Vancouver City Council triples road and sidewalk repair budget to $104 million | Daily Hive

Vancouver City Council moves to triple road and sidewalk maintenance and repair budget to $104 million

Map of the conditions of Vancouver's roadways. (City of Vancouver)

After years of flat funding and steadily worsening pavement conditions, Vancouver City Council has unanimously moved to dramatically increase investment in the city’s streets and pedestrian sidewalks, providing the preliminary approval for the proposal by Mayor Ken Sim that would commit $104 million over four years to repair and renew aging infrastructure.

The approval on Tuesday directs City of Vancouver staff to incorporate $104 million specifically for such works into the draft 2027-2031 capital plan, which is the budget dedicated to the maintenance and construction of new and improved buildings, utilities, and infrastructure — not to be confused with the annual operating budget.

This sum, spread over the four-year period of the next capital plan, represents a tripling of $34 million currently allocated to such works over the existing 2023-2026 capital plan. It is an increase of $70 million.

As well, City staff will report back with proposed performance targets for keeping arterial roads, local roads, and sidewalks in good shape, including lifecycle cost analyses and backlog reduction metrics.

“While we do have some roads and we have sidewalks that are in good condition on balance, others are not. And I would say as we’re looking to prioritize capital infrastructure in this city, while this isn’t really sexy… it is pretty fundamental. I consistently hear from residents about concerns about safety and accessibility of our sidewalks, and I consistently hear from cyclists about the conditions of the road and concerns of falls and safety concerns there as well,” said ABC city councillor Lisa Dominato.

“And so, while this isn’t exciting like opening a new community centre or facilities like that, it is the real basics that we need to provide for and manage and it really is in the direct purview of the City. But I really think if you step it back, it’s not about asphalt, it’s not about concrete, it’s not about materials, [and] it’s not about roadways. It’s really about ensuring that residents, whether they’re walking, they’re in a mobility device, they’re driving, they’re cycling, that they’re safe. And also it’s preventative as well.”

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The decision follows a detailed briefing from Eric Mital, the City of Vancouver’s Director of Streets and Engineering Services, who laid out a sobering picture of a road and sidewalk network under growing strain from heavy traffic, rising construction costs, and decades of underinvestment.

Mital explained that the municipal government maintains roughly 121 km of major roads funded primarily by TransLink — termed as the regional Major Road Network — as well as 239 km of arterial roads that also form the backbone of the road network, and 1,054 km of local minor streets (typically narrow with no yellow centre dividing line) ranging from quiet residential blocks to industrial and commercial routes. On top of that, the City is responsible for approximately 2,200 km of sidewalks.

48% of arterial roads in poor or very poor condition

To track the condition of these surfaces, the City conducts a comprehensive technical survey of the pavement every three to four years using specialized vehicles with high-tech sensors that measure cracking, smoothness, structural strength, and other indicators. Each city block is then assigned a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) score from zero to 100, allowing City engineers to model how roads are likely to deteriorate over time and where investment will have the biggest impact.

About 18 per cent of TransLink’s Major Road Network within Vancouver is in a poor/very poor condition, which includes the temporary condition of Broadway due to subway construction. As well, 48 per cent of the City’s arterial road network is poor/very poor, while about 36 per cent of the local minor road network is poor/very poor.

Map of the conditions of Vancouver’s roadways. (City of Vancouver)

Examples of varying roadway conditions. (City of Vancouver)

The data, Mital told City Council, shows a clear pattern: roads are cheapest to maintain when they are still in good shape. Lower-cost treatments like crack sealing and thin overlays can extend their life significantly. But once pavement slips into poor or very poor condition, repairs become far more expensive, often requiring full reconstruction rather than simple resurfacing. That is also the stage where crews are forced into constant reactive work, patching potholes instead of preventing them.

Mital notes that City crews repair about 25,000 potholes annually, with only about 3,000 to 4,000 being repairs triggered by complaints made through the City’s 3-1-1 hotline. The vast majority of the potholes are discovered by City crews.

At current funding levels, the City is struggling to stay ahead of that curve. Currently, under the existing four-year capital plan ending in 2026, which was approved by the previous makeup of City Council in June 2022, the municipal government can afford to repave only about one per cent of its arterial road network and roughly half a per cent of its local minor roads each year. That pace might work if roads lasted a century, Mital said, but in reality they certainly do not from weather conditions and heavy use.

The current budget for maintaining arterial roads is about $4.75 million per year under the 2023-2026 capital plan, but City staff note that about $8.4 million per year would be adequate.

