Municipalities received a bit of a financial boost this year with the renewal of the Federal Gas Tax for another 10 years.
Ponoka County CAO Charlie Cutforth says the $451,200 per annum they are allotted will go right into road and bridge rehabilitation.
“We’ve been lamenting for some time that bridge funding gone away,” said Cutforth.
The fund will help municipalities better plan where money goes over the period of the Gas Tax Agreement. He said they had not budgeted for it this year so the money will be over and above what was already planned for.
Cutforth was aware that plans were in place to renew the Gas Tax but that could not be made public until the deal was finalized.
Cutforth says the county has in excess of 200 bridge structures in its area, some are culvert structures and he says about 85 per cent of them were constructed at least 50 years ago. “So they’re all aging at kind of the same time.”
Some of that money will be put into savings to prepare for rehabilitation of these structures and roads.