I appreciate the details there. When I’m hearing kilometre 275 to 278 and so forth, I’m assuming these are the kilometres between here and Behchoko. I believe we’re starting from kilometre 0, which I believe is Fort Providence. Is that my understanding? Or south of that?
The kilometre 0 is at the highway that turns off Fort Simpson on the other side of the Deh Cho Bridge, and Providence is about 31 kilometres, and then Yellowknife is at 339, and Behchoko 245. This is some of the highway where we had the speed at 90 between here and Behchoko. We’re fixing areas there that are troublesome.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Yes, Behchoko is at 245. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your wisdom there. Thank you very much. I guess when we’re talking about sections of the road, I think it’s important for us to make sure that we’re describing the right sections. People looking back at transcripts are trying to figure out what exactly does this mean. I think anyone would not disagree that the 100 kilometre stretch between here and Behchoko is probably one of the most difficult sections of highway probably in the Northwest Territories and probably one of the most well-travelled ones in the Northwest Territories, so any improvements in that 100 kilometre stretch would definitely be an improvement. I know the Member for Monfwi is probably agreeing with me.
We heard about a multi-year investment, and again, we’re doing sections at a time in terms of improvements, embankment improvements and drainage improvements, but I think the public really needs to know at what point in time can we safely say that that stretch of road between Yellowknife and Behchoko would be completely redone, resurfaced and, as I like to put it, as smooth as we can. Thank you.
This is part of bundle number one, the first four years of reconstruction on Highway No. 3. The plans that I talked about just previously was this fiscal year and also in bundle three it closes the gap and it finishes off the rest of the bundle and this would mean that there would be six more years of this type of construction on Highway No. 3 between here and Behchoko.
I will have to decipher that coded message. I guess the question I have is within the four-year bundle cycle that we hear, so from kilometre 245 to kilometre 339, would we assume that between those two numbers that the complete stretch will be resurfaced and reconditioned and rehabilitated to a road that is not what we see today? Thank you.
We will not be able to do the entire highway with the four-year money that we have in the first bundle, number one from the Building Canada Plan. We will be working on, of course, the worst areas, so the highway will be improving overall every year. What the four-year money won’t be doing is the entire highway.
So it is safe to say that we have roughly 100 kilometres that we are talking about and over the four-year stretch, how many kilometres are anticipated to be rehabilitated, resurfaced and brought to a so-called standard as we are doing it in a piecemeal approach? Is it 40 of those kilometres, 50 of those kilometres? I’d like to get an understanding. What is the target of the department after this four-year bundle? Thank you.
Not the entire 100 kilometres has dips in it. Some parts of the highway are straight and we are not going to be working on that, but with the four-year money we will be doing about 20 kilometres total where we will be taking the dips, only in Highway No. 3, out. Also, each year we also have maintenance and we do regular maintenance on that road. So as we reconstruct with the Building Canada Plan money, we are also maintaining those sections, as well, so the rest of the 100 kilometres to make sure that it remains a good surface that we are going to bring to these areas to a state that we are bringing these areas to. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister sharing those numbers, and thanks for the information. No further questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Next I have Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually took that highway four days ago and I found it challenging to drive faster than 65 over the whole highway. I am just trying to understand how we look at this highway from the context of what are the sections that require rehabilitation that are defined as dips and what are the sections that are defined as maintenance. That whole highway has deteriorated horribly. I have taken it several times this summer and I will tell you it has really deteriorated quite a bit since last fall. I would distinguish, I mean the whole thing needs to be resurfaced. So, why don’t we start with those first questions? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The stretch of highway between Behchoko and Yellowknife has some deterioration in the surface and dips. We are addressing it two ways. First we have our O and M money. With that we basically just fill the dip and put a new chip fill surface on top and it doesn’t get any farther than the surface, it is just repairing the surface. When we do have some additional money with the capital funding here, we do take the opportunity to essentially reconstruct the highway. So we start with the drainage, make sure that that is okay, then we make sure that the side structure is okay. We bring it up to grade and then we put a finishing surface on it and chipseal it.
To try to address and come up with better solutions, we do have a number of different test sections out there right now where we are testing different things to see if we can come up with a better way to slow down the rate that the dips are appearing on that road. Thank you.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will return to the test sections, because I would like to know more about that, but I want to understand in this particular section on Highway No. 3 how many kilometres are targeted for reconstruction and how many are targeted, I assume, just to fill in the dips. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The embankment improvements in the recent construction, we are hoping to do four to five kilometres each year, and with the maintenance we try to maintain the full 100 kilometres. So we would put down some material to fix the dips and holes with maintenance and try to maintain the best driving conditions as possible. Thank you.
Is he really saying under the dips we are just filling holes and fixing cracks? Thank you.
The regular maintenance program, with the capital that we are discussing today, we will be reconstructing sections that we are hoping won’t deteriorate any further. With the areas where we are not reconstructing, we continue to maintain it and if there are some dips that need to be filled, if there are holes that need to be filled, then we will be patching the holes and filling the dips with some material that will keep the road as smooth as possible.
Since the construction of that road a few years ago, when we received all that money to redo it, I am just wondering if there was any part of that actual road that was under warranty, and if so, what sections. Thank you.
The entire highway would have been under warranty for one year, so as we pay the contractor for reconstructing the highway, it would have been a holdback for a year and then if the highway held for a year, we couldn’t legally hold a contractor’s money any longer than the year’s warranty. So once that money was released, essentially it was up to us to maintain any issues on the highway after that.
