Alberta is filling its coffers, but the province’s roads crumble.
On June 27, the province announced an $8.3 billion budget surplus. It was $2.5 billion more than what the province had predicted. Finance Minister Nate Horner said this was partly because Alberta’s population growth significantly increased the province’s tax revenue.
Horner said that the province can spend $5 billion of the surplus. The government will put half of this cash into its Heritage Savings Trust Fund, a pot of money meant to protect Alberta from fluctuations in oil revenue. The province would like the fund to hit $250 billion by 2050.
The other half will be put toward debt payment and savings.
Budget Bind
However, many rural municipalities find themselves in a financial bind these days. Critical infrastructure repairs have been neglected due to lack of funding.
This past March, Lesser Slave Lake MLA Scott Sinclair was booted from the UCP caucus for voicing his concerns about Alberta’s budget. One of his chief concerns was that “essential infrastructure projects, like Highway 88 in our riding, remain incomplete.”
The story is similar across rural Alberta.
Last September, Rural Municipalities of Alberta conducted a study on Alberta’s infrastructure. “The overall municipal road infrastructure deficit is $11.99 billion,” the study found.
Another study from Alberta Municipalities found that the province needs to invest $1 billion more per year “to meet current and future community infrastructure needs.”
Clearwater County
Clearwater County in western Alberta, is the province’s backyard. Nordegg boasts stunning mountain views, and the Ya Ha Tinda Ranch has some of the province’s finest horseback riding. The area receives up to 100,000 visitors every year.
Most of its roads are gravel.
The county, along with Mountain View County next door, received $900,000 in provincial funding this year to update its bridges and airports.
Clearwater County Reeve Michelle Swanson told TheRockies.Life that the county “is very diligent” about road repairs, and has an excellent public works team that makes the most of provincial money they receive.
Still, she said more needs to be done to improve the county’s roads.
“I can understand [the Alberta government’s] need to build up their savings fund for the future,” she said. “At the same time, critical infrastructure repair needs to be done. It’s cheaper to do maintenance today so that things will last another twenty to thirty years.”
“I’m thankful that we have a province that has that kind of surplus, but it’s also allowing municipalities to ensure that critical services are covered,” Swanson said.
She noted that the county’s forestry, agriculture, and energy industries all rely on road infrastructure. Roads are also vital to disaster response, she said. Roads are evacuation routes and help firefighters and paramedics get where they need to.
Not born yesterday
Alberta’s road infrastructure problems funding has fallen short for thirty years.
In 1995 then-premier Ralph Klein wanted to balance Alberta’s budgets.
Rather than cutting oil and gas subsidies, Klein sold government-run companies to private investors and cut infrastructure funding.
In 2002, the Parkland Institute conducted a study of Alberta’s road system to determine what immediate effects privatization had on roads.
Most of Alberta’s highways were in “acceptable condition,” the report found. However, it noted that “given that Alberta’s highways are aging, it can be assumed that the cost of maintaining them to a certain standard would actually increase over time.”
Data from the Rural Municipalities of Alberta shows that funding hasn’t kept up. Today, Alberta’s roads are at 61% condition, according to their research.
“Based on average provincial investment (through grant funding) in roads and bridges over the past several years, the report projects that the road portfolio is at risk of deteriorating significantly in the next five years,” they found.
Weather, Railways, and Heavy Equipment
Alberta’s roads have deteriorated for many reasons.
Extreme weather such as hail, flooding, and heavy snow wreak havoc on roads.
Farm equipment, semi trucks, and oilfield machinery have all increased in size and weight in the past thirty years. The heavier a machine is, the more of an impact it has on road infrastructure.
In the mid-nineties, the Canadian National Railway (CN) reviewed its rail lines in an effort to increase profit. Many routes to small and mid-size towns were cut, allowing them to maintain fewer stations and tracks.
This forced companies to transport their goods to these towns via road networks, increasing semi traffic.
Still, Michelle Swanson said weather remains the biggest reason Alberta’s roads deteriorate.
“We have roads beside rivers, and torrential rain has come and washed some of the roads out,” she said.
