YORKTON — Yorkton Council approved awarding the 2025 Asphalt Paving Program tender to Potzus Paving and Road Maintenance Ltd. For $838,362.30, at its regular meeting May 12.
Aron Hershmiller, Director of Public Works with the city explained the work to be carried out under the tender build on a plan of asphalt renewal in the city.
“The City of Yorkton’s Public Works department continues to plan for the future to improve programs & services plus repair and maintain roadways within the city of Yorkton,” he told Council.
As part of the planning, “in the fall of 2024, the City partnered with City Logix Inc. / StreetScan, to capture and assess our roadways and sidewalks,” explained Hershmiller.
Roads (paved) are assessed with bumps/ depressions, potholes, patches, cracks, alligator cracking and crack seal. Roads (gravel) are assessed by using Distress Maintenance Index along with a Ride Condition Rate, making up its condition Assessment. Sidewalks are assessed for cracks, surface distortions, uplifts from trees and not from trees and provide an overall sidewalk condition assessment.
The work in 2025 is a mill and overlay effort, said Hershmiller.
Asphalt milling is involved in almost every modern road rehabilitation and maintenance project. The primary reason for this is that it offers a cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution for rebuilding asphalt surfaces. This method, also known as cold planing, pavement milling, or profiling, involves the removal and recycling of the top layer of asphalt pavement without disturbing the underlying subbase, he explained.
During a mill and overlay, the old asphalt is milled off. Projects vary on how much asphalt is milled off, the city will be milling between 50 – 80 mm or usually mill what is being put back in new asphalt. The residential streets will see 50mm, secondary roadways 65 mm and Hwy’s and primary roadways will see 80mm, detailed his report.
“With our current mill and fill rate, our current cost estimate to mill and repave, “if” we had to mill and fill our entire network, today would total over $80 million,” said Hershmiller. “With that being said, if we spend $1,000,000 annually that would suggest a 1:80 year replacement program, not including reconstruction streets that are logistically past their economically feasibility life for repair. It’s imperative to properly fund and complete maintenance programs to prevent our streets from degrading to the reconstruction state vs the rehabilitation / maintenance.”
The scope of work for this project consists of the milling and the repaving of 11 streets, 14 blocks or segments plus the ramps and remaining through street portions on York Road near Hwy #9 intersection.
Hershmiller also noted that the City of Yorkton has a total of 175km of roadways including 28 km of gravel surfaces, 147 km of paved surfaces. Also to note there are 37 km of back lanes for snow removal for at total of 212 km total surfaces for snow removal.
