A conceptual drawing of the city's plans for 52 Avenue. City council voted to include the street as part of its 2014 paving contract during a special council meeting Monday. - image courtesy of the City of Yellowknife

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The plan to outfit 52 Avenue with raised bike lanes this summer is back on thanks to a last-minute motion to reintroduce the project into the city's paving contract during a special council meeting on Monday.

The city's $6.15 million paving contract was originally scheduled to be awarded to NWT Construction Ltd. last week.

When the actual cost of the work for 52 Avenue and 50 Street came in at a combined $1 million higher than the amount approved in last year's budget, council voted to renegotiate its options with the contractor.

After reviewing the contract with NWT Construction, administration recommended deferring work on the two streets until next year

But on Monday, Coun. Rebecca Alty introduced a motion to include 52 Avenue in the contract, arguing that it was a major artery for commuters and that work on the road was too urgent to delay.

"The road is in really rough shape. It needs to get replaced and it's really a roller coaster," she said.

The addition of 52 Avenue pushed the cost of the contract up by $2.4 million to just under $5.06 million.

With only six councillors in attendance for the vote, there was an even split on the motion with Couns Alty, Linda Bussey and Dan Wong voting in favour of it and Couns Cory Vanthuyne, Niels Konge and Adrian Bell against.

That left Mayor Mark Heyck with the tie-breaking vote, which he ultimately decided to support.

"Granted there have been some challenges financially with this project but when we look at it in concert with the recent water and sewer contract which came in below the budgeted amounts, it's not as severe as it looks," said Heyck.

"I also think that the many discussions that we've had about installing bike lanes on 52 Avenue are something we want to move forward with sooner rather than later."

Councillors who were against the motion tried in vain to point out that the cost of going ahead with work on 52 Avenue was actually going to cost the city more than what was reflected in the current contract. This is due to the fact that the cost of the landscaping and irrigation systems on the street were not included in the contract as was originally intended when council approved its budget in December.

In addition to those costs, the city will have to defer the paving of McMeekan Causeway and Cameron Road, which will now have to be completed in 2015.

"I don't want to pretend we only went $400,000 over budget," said Bell, who tried to make a point that the records should reflect the true costs of the work.

Rod Hildebrandt, president and general manager of NWT Construction Ltd., was in attendance for Monday's vote.

Yellowknifer asked Hildebrandt why the cost of repaving 52 Avenue and 50 Street ended up coming in higher than the city's estimates in the first place. He explained that the designs the city submitted were more elaborate than what it had submitted in the past.

"It's all custom work on 52 Avenue," he said, referring to the fact that the design includes detailed plans for coloured concrete patterns on the sidewalks, which must be done by hand.

He added that the company would also have to replace a significant number of catch-basins on the street.

"If you want to use an analogy, we know that the city has asked for a car to be built in the past and we have built that car for them in the past," he said.

"This year they have asked for a car to be built and it is a very different car."

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