Road Responsibility Change

The City of Kelowna takes over responsibility for rural roads within the city limits as of 12:01 am Monday. The roadways, previously maintained by Argo Road Maintenance under an agreement with the provincial government, will now receive standard municipal levels of service.

Three additional seasonal workers will be hired to handle the increased maintenance responsibilities, and the City has purchased a new street sweeper to augment the two sweepers now in use. The new vacuum street sweeper will be utilized downtown as it generates far less dust than other models.

The rural roads involved are north of Scenic Road, south of Braeloch Road and south east of Gordon/KLO Roads accounting for 350 lane kilometres, bringing the City's total maintenance responsibility to 1,375 lane kilometres of roadway. A lane kilometre is one travel lane, including parking and/or bike lanes where applicable.

Maintenance work includes: regular spring street sweeping plus one additional sweeping per year in rural areas, highways once per month and bike lanes nine times per year mowing and trimming (roadsides) three times per year ditching once per year chemical spray once per year, where required asphalt crack sealing twice per year asphalt patching throughout the year as required dust control on gravel roads once per year grading gravel roads once per year bridge inspection once per year line painting including centrelines, crosswalks, arrows, edge lines and yellow curbs once per year snow and ice control on a priority basis as per the rest of the city and roadside litter collection.

All property owners in the new maintenance areas will receive an information letter this week explaining the change-over and the new service levels.