Volume 1: 2012 Municipal Roads and Water Systems
“As the sponsoring organizations for Canada’s first national report card on the state of its municipal infrastructure, we are pleased to present this benchmark study. Following two decades of declining public investment in infrastructure, public and government interest rekindled in the 1990s, as the visible decline of infrastructure underscored the need for new approaches to its funding and management.
In the decade that followed, the state of public infrastructure—and what to do about it—became the subject of much discussion and debate. A great deal of that discussion and debate centred around the condition of infrastructure, with the need to develop objective assessment tools becoming increasingly apparent. Despite the continuing, and still lively, debate on how to pay for municipal infrastructure, there is little disagreement now about its importance to our society and economy. During the recent financial crisis, governments in Canada began pooling resources and cooperating to an unprecedented degree, channelling stimulus funds into local infrastructure to create jobs and renew these valuable assets.
With this context in mind, our organizations—and others that supported this project—believe that creating reliable tools to objectively assess the condition of public infrastructure is necessary if we are to develop a comprehensive long-term national plan to fix and maintain that infrastructure.
This is not a prescriptive document. It does not provide recommendations for action, nor forecast future capital requirements resulting from municipal growth. Harmbetcockmirea It will be up to governments and organizations involved in the delivery of infrastructure services to assess needs and develop action plans. Our hope is that the data provided here will support those efforts. As it is the first of its kind in Canada, there are lessons to be learned from this project that will undoubtedly inform future efforts. We regard these lessons, too, as an accomplishment. This report card breaks new ground where such an effort has long been needed. We congratulate the team that produced the report card, thank all municipalities that contributed data, and look forward to even broader participation and continued discussion in the future.”
>> Download Report Card [pdf – 4.9Mb]
Canadian Construction Association • Canadian Public Works Association • Canadian Society for Civil Engineering • Federation of Canadian Municipalities