REGINA — The City of Regina is not keeping pace with its road repair and renewal goals, according to an annual report at Wednesday’s Regina executive committee meeting.
A report from city administration states the city is falling short of the level of service (LOS) target set by council in 2014. LOS are standardized measures used to assess the condition and performance of infrastructure relative to defined service expectations.
The 2014 target called for 85 per cent of local roads to be in fair or better condition.
“Based on recent assessments, 76.9 per cent of local roads are in fair or better condition,” notes the report.
Administration has also established an LOS target of 100 per cent for major roads, though it has not been approved by council. As of 2025, roughly nine per cent of major roads are in poor or worse condition.
Lack of funding
The report says inadequate funding is a major factor behind the decline in road conditions.
For local roads, annual funding is currently set at $8.5 million. If that amount remains unchanged over the next 25 years, the LOS for local roads is projected to fall to 49 per cent.
Major roads, meanwhile, are allocated $5.6 million annually. At current funding levels, the LOS for those roads is expected to decline to 22 per cent within 25 years.
Scenarios put forward by the city suggest an additional $6.67 million annually in current funding for local roads would see the city achieve the 85 per cent LOS target in 25 years.
For major roads, funding would need to increase by $20 million annually to achieve 100 per cent LOS.
Strategies
Instead of targeting poor roads first, the city is taking preventive maintenance measures.
“This aims to slow deterioration by applying lighter, cost-effective treatments to roads in fair or good condition, reducing the number of roads that fall into poor condition,” notes the report.
In 2025, the city also updated its paved road design guidelines.
“These updates include enhancements to design life, traffic loading assumptions, soil capacity considerations and projected traffic growth, ensuring new roads are built to better withstand future conditions.”
The city is also aiming to co-ordinate underground infrastructure upgrades with road repair projects when outlining required funding.
“We will be looking to align all of those pieces of work better in the future for these program types of services, and then we can ask for more … conducive funding request,” said Deborah Bryden, deputy city manager of city planning and community development.
Mayor Chad Bachynski said this strategy helps alleviate the worry of a large shortfall in funding the city is putting into its roads.
“Projects are going to get paired together where the road replacements or road surface work is actually included as part of the capital work of the underground. So, I think as we go along, we're actually going to see some positives from that.”
Future discussions could also lead councillors to direct funding into road renewal projects.
For the first time in the annual report, administration outlined the status of Regina’s concrete network, which includes sidewalks, gutters and curbs.
With its current funding of $15.3 million, the concrete network will easily achieve an 85 per cent LOS target over the next 50 years.
Even if council removes $1.7 million in annual funding from the concrete network, it would remain above the 85 per cent LOS target over the next 50 years, according to the report.
Bachynski said this is an option he would consider.
