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Originally Posted by Neco Cockburn
No chance province will pay for Hwy 174 repairs, McNeely says
By Neco Cockburn, The Ottawa Citizen September 2, 2011
Repairing and maintaining Highway 174 is an expensive challenge. The highway’s inside lanes run over a concrete base, which has moved at several joints, causing the surface to become uneven.
OTTAWA — Chances are “zero to nil” that the province would look at taking responsibility for Highway 174 out of the city’s hands, says an east-side MPP.
City staff say the road likely needs an expensive and challenging renewal in order to properly fix bumps caused by the way it was built, and a pair of councillors recently reiterated beliefs that the highway should fall under the province’s authority. Responsibility for Highway 174 was downloaded from the province to the city in 1997.
However, Ottawa-Orléans Liberal MPP Phil McNeely said the provincial government has already negotiated an agreement with municipalities for taking back some of the costs and responsibilities handed to cities in the 1990s.
Under the agreement, which was signed in 2008, $1.5 billion in annual costs related to provincial social services, court security, and road and bridge maintenance are to be uploaded to the province by 2018. Taking back responsibility for the highway was not part of the arrangement, McNeely said.
“Not one mile of road has been uploaded by the province since (former Ontario premier Mike) Harris downloaded all the roads, and it wasn’t part of the long-term agreement, so the chances of the province looking at this again are zero to nil, I think,” he said.
In 2004, McNeely said he was in favour of bringing Highway 174 back into the provincial fold and that “it never should have been downloaded” to municipalities.
The long-term uploading agreement has been signed since then, McNeely said on Thursday, adding that whenever he mentioned the issue in 2003 and 2004, he heard that “none of the road projects were ever uploaded, and I think that’s the position of the province yet.”
City staff have said the way the road is constructed has made it challenging to maintain and renew a piece of highway between the split with Highway 417 and Montreal Road. The highway’s inside lanes run over a concrete base, which has moved at several joints, causing the surface to become uneven.
Staff are looking into short- and long-term solutions to the problem, but warn they will likely be costly.
Innes Councillor Rainer Bloess and Cumberland Councillor Stephen Blais said recently that the province should be responsible for the road. Council in 2004 approved a proposal to have the city “upload full responsibilities and obligations of Highway 174 to the province of Ontario,” but nothing came of it.
McNeely acknowledged on Thursday that the road is “not in great shape.
“This is a complex road to repair because it was built as concrete and those joints are all moving, and we need a good road there so the sooner it gets done, the better,” he said.
McNeely said he’d be prepared to see whether the province would offer funding for repairs that staff determine are necessary, but noted that the provincial government has already made major funding announcements involving city roads.
Premier Dalton McGuinty announced in June that $200 million would be spent to fix traffic problems stemming from the split between highways 174 and 417. The province also said last year that $22 million would be put toward a new interchange to link Hunt Club Road to Highway 417.
In light of the funding for the split and Hunt Club projects, “I just don’t know how the ministry would look on a request for funding of the reconstruction of 174,” McNeely said.
“I certainly would take it forward,” he said. “I’m always working to see if I can help my riding, but I doubt very much that there would be dollars for that project right now.”
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