You filled up your gas tank; And now the city plans to fill some potholes and pave some roads

The rough roads of Prince Rupert are on the list for some extensive
remediation this summer as the city adds to the paving budget for 2019

Some good news for long suffering motorists in Prince Rupert was delivered on Monday evening, as the cries of help from the shocks, struts, tires and brakes of vehicles across the city were heard by Prince Rupert City Council, with council members set to allocate some significant money towards road work this year.

Soon the ever growing list of potholes, expanding cracks and lengthy stretches of worn out pavement will receive a new coat of asphalt and a refreshed look as the city's paving plans begin to take shape, thanks to some additional funding from the Federal level.

The extra boost of cash comes thanks to a doubling of the Federal Gas Tax as announced in the Federal budget last month, which we made note of here.

From that additional money, Corinne Bomben the City's Chief Financial officer noted that staff had proposed allocating 500,000 dollars of the  600,000 dollar distribution would be earmarked to be added to the city's paving budget for this coming year.

The welcome news was greeted well by City Council on Monday evening,  with the council members taking note of how the doubling of the federal money has offered an opportunity to move forward on their road infrastructure concerns, while also allowing for the delivery of the two percent property tax reduction for this year.

"People do want to see better roads, I feel that this has kind of been take care of now with the additional $500,000 of the gas tax, which will now put us at a 1 million dollar paving budget for the year, which is 600,000 dollars more than it has been for the last 20 years." -- Councillor Wade Niesh on the City's paving plans for 2019

Council did not outline when the paving program would begin, or what kind of list that they have in mind when it comes to which streets will see the first layers of blacktop along the way, though one imagines that they'll soon hear word from the city's residents as to a potential priority list.

As the road repair and renovation program moves forward, we'll highlight the details through our Infrastructure and Major project archive page.

Further notes on Monday's City Council Session can be reviewed from our Council Timeline feature here as well as our archive page for Monday's session here.

A wider overview of Council discussion themes can be explored here.

To return to the most recent blog posting of the day, click here.