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Business View Magazine
100 Business View – October
Infrastructure
4 | City of Cambr dge
infrastructure maintenance and improve-
ment that was initially considered a decade
ago. The process started, Elliott said, with a
group of asset managers simply sitting down
and approaching the concerns with an eye
toward the future, rather than simply react-
ing to day-to-day catastrophes as they oc-
curred.
Shah and his team looked at Cambridge’s
400 kilometers of far-flung water mains and
sanitary sewer systems in 2005 and by 2009
had worked up a painstaking inventory, giv-
ing each item a condition rating and assess-
ing a priority to each that determined which
needed immediate attention and which ones
could wait.
It was a drastic departure from status quo
back then, Elliott said, and one he kiddingly
suggested Shah and his colleagues aren’t ag-
gressive enough about claiming credit for.
“Through Yogesh’s abilities and his team
that they have in the asset management de-
partment, they do some real award-winning
stuff,” he said.
“They’re doing the leading edge of what
asset-management philosophies are all about,
and they need a lot more kudos than he’s
willing to volunteer for. It gave us the power
through knowledge to know where to spend
our money to get the best bang for the buck.
In the past, something breaks. It breaks two
or three times, then it becomes ‘OK, let’s go
fix it now.’
“It was all reactive. This allows us to take
a proactive approach.”
When the inventory and assessments
B
ehind the scenes, smart people are gathering
around tables, on job sites or via virtual
technology to plan what the infrastructure
surrounding us is going to look like in the next five, 10
or 25 years.
Whilemost of us don’t ponder the changes until we’re
stuck in traffic amid road co struction or pondering
residential choices based on the amenities of a given
municipality, the work being done is hugely important,
distinctly challenging nd typically uncelebrated –
though the changes made today will positively impact
the way residents live in the next generation and the
ones that follow it.
It’s trying work, says George Elliott, commissioner
f transportation and public works in Cambridge,
Ontario, but it’s an endeavor he believes all cities
should be intently focused on.
“There is hope,” he said. “Cities have extremely long
lives. They’re going to be here for hundreds of years.
There is hope that you can establish a city system of
infrastructur that is sustainable and can be in place for
the long term.”
In his area’s case, an ambitious team of planners have
been able in a handful of years to addr ss a gradually
decaying water and sewer infrastructure and set wheels
in motion to get Cambridge back to level ground.
“It took us probably 70 years to get into this jackpot
of a problem, and we’ve been able to get it turned
around in a forecasted 20 years,” he said. “It may take
20 to 25 years to turn your city around, but there is the
hope you can do it. It can be done.”
Many in Elliott’s line of work face a perpetu l challenge
of an overflowing to-do list alongside a forever
tightening budget. Some cities, though, have managed
to do enough planning in advance to get themselves
ahead of the infrastructure curve. And in still others,
the blueprint laid out has been outstanding in some
elements, and less so in others.
In Walla Walla, Wash., for example, public works
director Ki Bealey is head of the curve on dri king
water treatment and wastewater processing, but
behind the 8-ball on water lines and roads.
“The infrastructure on the front end and the back is
really quite impressive,” he said. “It’s in between that it’s
pretty darn rotten. A lot of failing water lines and failing
sewer lines and failing streets.”
To handle the challenges, the city implemented an
initiative that’ll ramp up water and sewer rates to help
tackle the most immediate issues. Those funds, which
will ultimately yield $4 million to $4.5 million per year,
are the spur for uch of the existing renewal work
being done within the network of streets, water and
sewers.
Meanwhile, Bealey and his staff are creating a matrix
– factoring road condition, daily traffic rates and other
infrastructure elements – to prioritize a top 25 list
of projects to handle. T e matrix and the monetary
benefit from the rate hikes should combine in 2016 to
allow the city to begin handling issues on a proactive,
rather than reactive, basis.
“We’re really trying to get ourselves prepared for
that,” Bealey said. “Thus far, we have just kind of been
doing the best we can to prioritize those projects,”
Bealey said. “Once we have (the matrix and the full
funding), we’ll re lly be ble to prioritize the projects in
a very quantifiable approach.”
Keeping the Wheels
Turning
Infrastructure success requires both day-to-day
and long-term focus
