ATHABASCA – Athabasca County councillors were left lamenting a traffic count — and its associated costs — after the work was completed too late for its intended purpose.
The count, which studied the number of off-highway vehicles (OHVs) and regular traffic that drove through the intersection at Twp. Road 720, and Range Road 173 west of Wandering River, wasn’t ready in time for the information to be considered in a recent zoning bylaw council passed.
“What are we doing with this information that cost us nearly seven thousand dollars to gather?” asked Reeve Brian Hall. “To just accept it for information and park it on a shelf seems irresponsible.”
The cost came from the specifics of the motion, which was made by Coun. Gary Cromwell during the June 27 council meeting. While the county is equipped to run traffic counts, a Sept. 1 deadline and the request to include OVS in the numbers meant it couldn’t be handled in-house.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen even (Alberta) Transportation do such an extensive count like this,” said Coun. Rob Minns. “Hopefully we aren’t going to start doing this across the county, especially when we have our own counters.”
The county’s administrative team said the process highlighted areas it could improve upon regarding motions from the floor.
“If there’s a motion from the floor regarding work you want administration to make, and there’s a deadline on it, maybe you want to have a report back from administration on that,” said CAO Bob Beck.
Other councillors, including Hall, said they would work to be more aware of what use the information they’re looking for could have, to prevent excess work and costs being added on.
“Thinking back to where we’re at, the lesson in my mind is to be more clear, and to ask more questions about what we’re going to do with the data we ask for,” said Hall. “This is a gross spend for something seven of us at the table, plus administration, have no idea what we’re going to do with.”
The data does have a use moving forward — administration said they can add it to the upcoming budget discussions when road service levels are being talked about.
According to Beck, while the road isn’t the county's busiest, it would be on the lower end of a theoretical top 10 list.
“It’s not a quiet road, but it’s not excessive … it’s more than just a sleepy little road,” said Beck. “Alberta Transportation’s guidelines for thinking about major upgrades are 400 vehicles per day, so we’re under that.”
In total, the Aug. 16 and 17 study showed a total of 280 vehicles on the road, including 68 OHVs, over the course of the weekend.
“It’s good information, but if we had included a bunch of intersections in a study, it probably would have brought the per-road amount down an awful lot,” said Beck.
