Corner Brook waiting on today's budget for the paving program and fixing pot holes

The city’s Assistant Director of Engineering, Aaron O’Brien, says since 2017, the cost of asphalt has gone up by 66 percent.

It’s a frustration for every driver and at Monday’s public meeting, Corner Brook city council was given a presentation on pot holes. Aaron Miller is the Assistant Director of Operations.  He spoke about how they appear and why there are so many this time of year and with freezing and thaws, it wears the asphalt down.  

Miller says salt used during the winter creates more liquid, adding to the problem. He says the city has a few different methods of dealing with them starting with “cold patch”  which is simple and quick but doesn’t last very long, followed by using recycled asphalt. Miller says the third most perfect solution is laying brand new asphalt, purchased from manufacturing plants, which are only open from mid-May to mid-October. 

Meanwhile, the city’s Assistant Director of Engineering, Aaron O’Brien, says since 2017, the cost of asphalt has gone up by 66 percent. He says the city’s paving program budget comes from two main sources, with the first being the Multi-Year Capital Works Program, cost-shared 50-50 with the provincial government. However, O’Brien says they haven’t heard from government yet and as such, they have no budget for paving this year. He says the city normally slots $2-3 million a year for paving which only maintains roadways. O’Brien says a shave and pave costs about $500 per metre, a full road rebuild is $1200 and with underground infrastructure it costs about $10K per metre. Staff at city hall will be keeping an eye on today’s provincial budget at 2 p.m.