Essex County Council has approved $11.2-million for road work in 2018.
Director of Transportation Services Tom Bateman says that's is up more than a half million dollars from the previous year and includes road rehabilitation, expansion work and paved shoulders along the County Wide Active Transportation System.
Bateman says $5.7-million has been pre-approved in the 2018 budget for priority work.
"This is really an early release, a pre-release of budget funds to allow us to put together the tenders and get them out on the street even ahead of the finalization of the budget to move fairly quickly on these projects first thing in the spring. If we wait until the whole budget process works its way through, we lose a lot of valuable time."
He says the county has been collecting a 1.5% levy for the last number of years to help pay for expansions.
"We have what we call the 'Capacity Expansion Program'. This is a long-range, 25 year program, valued upwards of $400-million, that looks at taking two lane roads that are over capacity and reconstructing them, expanding them to four lanes."
Essex County Council discusses road work spending for 2018 (Photo by AM800's Zander Broeckel)
Bateman adds, the county will also be spending an additional $3.5-million on CWATS infrastructure to match what the seven municipalities have contributed.
"Our partners have started to really come to the table now. So this year we're seeing a large spike in our ability to build. So we went back into our reserves to bring forward adequate funds to match what our partners are bringing to the table which is bringing forward a really aggressive and exciting program for 2018."
The $11.2-million road works plan will get the final stamp of approval during the county's 2018 budget deliberations which are set to begin December 6.