Hi Arun, Newmarket has taken the approach of accounting for winter plowing as part of road operations and our road level of service. With the new minimum maintenance standard, we are also tracking the activities and LoS for sidewalk plow and bikelane plowing/sweeping. We are also breaking down "salt runs" and "plow runs" separately, as salt runs are more frequent. I agree that this is part of AM as it is an activity required to deliver on the objectives of the infrastructure.
Each municipality is different, but it might also be worth looking at sweeping. Some municipalities charges this to stormwater, others charge it to roads. In Newmarket it is part of stormwater, although the cost has not been fully accounted for yet in our rate studies. Levels of Service do become a factor here in terms of whether it is most applicable to stormwater (rate supported) or roads (tax supported). Arguably, the "spring clean up" for street sweeping is to support stormwater to keep drainage features clean, however you could also argue that this is a by-product of winter roads and should therefore be charged to roads. If you do more than one street sweeping pass per year (e.g. a summer or fall second run, or an enhanced LoS in your downtown), these activities are less applicable to stormwater but we have not moved to this level of detail yet.
I have not studied our development charges in detail yet, but I understand some reserves are levied for these assets. I have heard conflicting information from other departments on if our DCs cover operations like winter plowing for new subdivisions but I would like to learn and confirm this, let me know what the situation is in your municipality.
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Erik Wright
Town of Newmarket
Asset Management Specialist
Richmond Hill ON
Canada
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-03-2021 02:02
From: Arun Chulliyil
Subject: Expansion projects on Roads and Winter Maintenance activity
Hello everyone,
I am from Ontario Canada and would like to know your thoughts on the following. This came up for discussion with my manager
A) Do you take road expansion projects for Lifecycle costing. As these are funded by development charges my manager feels that they are growth projects and hence there is no definite timeline or if those projects can happen. I agree with her on that level however if the expansion projects are related to expanding an existing infrastructure like rehabilitation of a major arterial road to accommodate the increase in traffic then it should be part of the lifecycle cost
B) On the Operations and Maintenance , do you take winter control as part of operations and maintenance activity and I strongly feel that winter control on roads in ontario should be part of O&M because if the town acquires another 10 kms of road from the developer, then the town is bound to do winter maintenance on the road. It is the same like road sweeping, debris pickup or asphalt maintenance.
Please let me know your thoughts
thanks
Arun
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Arun Chulliyil
Town of New Tecumseth
Canada
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