A move by the provincial government to restore funding cuts for road and bridge projects is good news for the MD of Foothills, says Millarville-area councillor Jason Parker.
The Provincial government announced last week it will begin restoring funding to the Strategic Transportation Infrastructure Program (STIP) starting in the 2017-’18 fiscal year. The STIP will provide $100 million between 2017 and 2019.
The MD lost a major source of funds for repairs to rural bridges when the former PC government eliminated the Local Road Bridge Program in spring of 2013. The bridge fund was rolled into the STIP program, which also saw its funding cut.
At the time, the MD relied on the program to cover as much as 75 per cent of the cost to replace bridges and culverts over streams and creeks on rural roads across the foothills.
Parker said the provincial funding will help the MD replace aging bridges across the foothills, many of which cross streams and tributaries in his district within the MD.
“We were obviously quite concerned when they did away with that program so the hope that it actually gives us to be able to do some of the work that’s necessary on these bridges, that really helps out,” he said.
Harry Riva-Cambrin, MD municipal manager, said the announcement is good news for the MD.
The amount the MD previously received from the program varied widely from year-to-year, depending on how many projects were on the go.
Riva-Cambrin said the MD doesn’t currently have any bridge projects in the works or on its list for construction, but it will look to tap into the restored grant fund.
“Most of these are very difficult for us to find the funding for, so we weren’t proposing any in this year’s budget,” he said.
Riva-Cambrin said the top bridge priority for the MD is replacing a small structure on Home Oil Road in the Millarville-area. He said the narrow bridge is nearing the end of its lifespan.
He said since the funding cuts in 2013 the MD kept up with maintenance and it was able to get upgrades done to several bridges thanks to provincial funding provided after the floods in that same year.
“We had a lot of our problem locations taken care of,” he said. “We benefited a little bit from the flood in that way.”
