City roads crumbling under multi-million dollar spending gap, official says

“We heard that we’re millions of dollars under or millions of dollars behind in asphalt rehabilitation each year,” coun. Mark Bentz told the finance and administration standing committee.

Bentz motioned to have administration report back to the committee, presenting options for recurring pothole zones in the 2027 and 2028 capital budgets, which passed unanimously, delaying a decision about the 2027 budget calendar.

“I’m very concerned about the state of our roads, especially in spring. There’s been a lot of damage. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the state of the roads. The potholes were, I would say, the worst I’ve ever seen,” Bentz said.

“Now I suspect this is due to our infrastructure deficit. We’re not repaving roads. We’re letting roads that can no longer be rehabilitated just kind of languish.”

He asked the administration if enough was budgeted this year to fix the issues—the answer was no.

The city is not keeping up with it asset management of the roads, said Kayla Dixon, commissioner of infrastructure and operations.

“I believe our last report to council on our pavement condition required a $13 million spend each year for asphalt, and over the last several years, our average has probably been closer to about $8 million. So, there is a significant gap there, which does result in asphalt performing poorly,” she said.

City roads are particularly hard hit by the significant freeze-thaw cycle this spring, Dixon explained, the city’s asphalt plant is still not open and cold patches are not staying in the wet conditions.

“We don’t have that issue every winter, but as we continue to see climate change, we are getting more of those freeze-thaw conditions,” she said.

“But the fact is that yes, we are not fully funding our asphalt,” she said.

“That is an issue, but it is an issue across our asset portfolio. We do not have, I would say, any assets that are fully funded. So that is a concern.”

The city budgeted $2 million less for capital projects this year than last.

Despite a five per cent increase in the tax-supported portion of the 2026 capital budget, the city has not seen increases in the Canada Community-Building Fund, Dixon said.

“These are major funds for our capital program, and we are therefore able to do less work with that money,” Dixon said.

She said there are opportunities to increase the five per cent cap on the capital budget, but it would impact the tax levy.

Commissioner of corporate services, Keri Greaves, said council can increase the capital budget if they so choose.

“It could be higher, and it would be very easy to justify a higher capital tax levy based on our asset management plan and, you know, costs go up,” he said.

“But it is about priorities and making sure that we balance affordability for residents with trying to allocate our funds across all of our capital priorities, as best we can.”

Greaves explains that the asset management plan will reduce the infrastructure deficit over time, and any additional funds would accelerate that timeline. But he does not know if it would make a significant difference overall, over the next thirty-year lifespan of the plan.

For example, providing $500,000 more to the roads budget may not give a measurable reduction in the number of potholes, he added.

“It might help get a road done sooner than it otherwise would have, but not likely have an overall, noticeable impact,” he said.

With a municipal election coming up in October, administration is not seeking budget direction for 2027, as they have done in previous years, because the next term of council could override it, said Greaves.

Instead, if approved by city council, they plan to align the capital and operating budgets according to the guidelines set out in the long-range financial plan, which is based on a four-year rolling average of the Consumer Price Index with a minimum tax levy increase of three per cent overall and a five per cent annual tax levy increase in the capital budget.

“That’s what I’m getting at. Is the long-range plan still adequate to take care of our infrastructure?” asked Bentz.

“You know, we can focus on climate change, but we’ve always had freeze-thaw cycles. They just happened later in the year. I would contend that our roads are in such horrible shape because we are not funding them properly.”

City administration will return to the committee at a future date to present a 2027 budget calendar that will include options to fund potholes measures. – tbnewswatch.com

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Our high salaried residents of City Hall depend on the kindness of strangers in order to keep the annual tax increases low.  If the Federal or Provincial governments won’t fund the work, it does not get done.

How much of the total cost to run/maintain the City of Thunder Bay comes from sources other than city property taxes?  How much?

Remember that the City of Thunder Bay gets around $20 million annually from Tbaytel.  Free money.

I have always said that the taxes in Thunder Bay need to be doubled in order to provide proper maintenance of its existing infrastructure AND build new infrastructure to accommodate growth.

Remember the years when the tax increases were zero?  Does that make sense? Zero? In the end, you get what you pay for.