St. Catharines finds extra funds to resurface more roads this year

Last week, staff told St. Catharines councillors that leftover money from previous years would enable the city to move forward with additional road resurfacing this year, vastly expanding St. Catharines’ 2026 road resurfacing budget. 

The city’s original road resurfacing budget was just under $800,000 for 2026, but councillors voted to approve the transfer of over $1.5 million in funds that went unused from previous years so that more roads can be resurfaced this year. The funds were made available because contracts from previous years came in under budget. 

Councillor Kevin Townsend (Ward 3 – St. Georges) noted that he and his ward mate, Councillor Mark Stevens (Ward 3 – St. Georges), have received a lot of contact from residents living on or near Leaside Drive asking about when their street might be resurfaced, and asked staff about how the city decides what roads to resurface first and how the city might go about explaining the selection process to residents. 

Townsend noted that residents often call him feeling frustrated, saying that councillors have claimed their street is on the list of those to be fixed, but that they’ve been hearing the same answer for five or more years. 

Anthony Martuccio, St. Catharines’ director of engineering, facilities, and environmental services, told councillors that staff choose the streets to be resurfaced first using a risk-based model developed in recent years through asset management plans. 

“Basically, staff pick streets based on the information we have in regards to condition,” said Martuccio.

Roads have to hit a certain level of deterioration before qualifying for resurfacing, according to Martuccio. As well, the funding from Council has to be there in order to fund that resurfacing, meaning that not ever road that hits a certain level of deterioration will be resurfaced right away. 

Streets chosen are generally “higher order streets” that result in “higher risk to disruption to services,” Martuccio added. 

Resurfacing is a treatment done to try to extend the life of a road, Martuccio added, noting that it’s not the same as reconstructing a road. Instead, it’s a “mid-life treatment.”

Entire roads do not necessarily need to be resurfaced, according to staff – sometimes, partial road resurfacing can occur, particularly if the need was caused by things like construction. 

Multiple councillors asked staff whether a list could be made public in order for residents to be able to understand where their street falls in terms of order of precedent for resurfacing.

Once the budget for this year is approved, Martuccio said staff would be providing Council with a list of which streets can be expected to be resurfaced this year. But projecting which roads will be resurfaced multiple years out is virtually impossible due to a number of variables, including funding. 

With the additional funds, Martuccio expects 18 roads to be resurfaced in 2026.