With the weather tentatively thawing out for spring, it's time for maintenance to once again begin in Swift Current. 

While this is something that happens every year, it is important to pay attention to the finer details of a project as it impacts every resident of the City who uses motorways and sidewalks. That is what the 2022 Paving and Concrete Program Contract covers, as well as who was awarded the contract. 

The project was brought up at City Council last night, presented by Swift Current's General Manager of Infrastructure and Operations, Mitch Minken. 

The contract for the project covers the maintenance and work needed to repair paving and concrete around the city, along the 150km of Swift Current roadways. 

"Every year the city initiates a rehabilitation program based on the condition assessment to provide safety for street users and to maximize the life of the street and to minimize the long-term costs related to full road reconstruction," explained Minken. 

By maintaining and repairing damages that happen, they can hold back the cost of full-scale rebuilds that would be necessary in the event of complete degradation of critical pathways, roads and other paved surfaces. 

With so much surface area covered in concrete and pavement, there is a bottleneck for what is affordable and the total amount of damages that need repairing. 

"For the 2022 program, based on their condition at the current rate of resurfacing, it will take approximately 75 years to resurface all the existing roads to maintain them in all in fair condition," revealed Minken. 

The reality is, without a drastic increase in taxation, roadway and pavement damages outstrip the available funding in every major city. It becomes a task of addressing the most critical, high-use areas first, and maintaining them before resurfacing other less vital areas. 

This year's annual Paving and Sidewalk Program was advertised on SaskTenders from March 14 to March 30. Criteria were based on unit prices, proposed scheduling, and experience. There was one submission received from Mobile Paving Limited. 

The project budget will see the effects of both a 17 per cent increase in the price of asphalt unit rates and a seven per cent increase in concrete unit prices. These are due to the rising costs of fuel, aggregates, and oil. 

The budget breaks down to $905,000 for street and sidewalk rehabilitation, $300,000 for downtown streetscape rehabilitation, and $100,000 for downtown intersection improvements, along with a $67,195.52 SGI Traffic Safety Grant, which is pending approval. 

Mobile Paving Limited was awarded the contract on a total budget of $1,372,195.52, PST included, GST excluded. 

Although this might seem like a pretty drastic price tag, it's an ergonomic amount that takes into account increased material costs, as well as newer repair techniques that are more cost-effective. 

"Over the last couple of years, you'll have seen us change our techniques," expanded Minken. "Before we used to do a lot of pavement on top of pavement or remove payment and put new pavement down. Over the last few years, we've started to use a lot more milling." 

Milling is less expensive than full-scale paving and repair. Reducing the amount of asphalt placed by using milling, focusing on the damaged sections of roads, and leaving undamaged parking lanes and sections that do not require repair helps to stretch the money further down the lane.