Councillor seeks ways to improve identification of road issues

Luke Edwards, Post Contributor

A Norwich councillor is looking for ways to ensure soft spots, washouts and other road issues are identified, and ultimately fixed, more quickly.

Coun. Adrian Couwenberg put forward a motion at the July 8 council meeting calling for a staff report on the township’s road patrols program. His goal was to use the patrols to better document and fix persistent issues on Norwich roads.

“If we see there’s issues from these road patrol reports then we can direct the funds appropriately,” he said.

However, CAO Matt Smith suggested such an effort might be better separated from the road patrol program, which is a provincially mandated process that municipalities like Norwich follow to a fairly standardized process.

“There is a fundamental difference between something we’re mandated to do in certain way for maintenance versus keeping track of what we need to do on all of our assets and how much we spend on our assets,” he said, adding something akin to an asset-based work order system might be more appropriate.

Director of Public Works Ken Farkas also said the software they use for road patrols is specific to the minimum standards.

The motion directs “staff to prepare a report regarding impacts to the Road Patrol Program which may result from including identification and logging of issues such as soft spots, pooling of water, washouts, etc.”

Farkas said much of the information is already included in the road patrol reports, albeit through the lens of minimum standards. Some, like soft spots and brushing, aren’t. Washouts, meanwhile, occur after significant weather events, and Farkas said staff already go out to check on roads after a storm.

Couwenberg said the information would also be helpful for councillors to respond to resident calls. For instance, if he gets a call about a washout, he can check the road patrol report and let the resident know that’s it’s been acknowledged and staff are on it.