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Canadian Municipal Infrastructure Solutions : A Practical Technical
Guide for Municipalities, by Municipalities
Félio, G. Y.; Mareschal, R.
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Canadian Municipal Infrastructure Solutions
A practical technical guide for municipalities, by municipalities
From utility corridors in the North, to drainage ditches along roads in rural areas, to leaky watermains and sewer conduits, Canadian municipalities spend between $12 to $15 billion a year to maintain, repair and reconstruct their infrastructure. Even with this massive annual investment, a 19961 study by McGill University established that the backlog to bring these lifeline assets to an acceptable level of repair has more than doubled in the last 10 years and has reached in excess of 40 billion dollars.
The proposed guide will help municipalities control costs, extend the service life of existing
infrastructure and maximise the return on their investment. It will be a practical, best practices tool in support of municipalities’ decision making and long range infrastructure planning processes, resulting in considerable savings and improved quality of life.
Situation Analysis
Municipalities today are faced with increasing
responsibilities that go beyond the basic water, sewer and road services. Difficult decisions are made daily to establish investment priorities. Municipalities must watch every dollar spent and aim at the highest return on that investment. Municipal infrastructure, already undergoing its natural ageing process, is decaying at an accelerating rate owing, among a wide range of factors, to reduced funding, increased demand (e.g., heavier traffic loads), insufficient quality control resulting in poor installation, little or no inspection and maintenance, and a general lack of uniformity and improvement in design, construction, and operation practices.
1
McGill University “Report on the State of Canada’s Municipal Infrastructure, 1996
Required funding to bring municipal infrastructure to acceptable level of repair
(in millions of dollars)
Water distribution $6,060 Treatment plants $4,380 Sewage collection $4,560
Roads $8,670
Bridges $ 840
Solid waste facilities $ 810
Source: Mc.Gill University, Report on the State of Municipal Infrastructure in Canada, 1996
An analysis of available data indicates Canadian municipalities could save in excess of
$1 billion per year (more than 10% of their present annual expenditure) or $33 per capita/per year by adopting best practices and proven technologies for infrastructure construction, maintenance and rehabilitation. For a municipality of 20,000 people, this represents potential savings in excess of $600,000 per year.
The proposed best practices guide will provide municipalities, large and small, urban and rural, in northern and temperate climate, access to cost-effective, proven technologies and tools to ensure the highest return on their infrastructure investment.
Recent investments through the Canada Infrastructure Works Program (CIWP), a successful partnership between Municipal, Provincial and the Federal governments, have greatly aided in improving the country’s infrastructure. However, more work remains to be done and best practice guidelines will ensure future construction or renewal result in the highest return on investment.
Despite these constraints and difficulties, many Canadian municipalities have been successful in establishing better procedures and practices that have substantially reduced costs, increased the life of the infrastructure, or both.
For example, the Region of Durham, Ontario, in the early 1980s started a corrosion
protection program for their watermains in order to prevent further degradation and breakage. The figure (right) shows the significant reduction in break rate for a group of watermains that were protected in 1986. Studies have shown that corrosion protection can increase the service life of metal pipes by up to 18 years. In a comparative analysis2 between the costs of installing protection, repair as they break unprotected pipes, or replace pipe, the authors show that over the life of the pipe, protection is 8 to 10 times less expensive than replacement and produces annual savings in excess of 25% over
continuing repairs on pipes left unprotected
The above is but one of numerous practices that municipalities have adopted to reduce their expenditures or increase the longevity of their infrastructure. Unfortunately, the majority of these experiences are not properly documented or easily adapted for other Canadian municipalities to use.
The proposed Guide
The National Technical Guide for Municipal Infrastructure (the Guide) will provide a framework within which municipal infrastructure practitioners will be able to share their experiences, successes and requirements. The Guide will consolidate this wealth of knowledge which will be disseminated in a simple, user-friendly format to all municipal stakeholders.
The Guide will address new construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of infrastructure systems such as water distribution and wastewater (storm and sanitary) collection, roads and sidewalks, bridges and overpasses, and other physical infrastructure systems stakeholders will decide are priorities.
2 Brousseau & St. Martin, “Cathodic Protection of Cast Iron Watermains – Economic Analysis”, in Bulletin
technique du Groupe Exploitation, Association québécoise des techniques de l’environnement, May 1995. Region of Durham, Ontario
Break rate of watermains protected against corrosion in 1986
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 N u mb er o f b reaks 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 Year
Development Process
The Guide will be a practical and user friendly tool for municipal infrastructure and therefore will be developed by municipal stakeholders. To develop and maintain a relevant Guide a number of critical elements are key.
• Development will be consensus based.
• Every effort will be made not to “reinvent the wheel”, i.e., in the areas where acceptable and accepted best practices exist, the Guide will simply refer to them.
