click here for news from the spring of 2004
click here for news from the winter of 2003/04
click here for news from the autumn of 2003
click here for news from the summer of 2003
Mayor dismisses call for Red Hill detour
Cash-strapped city should delay expressway, Braden argues, and focus on industrial parks
By Eric McGuinness, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday, March 24, 2004Mayor Larry Di Ianni expects city council to reaffirm its commitment to finish the controversial Red Hill Creek Expressway when 2004 budget discussions resume Friday.
Flamborough Councillor Dave Braden had just begun his argument against continuing the project as the first day of talks ended yesterday.
Asked if the debate was over, Di Ianni said, "As far as I am concerned, it concluded some time ago, but some councillors want a discussion on the Red Hill because delaying is better than losing."
He was referring to Braden's suggestion the city hold off on the expressway a few years and invest first in developing the North Glanbrook and airport industrial parks, seen as key to creating badly needed jobs.
Braden argued the expressway should be completed only if there's a market for those industrial lands the road would serve.
Joe Rinaldo, general manager of finance, had warned Monday that costs of the expressway and new garbage-disposal facilities will leave little to spend on maintaining roads, bridges and other infrastructure unless council raids the $100-million Hamilton Future Fund.
The plan this year is to borrow $15.2 million from the fund but Rinaldo's report said that would only delay the capital-budget crunch to 2005.
Rinaldo said yesterday the city should be spending $60 million more a year to put its infrastructure maintenance on a sustainable basis, where repair keeps up with aging.
Peter Crockett, general manager of public works, said the $42 million budgeted this year allows for rebuilding roads only every 65 years on average, although they typically need major rehabilitation or reconstruction after 25 years.
Crockett said increasing the budget to $65 million a year would bring the cycle down to an average of 35 to 40 years, with major arterial roads being rebuilt after 25 years.
The latest revision to this year's proposed budget says it will cost another $120 million to finish the Red Hill, $33 million of that to be spent this year. Fifteen million dollars will come from a provincial grant and almost $18 million will be borrowed.
Debt charges for the cross-Mountain Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway and the north-south Red Hill will cost the average residential taxpayer $37 this year, an amount that will rise to $66 a year in 2008. Crockett said the city will continue to collect that much indefinitely to raise the $10 million a year needed to pay for long-term upkeep of the two roads.
The $15.2 million to be borrowed from the Future Fund this year would go toward recycling and composting plants needed to implement the Solid Waste Management Master Plan.