Red Hill Valley Parkway inquiry to cost more than $7 million, say city lawyers

Legal counsel for the city of Hamilton says the cost of Red Hill Valley Parkway Inquiry (RHVPI) is likely to exceed the city’s original $7-million price tag.

A report presented this week, to be reviewed by councillors on Dec. 9, says the inquiry’s cost to date has exceeded $4.8 million.

“Based on the fees incurred to date, our projection of future costs, and the delays resulting from the document production process, it is unlikely that the cost of the Inquiry will be under $7 M,” city solicitor Nicole Auty wrote.

The summary goes on to say that delays with the document production process, it’s not likely the hearing portion of the inquiry will not start any sooner than the Spring of 2021.

“This will largely depend on when the province will complete its productions and once the city’s external counsel receives and responds to commission counsel’s request for further documents and information,” the report said.

In response, the city said in a statement it will remain “committed” to the process going forward.

“We will continue to provide all necessary documents as requested and look forward to the next steps and the ultimate findings from the inquiry,” the statement said.

The RHVP inquiry, announced in April 2019, was commissioned by the city of Hamilton and centres around a 2013 Tradewind Scientific report that analyzed friction levels on the parkway and suggested some safety issues.

The audit recommended “remedial actions” and an investigation of the asphalt after friction values were discovered to be “below or well below” U.K. safety standards, which were used as a benchmark in the study.

The inquiry, under commissioner and justice Herman Wilton-Siegel, is then expected to answer questions posed by city councillors before taking on a second stage in the form of road safety recommendations in the interest of the public and government.

In an interview with Global News in July, the inquiry’s lead counsel said the process had become “slower and more complicated” than expected due to the coronavirus pandemic and the search for historical documents.

“The fact that some of these questions around the construction and the paving go back a number of years, it’s always more difficult to collect documents that are a little more historical in nature,” lawyer Robert Centa told Global News.

Centa said many of the documents the inquiry is seeking are “hard copies” that go back more than a decade and need to be converted into some kind of more usable format before being read.

So far, the inquiry has received about 74,000 documents from participants and other people who hold relevant technical information that Centa says will be reviewed with the help of design experts, analyzing everything from asphalt composition to construction methods.

The new report says once document production is complete it expects the inquiry to commence interviews with 36 current and former city employees.

Separate from the inquiry, the city is facing a $250 million class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of drivers who’ve crashed on the Red Hill Valley Parkway (RHVP) since its opening in 2007. The suit alleges improper design and maintenance of the roadway caused drivers to crash.