Crumbling Infrastructure In Sarnia Badly In Need Of Big Fix

Staff at Sarnia City Hall is warning residents that our crumbling road infrastructure won't be getting a big fix any time soon. City Engineer Andre Morin says 25% of the city's streets are in a state of failure, but there simply isn't any money to fix them without dinging residents with a double-digit tax increase. "We have a lot of deteriorating infrastructure that we should be spending more money on," he says. "But a 20% tax increase is not realistic. "We're trying to continue to get this message to council. As staff, it's our job and our responsibility as professionals to assess the problem, bring it to council and advise them we have to spend more money." Morin adds that underground infrastructure also is in dire need of repairs. The entire 2016 road repair budget of $1.25-million will be spent on a major Waterworks Rd. project that will see the east ditch moved further into the field and and road rebuilt. Most municipalities have been struggling to keep up with infrastructure repairs because of upper tier government funding cutbacks.