Dear Editor,
In the proposed 2026 budget, approximately 40 per cent of capital spending is allocated to water, sewer, and drainage infrastructure – close to half of the city’s major investment budget – while only about 10 per cent is allocated to transportation improvements.
Yet in the 2025 community survey, residents listed road maintenance, traffic management, streets and sidewalks among their highest concerns – all ranking above water and sewer.
Major infrastructure investment is necessary.
Most residents understand that pipes, drainage systems, and other aging infrastructure require renewal. However, when a single category represents such a large share of spending, it becomes even more important for taxpayers to understand how priorities are set, and how these decisions will affect daily life in specific neighbourhoods.
For residents, the real burden of major construction is often not the project itself, but the process and the length of time it takes. Road closures, detours, construction noise, and repeated delays disrupt traffic, emergency access, and daily routines for months — sometimes years.
When projects are postponed or extended, the disruption continues long after the original schedule. Delays in major projects have, over time, begun to feel routine. Residents are left wondering: Why do these delays keep happening, and what has been done to prevent them?
Large-scale infrastructure projects should not rely solely on general city-wide information sessions. Whenever major construction directly affect a neighbourhood, residents impacted should have multiple localized public meetings, held before and during the project, where residents can clearly understand how the project will proceed, the timelines, and concrete steps to prevent delays.
Taxpayers are the people living with the consequences – not with numbers or percentage. We hope for coherent planning, practical coordination, and transparent communication will remain fundamental parts of municipal services.
Yi Shen, Maple Ridge