Steeves failed to account that the city borrowed $155 million for that project and would have to repay it immediately if it no longer owns the property. Steeves also did not factor into his figures the annual lease-back payments the city would have to make.

Steeves did expand on this road building initiative, saying he would have construction of selected streets occur 24 hours a day, 7 days week.

“We will give jobs and business in open areas carte blanche to proceed in off hours,” Steeves said. “Contractors will have the incentive of early-finishing bonuses to spur them on.”

Steeves said city hall stretches its road building dollars with mild repair work on streets that need complete rebuilding, rather than concentrating on the quality of the work.

“If you talk to the people in the (road building) industry, they will tell you the work we do is the proverbial putting lipstick on a pig.”

Steeves said he would phase out the practice of laying thin layers of asphalt over damaged roads and instead have them rebuilt.

Steeves conceded the city would not be able to repair as many kilometres of roads with his method, but said roads would be built better and last longer.

“We will move away from milling and patching and focus our capital budget on concrete work that will last,” Steeves said. “Our calling card will not be grinding down a lane over top but rather replacing it.”

Steeves also said he would speed up road work by shutting down a road entirely when it’s being rebuilt, rather than keeping lanes open during construction. He said that would be inconvenient for motorists as they found alternative detour routes, but added the road work would be completed sooner.

 

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca