City of Kingston investing $35-million into roads over next four years

If you drive around the city of Kingston for any amount of time, you’ve probably encountered more than a few pot holes.

“Luckily I drive a high clearance crossover, but most sedans will hit it and you’ll hear a huge bang,” Ahmad Addurobi.

According to a new road condition report, over half of the city’s 1,800-kilometre road network is in fair or poor condition. About 20-percent of those are in various states of disrepair.

“It is a significant amount of road assets that are in that poor to very poor range” says director of engineering services, Luke Follwell. The report was part of a regular study the city conducts to evaluate road conditions using high-tech lasers.

A van that travels the network and picks up the data using lasers, added Follwell. “It picks up cracks, deflections, roughness and provides a calculation out of 100.”

While the overall road index rose from the high 50s in 2021 to 60 out of 100 last year, but city councillor Gregory Ridge says that’s not enough, and the city is working towards improving the rating.

“Sometimes when roads are in particularly poor condition it means that you need to have more funds available. That doesn’t mean that the needs of constituents aren’t being heard, but it has to be done in a way that’s responsible.”

The city invested $7-million dollars on road repairs last year, with plans to spend $35-million to improve more of them over the next four years. It’s a long and expensive ‘to-do’ list and roads that you think should be fixed right away may have to wait even longer.

According to drivers like Addurobi, those repairs can’t come soon enough.