Gas tax largely funding Westridge Road project

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Strathmore’s Westridge Road revitalization project will be funded largely in part through the federal gas tax, meaning the project will not rely on the property taxes from Strathmore residents.

The federal Gas Tax Fund (GTF) is a permanent source of funding provided to provinces and territories, directed to their municipalities to support local infrastructure. Typically, municipalities have the option to pool, bank or borrow against this funding, providing financial flexibility.

Usually, the GTF allocation is provided twice a year, but this year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was handled differently. The government of Canada announced on June 1 that this year’s $2.2 billion allocation of the fund would be accelerated and provided in a single payment to help communities recover from the pandemic as quickly as possible.

On Nov. 10, Strathmore-Chestermere MLA Leela Aheer, alongside Bow River MP Martin Shields, presented this year’s GTF funding to Strathmore Mayor Pat Fule. The funding will be used to finance the Westridge Road revitalization project.

This project, which includes water main and sanitary sewer upgrades, as well as beautification and landscaping improvements of Westridge Road, will be funded thorough about $1.55 million from the GTF, $540,000 from offsite levies and $540,000 from the utilities levy, according to the town’s 2021-2023 capital budget appendix.

Meanwhile, the province is funding “shovel-ready” projects thought to be in the best interest of each municipality, said Aheer. “The province reached out to all municipalities because of COVID and the need to create jobs and infrastructure projects.”

With the pandemic, governments are pushing out infrastructure money to help economic recovery and increase employment, explained Shields. “The gas tax normally works as a lump sum, but this was a specific call,” he said. “We need to get projects moving and we need to get people working.”

The Westridge Road project serves a need. 

“It is really in need of upgrading; the infrastructure is very old, so we need to replace it,” said Fule.

But it will provide other benefits. 

“We felt that if we could upgrade it, we could make it look more attractive, improve the walkability and make it safer for large trucks to deliver and pick up their goods,” added Fule.

By improving the visual appearance of the road, which is visible from the Trans-Canada Highway, the project could help bring people to Strathmore. 

“It will help showcase that side of town because so many vehicles go by east and west every day,” noted Fule. “So, we submitted this project as something we felt was really essential to our town. It could help with recovery from COVID but also support all the businesses along the road.”

Improving walkability is important because when the road was constructed, there were no nearby residential communities. But now, with the construction of adjacent communities such as Strathmore Lakes and Wildflower Ranch, there is need for pathways to support pedestrians and other modes of active transportation. Also, having more people walking near the roads could help bring awareness and more traffic to the businesses that line it, said Fule.

Having the funding support a specific project provides more transparency regarding municipal spending, said Aheer. 

“Municipalities should have the freedom to be able to spend those dollars as they see fit, but this is wonderful for the province of those municipalities to be able to show exactly how they are spending those dollars – it brings hope,” she said.

The announcement should provide relief to residents of Strathmore, said Fule. “In these harsh economic times, they can see us using this revenue stream from the federal government with the province’s help, and they know it’s not going to impact property taxes in town.”

The town will try to keep as much of the work in town as possible, said Fule. 

“There are some ways that you can attract local businesses to work,” he said. “It’s on our minds all the time. We’ll be really looking at it because we want to employ the people in our area.”