Dear Editor,
Council is going to spend $1.05 million dollars of the municipality’s capital budget to pave an approximately 500 metre length of Wellington Road. It works out to about $2 million dollars per kilometre. It’s interesting that so much of the municipality’s capital spending will be spent on such a project, given that the cost to tar and chip a rural road is about $50,000 per kilometre, and you could surface 21 km of some of the high traffic rural roads for the same amount of money. Why doesn’t council tar and chip Wellington Road for now, at a vastly reduced cost of about $50,000, and spend the $1 million left over on surfacing our rural roads. Numerous engineering studies show that rural roads are cheaper to maintain anyway, if they have a tar and chip surface rather than constant gravel rebuilds and grading maintenance.
Perhaps it would be better to leave Wellington Road as it is, as a reminder to council and urban residents that there are still 130 km of unsurfaced dirt roads in the rural area needing attention.
Stephen Hammond
