Now that the snow is gone, it’s construction season in Prince George.
The city has 53 major road and sidewalk projects planned this year, including 35 road resurfacings. The largest project is along Foothills Boulevard; northbound between 1st and 5th and southbound between 5th and 15th.
During budget meetings this year, Council decided to allocate $5 million for roads, $600,000 for sidewalk rehabilitation, and $400,00 for new sidewalks. In addition to the 35 transportation capital projects, there’s money for 12 sidewalk rehabilitation projects and six brand new sidewalks. When prioritizing areas, Streets Operations Supervisor Mick Jones says the city focused on busy pedestrian areas like schools.
“Cathedral for Immaculate Conception around there were doing the sidewalk. Malaspina, leading up to the Malaspina Elementary School is another new sidewalk.”
Construction season typically runs May-October but crews are expanding that to fix potholes with the city’s new asphalt recycler. The $225,000 tool was purchased in the fall and can quickly make “hot mix” asphalt in a streamlined method that’s also more enviromentally- and cost-friendly outside of construction season. This can recycle a tonne of asphalt in ten minutes. This tool, combined with completed work in the past, has helped the city fix pothole throughout the city.
“The number of pothole calls and potholes filled are down this year,” says Jones, “that’s a product of having the road rehab number as high as it’s been for the last few years so that’s definitely helped the condition of our road network.”
.@CityofPG showing off asphalt recycler ahead of this year’s road and sidewalk rehabilitation and construction announcement #CityOfPG pic.twitter.com/lJgDtYQHGB
— My Prince George Now (@mypgnow) March 30, 2017
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