Road construction costs forcing tough decisions for Windsor-Essex municipalities

The price of everything from food to gas is on the rise, and you can add road construction to that growing list.

Now, a number of municipalities in Windsor-Essex are facing tough choices about whether to keep digging, or potentially cutting pre-approved projects.

“Stuff’s expensive for everybody and no different than you living at home and looking at gas and groceries, the city is faced with the same problem that way,” said City of Windsor engineer Chris Nepszy.

The impact of inflation on road paving materials is now causing budget shortfalls in the County of Essex.

Essex County council is dealing with an inflation impact of roughly $680,000 for three projects, approved earlier in 2022.

When tenders for those projects closed, asphalt cement was $915.50 per tonne, but the price at the time of paving is expected to rise to about $1,300 per tonne.

“We don’t have enough in these contracts to manage what we think will be the expected prices this year,” said Allan Botham, the director of infrastructure and planning for the County of Essex.

County administration is recommending cutting $300,000 worth of paving this year on County Road 27 and County Road 23.

County council is being asked to approve approximately $420,000 from the rate stabilization reserve to mitigate the escalating costs.

“At this particular time, is a bigger blip in the system, so we just don’t know how to deal with this one yet,” Botham said.

The Town of Essex is dealing with materials shortages for its city centre streetscaping.

Town staff was before Essex council Monday night, recommending they order materials now so they’re ready for the 2023 construction season. The town hopes to do some underground work, but got council’s nod to push big parts of the seven-month road project to next year.

“Way to make lemonade with the lemons we’re handed,” said Coun. Chris Vander Doelen. “This isn’t nobody’s fault, this is just the supply chain, and everybody knows it’s all messed up.”

The City of Windsor isn’t looking to push any projects just yet, according to city engineer Nepszy, but he’s keeping a watchful eye as prices jump.

“You’re looking at in the range of 10 per cent to 40 per cent to 50 per cent increases, which increase your budgets,” Nepszy said, adding pressures exist for materials supply, labour and fuel.

But Nepszy cautions that pushing projects down the road could lead to even higher costs.

“Stretching jobs out, creating delays in jobs, it costs everybody money,” he said. “It costs the contractor money, it costs the city money and ultimately, it costs the taxpayer money.”