BACKGROUND: Strathcona County, situated east of Edmonton, Alberta, is responsible for a 1,302 km rural road network. The road surface types are: cold mix asphalt (55% of the network length), hot mix asphalt (17%), dust-suppressed gravel (18%) and gravel (10%). The traffic volumes range from 20 vehicles per day on some gravel roads to 13,000 vehicles per day on some hot mix paved roads. The six functional design classifications into which the network is classified each have design standards for width, surface type, etc. A significant proportion of the network does not meet the current surface type standards, and a majority of the network does not meet the current width standards. A large proportion of the annual capital (rehabilitation) budget has historically been allocated to overlays on cold mix roads, based on a policy of fixed overlay cycles (i.e. a fixed number of kilometres per year). The result has been significant narrowing of road widths, and given the constrained budgets, a relative lack of spending on higher volume roads. OBJECTIVE: This paper presents the results of some aspects of the Strathcona County’s Sustainable Rural Roads Master Plan 2010, updated and developed by EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd. (EBA). The major objectives were to make recommendations regarding: the County’s road rehabilitation (overlay) and maintenance policies and practices for various functional design classes; and future budget allocations among rehabilitation, maintenance and reconstruction activities. Three overarching guidelines were: 1) Environmental sustainability (with respect to the environmental footprint of the County’s rural road works); 2) Budget sustainability (reallocation within existing budget levels); and 3) Feedback from the County’s rural residents. METHODOLOGY: The main steps were: 1) Summarize the current state of the rural road network in terms of traffic volumes, surface types, road widths, and related characteristics; 2) Assess the County’s historical expenditures, policies and practices regarding road rehabilitation, maintenance and reconstruction; and their impacts on road width, surface condition, etc.; 3) Develop a “budget and environmental sustainability framework” to guide the analyses and recommendations; 4) Survey 8,800 rural residences to gauge their satisfaction with current roads, and to obtain their feedback on priorities and budget and environmental sustainability measures; and 5) In the light of the above assessments, complete the analyses and provide recommendations regarding the County’s road rehabilitation (overlay) and maintenance policies and practices, and identify net savings that could be allocated to high traffic volume roads. CONCLUSIONS: A “budget and environmental sustainability framework” was developed to guide the analyses and recommendations. The most important issues identified in the public consultation process were narrow widths and the need to improve high traffic volume Class I roads. The main recommendations of the study are: 1. Implement strategies to preserve road width or delay width loss; the paper provides a list of the various strategies and their advantages and disadvantages. 2. Discontinue the practice of fixed overlay cycles, and instead determine overlay priorities based on annual condition ratings. This is expected to produce net cost savings. 3. Undertake a Life Cycle Cost Analysis of the paved rural road network, and apply pavement management principles to identify the most cost-effective treatments and the schedule of their application, with a view to obtaining the optimum balance between deferred overlays and increased maintenance costs. 4. Within the existing budget levels, reallocate the net savings (achieved by discontinuing the fixed overlay cycles) to the widening and reconstruction of higher volume, un-improved Class I roads.
