Mayor says Town could save millions by taking over local District roads

The District of Muskoka spends millions annually on the portion of the region’s road network that it is responsible for – 735 km of road, 55 bridges, 17 large culverts, 20 railway crossings, 27 traffic signals, and over 17,000 road signs, according to a report by Huntsville Mayor Scott Aitchison that was shared with Town Council at its December 20 meeting.

In 2016, the District collected a tax levy of almost $25 million from its lower tier municipalities for its transportation division. The bulk of that amount is spent on capital expenditures ($15,692,600) and purchased services ($5,997,151) which is mostly for winter maintenance, said Aitchison. The third highest line item is personnel at $1,629,345.

But those amounts, along with those in the District’s 10-year capital plan for roads, are wasteful, said Aitchison, and he wants to see ownership of Muskoka’s roads transferred to its towns and townships.

Why is the District responsible for some roads?

At one time there was a Ministry of Transportation subsidy for roads, and it was larger for regional governments than for local ones so it made sense for Muskoka’s arterial routes – the towns’ main streets, roads linking communities, and those leading to major employers – to be maintained by the District. Ultimately, the province’s 100-series highways, such as 117, 118 and 169, were added to the mix to create the District’s current roads network.

District ownership of roads was also a requirement under the Muskoka Act. It has since been replaced by the Municipal Act 2001 which takes a broader view and assigns ‘non-exclusive’ jurisdiction for highways to both upper tier and lower tier municipalities. And that means that there’s nothing stopping Muskoka’s lower tier municipalities from taking control of District roads, said Aitchison.

Why should responsibility for District roads be transferred to lower tier municipalities?

Many of Muskoka’s roads are in rough shape. A 2015 roads need study for Huntsville alone identified more than $43 million in spending required now just to bring our existing roads network up to standards, but the Town’s annual budget can’t absorb that kind of expenditure.

“Our roads are so bad, you just have to start with the worst and keep working your way up,” Aitchison told Council.

Old Muskoka Road, pictured here in 2015, was flagged as a priority roads project for 2016 and 2017

In that light, looking at where and how much the District is spending on its roads just doesn’t make sense, said Aitchison.

He used a local example to illustrate his point. Huntsville’s King William Street is the busiest District road in all of Muskoka with annual average daily traffic (AADT) of 11,910 cars (measured in 2013). It, like the other busiest sections of District roads in Huntsville that see annual daily averages of thousands of vehicles – Main, West, Brunel, Ravenscliffe, Aspdin, South Mary Lake and Canal – are in much better shape than Huntsville’s rural roads. Meanwhile, the District plan has earmarked $11 million in spending in Huntsville over the next 10 years, $3.4 million of which will be used to rebuild Brittania Road (Muskoka Road 10) which sees an AADT of just 450 vehicles where it meets Brunel Road and only 150 where it meets South Portage Road.

“(That road) does not justify a reconstruction with full asphalt, it justifies ditching and culverts and a surface treatment probably to the tune of $300,000 as opposed to that kind of money,” said Aitchison.

How Huntsville would spend – and save – dollars for roads

If Huntsville collected its portion of the District tax levy for roads, it would also have to pay for winter maintenance and may need to hire another employee to help manage the additional roads. But Aitchison said what’s missing from the District plan is setting aside future funds for both bridge replacement and future road resurfacing.

“In Huntsville, that adds up to a total of $671,00 that we should be putting away every year to create a reserve so that if we need to replace those District bridges that exist in Huntsville we would have the money to do it,” said Aitchison. “After we spend exactly what the District currently spends plus create a (bridge) reserve…you would see what we’re left over with is almost $1.1 million. So if you carry this through for the next 10 years, you would see that we would have spent almost $11 million on road reconstruction, we would have created a $6.7 million reserve for bridges, and we could actually end up with a cumulative reserve of $9 million. There’s some significant numbers here.”

This is why I am particularly excited about this because it will put us in a position where we are spending more money on roads capital plus creating a reserve for those bridges so when it comes time to replace (them), we won’t be sweating about whether the province is going to give us some money or not or whether we’ll be able to pull it off. We’ll be in position where if we have to replace a bridge, we’ll have the money to do it.
Mayor Scott Aitchison

“My argument is that if we did this, Huntsville could do a much better analysis of our entire road network and then take that money that the District is spending now wastefully all around the region,” said Aitchison. “We could actually get our spend up to $4 or 5 million on the existing road network, create a reserve of over $6 million for bridges and do a lot more work on the District roads and you wouldn’t have to raise taxes to do it. It would be a much smarter spend.”

Winners and losers

If the example is translated to Muskoka’s other lower tier municipalities, there are clear winners and also some losers, but only if the District’s current plan is followed to the letter. Muskoka Lakes stands to see the most benefit from Aitchison’s proposal.

Muskoka Lakes pays almost 38 per cent of the District levy but has just 24 per cent of the District roads. “I find it shocking that over the next 10 years, $97 million will be collected from Muskoka Lakes taxpayers and $37 million will be spent on capital projects,” said Aitchison. “Both Muskoka Lakes and Georgian Bay pay a higher percentage for the District roads department than they have percentage of roads. The towns do better in this area. It’s another example where the townships are funding District programs to a greater degree than the towns are.”

Aitchison said that while that model makes sense for social services like policing and ambulances, it doesn’t make sense for roads.

Muskoka’s two other towns do stand to lose under the proposed change, however, but largely because there are high-dollar projects currently planned that don’t make sense, said Aitchison, including a road that would bypass Bracebridge and a $13 million reconstruction of a low-volume road in Gravenhurst.

Aitchison told Council that he had talked to all of the other mayors except Gravenhurst’s, and the townships are excited or intrigued about the concept while Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith is anxious but agreed that some of the projects don’t make sense.

Under his proposal, Aitchison noted that there would also be a net loss of jobs – there are almost 30 District employees that would be out of work if the department was eliminated. Some could be absorbed by the lower tier municipalities, but not all.

Next steps

Aitchison acknowledged that the District’s new commissioner of engineering and public works, Fred Jahn, has also been looking at the roads budget. “One of the reports that’s coming to Engineering and Public Works in January is a review of the classification of what is a District road… The standard has been the standard for a long time and we never really questioned it, but the new commissioner now is looking at it very seriously. There is some discussion about reclassifying roads and giving some of them back to the municipalities, but those kinds of half-measures only will make it more expensive. They aren’t going to lay anyone off, they aren’t going to reduce the levy.”

While more analysis is needed to ensure the plan would work, agreements would need to be forged between municipalities for shared roads, and both District Council and all of the lower tier municipalities would need to be on board, Aitchison is confident that it’s a good plan.

This is something I’m pushing at District level. I think this could present a tremendous opportunity for lower tier municipalities to significantly change how we deal with our transportation network. I see it also as an opportunity to work with our rural municipalities who are feeling the weight of added costs for policing and all the services that are offered at the District level… The towns have done very well by the townships and I see this as an opportunity where the real money is to actually make a difference and help those taxpayers that have been footing the bill for years and come up with a solution that actually makes sense for the towns as well.

Read the report Mayor Aitchison presented to Town Council here.

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