Seven extra road-checking staff would cost $1 million
“What we are doing (now) is waiting until there are potholes.”
Coun. Diane HolmesAn idea for a “pothole patrol” has been defeated at council.
Despite a city’s auditor general’s report that says Ottawa is not meeting minimum provincial road inspection standards, council yesterday rejected a request to add $1 million to the 2009 budget to hire seven new road inspectors.
“We’d be adding a $1 million a year extra to the surface operations budget, this is not a year project,” said Coun. Maria McRae.
“There has been no movement to reduce this amount to try and find efficiencies, and I’m not sure this is the right decision for the municipality to take at this time.”
City staff already driving the roads, as well as OC Transpo drivers and citizens, are just as effective at reporting road damage to the city, McRae said.
The new full-time positions would have complemented four existing city staff to form what some had dubbed a “pothole patrol”.
But John Manconi, Ottawa’s director of surface operations, said the inspectors would do much more, including identifying early problems that lead to needed road repairs later.
Coun. Diane Holmes argued for the inspectors, saying they would help extend the life of roadways and reduce the need for expensive reconstruction.
“Any fool can tell you where potholes are. What we are doing (now) is waiting until there are potholes,” said Holmes. “You let your whole roadbed disappear so there are potholes, and then you say, ‘Oh, look, there are potholes.’”