When it comes to local minor streets, the current maintenance budget is about $2.5 million per year — 26 per cent of the $9.6 million per year that is needed to stabilize conditions.

City staff also previously shared that $1.6 million per year is needed to properly maintain Vancouver’s road lines and crosswalks — up from the current budget of about $700,000 annually.

The maintenance funding picture is slightly better on the region’s Major Road Network, which is partly funded by TransLink. After recent declines in pavement condition, TransLink boosted its annual contribution from about $6 million to $16 million, a move Mital said should help stabilize and improve those key roadway corridors that are deemed to be vital for regional movement.

But the City’s own arterial and local roads remain on a downward trajectory unless funding increases.

Map of TransLink’s funded and protected Major Road Network across Metro Vancouver. (TransLink)

Several factors are accelerating deterioration. Heavy vehicles — particularly trucks and TransLink buses — are the single biggest factor, placing enormous stress on pavement, especially where vehicles repeatedly stop and start at the same locations. In particular, there is also a deformation of the asphalt pavement at bus stops over time, with the City replacing the road surface of such areas with more durable concrete pads over time.

In parts of Vancouver built on peat soils, the ground itself is unstable, leading to uneven surfaces and faster breakdown.

Unimproved streets without concrete curbs and gutters deteriorate faster because their edges are not structurally supported. The winter freeze-thaw cycles allow water to seep into cracks, expand when it freezes, and progressively damage both the surface and the layers below.

Costs have also surged. Mital told City Council that the prices for asphalt and concrete materials have climbed by roughly 60 per cent over the past five years, meaning the City can now do significantly less work with the same budget. A skipped year of major road repaving during the post-pandemic period, combined with inflation, contributed to a noticeable dip in overall pavement condition in the most recent survey.

“If the City continues its trend of sort of flat funding in terms of absolute dollars for our own arterial network and the local roads, the expectation is that those roads will continue to deteriorate,” said Mital.

400-year-long pedestrian sidewalk repair backlog at an estimated cost of $514 million

Pedestrian sidewalks present an even more daunting challenge.

While most of Vancouver’s sidewalks are still in fair to good condition, about 10 per cent are rated poor or very poor. Because the network is so large, that translates into an estimated $514 million sidewalk repair backlog. Yet the City’s annual sidewalk budget has hovered around $1 million for years — an amount Mital said is enough only for emergency spot fixes, not meaningful renewal. At that pace, City staff estimate it would take 400 years to clear the backlog just for sidewalks.

To manage safety and legal risk, the municipal government operates a “trip hazard” program in which City inspectors walk every sidewalk each year, and City crews use asphalt patchwork to smooth out dangerous edges between concrete panels.

Map of the conditions of Vancouver’s pedestrian sidewalks. (City of Vancouver)

Backlog in Vancouver’s pedestrian sidewalk repairs. (City of Vancouver)

Mital said one of the biggest long-term challenges for Vancouver’s sidewalks is damage caused by tree roots, noting that many of the older, large trees were planted close to sidewalks decades ago, and their expanding root systems are now lifting concrete panels and creating uneven and undulating surfaces that pose mobility and safety risks.

While the municipal government continues to plant trees next to sidewalks, Mital said it now does so “in a much smarter way,” using larger soil volumes, better spacing, and more suitable species to avoid repeating the problem — but he emphasized that Vancouver still has hundreds of thousands of trees along sidewalks that will continue to create maintenance challenges for years to come.

Mital acknowledged that the City does receive claims related to falls and road conditions, and that this proactive inspection program is a key part of demonstrating due diligence. Still, he made clear that these measures are about managing risk, not solving the underlying problem of aging infrastructure.

Example of tree root growth damaging a sidewalk. (Simone Hogan/Shutterstock)

To complete these various maintenance roadway and sidewalk works, Mital says the City of Vancouver has a unique in-house advantage over other municipal governments in Metro Vancouver.

“We also have large internal construction crews. And so this is a unique benefit that we have that other municipalities in our region don’t. And we also have our own asphalt plant,” he said.

City Council is expected to consider and approve the draft 2027-2030 capital plan budget in June 2026, at which point a final decision would be made on tripling the four-year maintenance budget for roads and sidewalks to $104 million.

At the same time, City Council will also finalize the plebiscite questions that will be included in the October 2026 civic election ballot, asking voters for permission to borrow money to fund capital projects.

Among the projects expected to seek loans to cover at least a portion of construction costs is the new replacement Kitsilano Outdoor Pool.

In the October 2022 civic election, voters similarly approved several measures giving the City the green light to borrow money for various capital projects, including the new replacement Vancouver Aquatic Centre, which is expected to begin construction in late 2026.

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