• The process will involve all municipal infrastructure stakeholders and will rely on technical expertise and regional input from them. Regions will be defined using a matrix approach considering six principal geographical areas and key attributes as given below.
Regional considerations matrix
Region Key attributes
• B.C.
• Prairies
• Ontario
• Quebec
• Atlantic Canada
• North (including Northern Quebec & Labrador)
• Climate (Freeze/thaw, temperate, severe, etc.)
• Topography (Hill/ mountain side, plains, etc.)
• Size (Large/ small cities, rural…)
• Geology (inc. seismicity)
• Etc.
Objectives of the National Technical Guide for Municipal Infrastructure
In support of the protection and enhancement of municipal infrastructure, and taking into
consideration level and quality of service, protection of the environment, and health and safety, the
National Technical Guide for Municipal Infrastructure will be a best practices tool for decision making and long term planning.
Goals
In order to improve service and satisfaction with infrastructure, provide cost-savings, and help in prioritising funding allocations, the Guide will assist in:
• the selection of best technologies;
• the preparation of best strategies for highest return on investment;
• the evaluation of life-cycle costs; and,
• benchmarking (e.g., to follow improvements and progress towards desired acceptability level) while considering risk management and addressing the local and regional diversity of Canadian municipalities (small/large, urban/rural, old/new, arctic/temperate, seismic, etc.).
The development process for the Guide will be facilitated and co-ordinated by the National Research Council (NRC) in close collaboration with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and the Canadian Public Works Association (CPWA).
Time frame
The Guide will be developed in modules over a 3 year period with information disseminated along the way. It is expected that in years 4 and 5, municipal infrastructure practitioners will have the opportunity to use the Guide’s tools and provide feedback for the release of the first North-American Guide at the end of year 5.
Cost saving opportunities through the adoption of best practices and
available technologies
Proven technologies and proven best practices are being used by municipalities to extend service life or save money. The following examples illustrate a very few of the potential cost saving opportunities that exist.
Utility Cuts
• Canadian cities spend $6 to $8 billion a year on roads.
• Utility cuts reduce the life of the pavement by as much as 60 %.
• Present Canadian methodologies for trench reinstatement (backfilling and pavement repair) vary greatly and do not address performance (life-cycle) issues. However, durable reinstatement techniques have been developed.
• Technological guidelines (materials, construction methods) could minimise the impact of utility cuts and maximise the longevity of municipal roadways.
Water Losses in Distribution Systems
• Some 5 billion cubic meters of drinking water are produced in Canada every year at a cost of $0.4 to $0.6 per cubic meter. The total cost of drinking water produced is $2.5 billion a year.
• In Canada, approximately 25 to 30 % of all the drinking water produced is lost (or un-accounted for) in distribution systems (as high as 60% in some municipalities), representing approximately a $0.65 billion/year loss (does not account for the water that infiltrates sewer systems and is treated again).
• There is general agreement in the water industry that losses can be economically reduced to 10-15%.
• Technology guidelines to diagnose and repair leaks are available but need to be widely disseminated. These can have a significant impact on the reduction of water losses and associated costs. Reducing the leakage from 25% to 10% will save water utilities more than $350 million a year.
Concrete Sidewalks
• There are approximately 100,000 km of sidewalks in Canadian municipalities which have a replacement value approaching $12 billion.
• As we stand, on average cities need to replace 5% to 30% of their inventory. The present average design life for sidewalks is 20 years. However, in some Western Canadian cities, sidewalks fail prematurely, sometimes less than 5 years after re-construction.
• Construction practices and technologies have been developed that can significantly extend the life of sidewalks. By extending the life of sidewalks from 20 years to 25 years, annual replacement
expenditures would decrease by 35%, which would translate into savings in the range of $150 million per year.
Roadways
• Annual expenditures in roadways are in the order of $6 billion to $8 billion per year
• Design life of most roadways is 20 years. Technologies are available that can cost-effectively increase the design life of pavements. Achieving an increased pavement life of 1 to 3 years will save between $300 and $900 million per year.
• Current maintenance practices are not governed by an established set of standards and guidelines. In most municipalities maintenance operations are carried out on a 3-year cycle, when budget permits. Using consistent controls and proven available technologies, the time between maintenance cycles can be increased by 1 year, which represents an annual saving of 33% on current maintenance expenditures and would still increase the quality of the end product.
Crack sealing
• Across Canada between 4 million and 6 million metres of pavement cracks are sealed every year
• 70% of the sealants on the market do not meet the current specifications (American Society for Testing of Materials – ASTM standards) developed for the milder US climate.
• No Canadian standard materials specification or code of practice for the installation of sealant exist. As a result, the service life of sealants is only 60% of that expected. Therefore, sealants do not delay pavement degradation as intended.
• Adequate specifications would allow for saving not only the expenses related to replacement of the failed sealant but, more importantly, allow for delaying repair and reconstruction of roadways (40 times more expensive per kilometre of pavement than crack sealing).
