Councillor Janz: “Read my lips: No New Roads." City Council must prioritize road renewal this budget. (Edmonton Journal op-ed full text April 10th, 2026)
Councillor Janz: “Read my lips: No New Roads." City Council must prioritize road renewal this budget (Edmonton Journal op-ed full text April 10th, 2026)
Later this year, City Council will wrestle with setting the City’s budget for the next 4 years. I urge my fellow City Councillors to consider a paraphrased version of the 1988 campaign pledge from none other than President George H.W. Bush: “Read my lips: no new roads”. As you bump along spring potholes, surely you would agree it is past time for us to prioritize taking care of what we have first.
Even if you don’t want to say no forever, we need to say no right now. Maintaining a typical neighborhood road costs about $600,000 per kilometer over its 25-year life ($24k per km/year), plus about $1.5 million in initial construction costs. During the last four year budget (2023-2026), we spent over $1,000,000,000 - one billion dollars, or four entirely new Terwillegar Rec Centres, or 40 new public elementary schools - on the construction of new roads and bridges.
That billion didn’t include the maintenance of existing roads – potholes, repaving, and renewal set the budget back another $965.2 million. Together that represented 26% of the entire Capital budget – over $2 billion in the last four year budget. Yikes.
Capital costs today are operating costs tomorrow. Dollars spent on capital are paid back with debt servicing agreements that are paid by your monthly property tax bill as operating costs.
But it gets worse. On top of the $2 billion dollars in new road spending, there’s 100s of millions more required to be spent in operating expenses – street sweeping, snow removal, signs, traffic lights, potholes.
Report after report highlights the liability of roads. City data states that at least 30% of the users of our roads are not even Edmonton taxpayers, they are regional users who don’t pay for it. We build new roads and connections paid for by our tax dollars to make it smoother for commuters from St. Albert, Sherwood park, Spruce Grove to drive into the city.
And no, our share of provincial gas taxes don’t cover the costs, and successive provincial governments have cut funding to cities. Edmonton is receiving far less than we did in the past.
The road budget is denying neighbourhoods the swimming pool, library, playgournd, or alleyway repairs they need.. The road budget is even jeopardizing the ability to take care of our existing roads.
New roads are self-defeating in terms of traffic. After the hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on Terwillegar Drive expansion, the projected travel time is anticipated to be reduced by only three minutes in both peak directions. The scientific concept of “Induced Demand” repeatedly demonstrates in studies around the world that new roads fail to reduce traffic because they induce more demand, leading to requests for “one more lane” which again induces demand and increases taxes.
This four year budget must be about taking care of what we already have.
Michael Janz is a second term Edmonton City Councillor. He writes about city hall at michaeljanz.ca and enjoys chipping ice on municipal catch basins.
Friends, are you or someone you know involved in a church or faith community? Would you mind sharing with them this invitation:
Sacred Spaces to Community Places Information Session
Friday, May 22, 2026 - 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. - Heritage Room, City Hall
Seating is limited. To RSVP, visit edmonton.ca/AffordableHousing or emailing [email protected]
Building 8 arterial roads with a total length of 19.6km could cost the city $272 million. The annual operating costs are millions more each year.
If you guessed parking, you might be correct. This list highlights the case for proactive, automated traffic enforcement such as the program in Calgary. I understand our city administration is talking with provincial officials and we hope to have an update on automated parking enforcement at our June 9th Urban Planning Committee.