Mayor Ray Tout claims the provincial government ignored local municipalities when it cancelled funding through its connecting link program.
Ended by the government in early 2013, the program provided partial funding for road and bridge work on provincial highways running through municipalities, including Wellington North Township.
Tout issued a statement last week citing an estimated $1.16 million needed to repair the Rick Hopkins Bridge, which makes up part of provincial Highway 6 at the south end of Mount Forest.
Under the connecting link program, provincial funding of up to 90 per cent would have been available for the work – but that has since disappeared.
“Roads and related infrastructure are the lifeblood of the rural economy and are equally important to the people of rural Ontario as the TTC is to the people of Toronto,” the mayor said in his open letter to government officials. “Rural roadways took a major hit in January of 2013 when the province announced to municipalities, including the Township of Wellington North, that the connecting link program that has existed since 1927 was being eliminated.
“The connecting link program was established to ensure that local municipalities were not solely responsible for maintaining provincial highways and bridges that were located in their communities, but mainly serve traffic that is not local.”
The $1.16-million bridge repair was identified in a recent road and bridge study done by the township as part of provincial regulatory requirements.
“This is an extremely heavily travelled road and without provincial financial support these repairs cannot proceed,” Tout said out in his letter.
“The lack of available funding could force the closing of bridges or establishing of load limits on heavily travelled connecting link infrastructure. These are not options the township … wishes to explore.
“We certainly do not want to disrupt the economies of the many rural communities that connect to ours with these roads but we, like many other rural municipalities, are already struggling in dealing with our infrastructure deficit and this is an additional financial burden dropped at the feet of rural taxpayers.”
Tout said elimination of connecting link funding will cost the township $250,000 annually or the equivalent of a four per cent tax rate increase.
“Being solely responsible for connecting link infrastructure will have a dramatic impact on the township’s … annual budget and subsequently, the taxpayers,” he said.
Tout said he raised the issue with ministry officials at a recent convention in Toronto and noted his letter is also calling on the premier “to reconsider the elimination of the connecting link program.”
Council agreed with the letter at its March 10 meeting.
“I think it really hits home,” said councillor Dan Yake, requesting the letter be sent to the Association of Municipalities Ontario and other municipalities to garner further support.
“The more support we can get for this the better,” said Yake.