Was any warranty action taken? If so, how many kilometres fell under the warranty program?
I apologize, Mr. Chairman; I didn’t hear the question.
It was such a good question I’m surprised they weren’t hanging on my every word. I was asking, under the warranty program how many kilometres where actually actioned. In other words, did we actually use the warranty or were we able to access the warranty? Did we access any warranty whatsoever? Thank you.
The construction of the highway was finished in 2006 and we don’t have the information if any warranty money was used the following year with us here. It may have been, but we can provide that information to committee if the Members wish.
I’d like to know if we actually got any warranty out of it, and I certainly hope that would be here before the end of session. As you know, we’re down to just a few days.
Under the test section, I know we did a section using the product called Easy Street. Is the Minister able to tell us where they used this, how many kilometres or how long of a stretch they used, and why don’t we have a placard of some sort to identify that so people can see where it’s being used? I mean, I wouldn’t know where to look for it, so no one in the public would, so how would we know what’s being used and how much? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The purchase of Easy Street is they won a contract to provide material to fill potholes. That was several years ago and we used the material that we purchased underneath that contract to fill potholes. We did a test section at the junction of the Detah access road on Highway No. 4.
The test sections on Highway No. 3 are not about the chipsealed surface, so there’s no testing of Easy Street. The test sections on Highway No. 3 were about getting into the subgrade and how do we stabilize the subgrade to keep the ditch from reoccurring. Thank you.
Has that test been successful and when do we call it an end of the test? Thank you.
We do continue to monitor the test sections on Highway No. 3. We’ll see some results already. It’s about two years that they’ve been in operation now, but we’ll continue to monitor for five or 10 years from now to get the full results. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
So the deputy minister is saying we’re going to have to wait five to 10 years before the GNWT decides to consider purchasing that?
Some of the dips that are on the highway reappear after a year. It does not take very long. When we did these test sections, we did pick particularly troublesome spots. Even though it’s two years, we are starting to see some of the results, but we will continue to monitor for five or 10 years to get the full results.
I would note that none of those test sections involved Easy Street. Thank you.
If we had more time I wouldn’t mind knowing a little more about what are they doing and when do they actually start realizing it’s a product worth using or not using. I’m just curious. I mean, they’ve been saying they’ve been testing it for a number of years. This is the first time I’ve heard it’s two years. I thought it’s been out there for four or longer than four.
The deputy minister also talked about other design tests. Can he explain and elaborate? Thank you.
To be clear, the test sections that we’re talking about on Highway No. 3, none of them involved Easy Street. So we were not testing surface products; we were testing subgrade repairs. There was no Easy Street on Highway No. 3.
There are four different test sections. Two of them involve culvert repairs and then two of them involve grade repairs. One of the grade repairs involved a product called Sementrics. It was basically a concrete-type product that you use to provide some structural strength to the road, then you construct the road on top of that.
The other one involved different types of drainage of the grade, of the subgrade of the road, and different types of grade in terms of the size of the rock and then in terms of the angle of the ditching that’s on the side of the road. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, deputy minister. Committee, we’re on page 84, highways, infrastructure investments, $69.340 million.
Agreed.
Page 86, marine, infrastructure investments, $100,000.
Agreed.
Page 88, road licensing and safety, infrastructure investments, $1.250 million. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just with regard to road licensing and safety, residents of Fort Liard still find it burdensome that they’ve got to drive all the way to Fort Simpson each time they need to get their vehicle registration and/or trailer registration. I know that we were supposed to have a mobile licensing unit out there. I don’t know if they ever got that going, or has online registration advanced to the point where they can do it from the comfort of their community? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. All vehicle registrations can be renewed online and that’s from Yellowknife or Fort Liard or Trout Lake. It’s any community can do that and we continue to expand the number of services that we’re providing online with some additional money in this budget to continue with that and we hope at the end of it that all of our commercial vehicle permits are done online so that carriers can use the Internet to provide that type of service.
As the Member indicated, we do have a mobile solution for an issuing office. So we would like, and we try, to provide contractors to provide issuing services for us in each community, but unfortunately, the volume is very small in the smaller communities. So it’s hard for anybody to justify doing it. So in the case of Fort Liard, we do work with the community and when the community approaches us and says we’ve got X number of people that are wanting to renew their registration, could you come in and help us out, we do pick up our suitcase that has a mobile issuing station in it and head to the community and provide that service for a day or two, whatever might be required. Thank you.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much. Also, a new issue that came up out of Fort Liard was the road tests that the community was almost too small because I think we changed our legislation that the road test had to be done in the larger communities like Fort Simpson. Even Fort Simpson was questionable at that time. So I don’t know if the department has reviewed it with regard to giving out learners’ permits, class 7s and class 6s. I know that Aurora College goes to great lengths to train up to 10 people at a time in Fort Liard. So just with that there, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have the information on whether or not you can get a full driver’s licence in Fort Simpson, but we know you can in Hay River, Inuvik, Fort Smith, Yellowknife. We’re not 100 percent sure about Fort Simpson, but we can check that to see if you can get a full licence in Fort Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Menicoche.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. All right. I’ll await that confirmation. I just wanted to ask for another hour for my further questions, Mr. Chair.
---Laughter
I’ve got no further questions.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Committee, we’re on page 88, road licensing and safety, infrastructure investments, $1.250 million.
