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Town of Bonnyville getting to work on sidewalks

Town of Bonnyville council passed a motion to award two tenders to address sidewalks within the municipality
Townsidewalksweb
The Town of Bonnyville will be adding sidewalks to areas of town that need them. File photo.

BONNYVILLE – Pedestrians walking in the Town of Bonnyville will have more sidewalks to choose from in the future.   

Council awarded two tenders during an April 27 meeting, for work on sidewalks throughout town for roughly $614,000 and the 47 Ave. rehab project for $4.7 million.  

According to CAO Bill Rogers, both of the tenders were included in the 2021 capital budget.  

“The addition of new sidewalks in almost all areas of the town where they’re currently needed, which will ensure pedestrian walkway connectivity throughout town.”  

The $614,000 project was awarded to Lac La Biche-based Signature Contractors. Some of the areas that will see the addition of sidewalks include 41 St., 42 St. Until 45 Ave., 46 St. between 47 Ave. And 49 Ave., 53 Ave., among others.  

Coun. Ray Prevost was glad to see the project, but wondered if anything could be done for the current walkways that are in disrepair.   

“I’m just wondering if anybody ever did an assessment on how many miles of sidewalk we have in town that could use an upgrade. I’m all in favour of new sidewalks, but boy do we have a lot of sidewalks that are in rough shape.”  

Brad Trimble, general manager of engineering and operations, responded, “Every year we do an inspection and usually we do a conditioned inspection. Our current year is based on safety, compatibility, and functionality... Whatever we can do in-house, whether it’s landscaping a boulevard to get drainage to work better or to grind down the sidewalk with some in house equipment and manpower, we do. Whatever we can’t do that’s a little more beyond our scope, we include it in our roads program and so we do keep a fairly close eye on the sidewalks. The sidewalks kind of competes for budget space for roads. We try to balance it. There’s always more sidewalks that need to be repaired than what the budget is but we base that on safety and functionality.”  

The 47 Ave. rehabilitation project won’t just be adding new sidewalks to the area. It will see work done on the entire street and utilities with a sidewalk replacement were required on 47 Ave. from 42 St. to 48 St.   

Trimble noted that because E-Construction Ltd., who was awarded the contract, came in at just over $1 million less than the anticipated price, additional items could be included in the scope of work.   

“This difference, plus other cost savings within the final draft of the capital budget, would allow the town to fully rehab an additional block of the road and utilities at Lakeshore Drive and Pontiac Park,” he detailed. “Administration is then recommending that any remaining savings be allocated to reducing the debenture for reservoir three engineering costs.”  

When asked why the price was so low, Trimble said he didn’t have a solid answer.  

“Generally speaking, our engineers like to be a little high (in their estimations), but it really looks like E-Construction really wanted to work, which is nice to see. It was surprising, but a good surprise.”  

The amount of funds the town was saving on the project was a concern for Coun. Elisa Brosseau.  

“I do have some hesitation because if they’re just low-balling so that they can get the work, we see this in some of our other contractors, all of a sudden we get to the end of the project and we have overruns because they perhaps tried to cut costs here and there just to get the bids.”  

Rogers assured council they would be exercising diligence when it came to this project.   

Robynne Henry, Bonnyville Nouvelle

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