City of Kelowna playing catch-up on roads after pothole complaints go up

KELOWNA – Ignore potholes in your roads and they will come back to haunt you.

That’s the lesson Kelowna city council took away after approving $3.4 million for road resurfacing in the 2016 budget.

Councillors heard the annual roads resurfacing program has been underfunded for several years as the city focused on other priorities.

Complaints about potholes and deteriorating roads have increased, council heard from staff.

“We’ve been hearing the complaints,” Mayor Colin Basran said. “It’s nice to defer things, but eventually those deferals come back to bite you and now we’re seeing that."

To catch up, staff are asking for $1 million from taxation to augment the $2.4 million taken from road reserve funds.

As a result, you can expect plenty of traffic delays next year as crews repave portions of some of the busiest roads in the city.

Targeted roads include Pandosy Street from KLO to Cadder, Enterprise Way from Highway 97 to Banks Rad, Glenmore Road from Spall Road to High Road, Lakeshore Road from Cook to Richter, Springfield Road from Rultand Road to Monterey Street and Ziprick Road to Dilworth Drive and Ricther Street from Bernard Avenue to Clement Road.

Downtown roads have had their turn this year, impacted by construction of the Innovation Centre, the Kelowna Community Health Centre and both the Library parkade expansion and Memorial parkade construction.

To contact the reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.