In plain language · Published October 6, 2026
The roads math I owed you.
53/100
That's the average condition score of a paved road in this municipality, from the municipality's own 2021 road scan. The plan's word for that score: poor. Not my word. Theirs.
The water and sewer page on this site ends with a promise to the households that page isn't about: if you're on a well and septic, roads are your version of that story, and I owe you that math next. This is that page. Same deal as always: the municipality's own documents, with the table numbers attached, so you never have to take my word for anything.
What we own
The municipality maintains 338.9 kilometres of paved road and 152.4 kilometres of gravel (AMP Table 2-1). Counted the way the province counts, that's about 971 lane-kilometres, and 931.8 of them are local roads: the streets and concessions people actually live on (Table 2-10). The average paved road base is 58 years old. The average unpaved base is 63 (Table 2-2).
What it's worth, and what it costs to stand still
In 2022 the asset plan priced the road network at $349 million to replace. In August 2025 the municipality re-priced its assets, and roads came out at $421.3 million, a fifth higher in three years (Addendum, Tables 3-1 and 3-2). Bridges and culverts are counted separately, at another $76.6 million. Roads are the single largest thing this municipality owns, and the single largest line in its lifecycle math: about $5.6 million a year, against roughly $6.7 million of total tax-supported capacity for everything. That's most of the reason the municipality's own plan reports an $11.2 million a year funding gap across all assets, and why the current strategy only shrinks that gap to $3.5 million by 2032 rather than closing it. Those aren't my numbers. They're in the asset plan and repeated in this year's budget.
The condition ledger
The 2021 scan scored every paved segment from 0 to 100. The average came out at 53, which the plan's own scale calls poor, and the plan's performance table puts roads in fair or better condition at 17 per cent (Tables 2-9 and 2-11). Gravel roads average 67, which rates fair. One honest counterweight, and it matters: across the municipality's 8,442 tracked assets of every kind, only 7 are rated high risk. This is a money problem on a schedule, not a bridges-falling-down problem. But a 53 doesn't get cheaper by waiting, because the same re-pricing that moved $349 million to $421 million applies to every repair we defer.
$421.3M
What it would cost to replace our roads, in 2025 dollars. Three years earlier the same network priced at $349 million. Deferral has a compounding rate.
AMP Addendum 2025, Tables 3-1, 3-2
17%
The share of roads in fair or better condition, in the plan's own performance table. The rest are living off the age of their bones.
AMP 2022, Table 2-11
$1.88M
This year's roads capital program. The biggest piece, $1.65 million for Concession 7, is nearly all grant money, which is what being ready with a shovel-ready file wins.
2026 Budget, capital projects, Roads
$65,000
The Roads Needs Study already funded for 2026, required every five years. The refresh I keep asking for on sewage is already paid for on roads. The results just need to reach you in plain language.
2026 Budget, Roads operating notes
If you live on gravel
Your roads are managed as operations, not reconstruction: graded regularly, fresh gravel annually, repairs where needed (AMP s.2.7). This year's budget carries $362,000 in loose-top materials and notes plainly that gravel prices keep climbing. Every concession and sideroad in the municipality runs half-load limits each spring, and North Street carries one year-round (Table 2-11), which is exactly why farmers keep telling me the back-road network is their version of infrastructure. At the Armow all-candidates meeting, the ask I heard was better routes for equipment that keep it off Highway 21. I'm not promising a road on this page; measuring comes before promising here, every time. But that ask is on my list, with the measuring first.
What's being done this year
Credit where it's owed: besides Concession 7 and North Street reconstruction, the 2026 budget puts $1.04 million into bridges and culverts, including the Albert Road bridge, the Munro bridge on the Northline, a Concession 11 culvert, and $325,000 in culvert repairs across the network, plus about $745,000 for winter maintenance and another $170,000 in salt and sand. The machinery is working. The gap is still the gap.
What I'd do with this file
Three things, none of them glamorous. Publish the 2026 Roads Needs Study results in plain language when they land, the way this page translates the asset plan, so the 2027 update gets debated on current numbers. Keep the grant pipeline fed with shovel-ready road files, because Concession 7 shows what that wins. And when crossings come up for renewal, right-size them: where an engineered culvert does the job of an aging bridge, the savings stay in the roads budget.
Found something in these documents I missed or misread? hello@voteshah.ca. If you're right, it gets fixed here, dated, and you get the credit.
Sources: Municipality of Kincardine Asset Management Plan 2022, Tables 2-1, 2-2, 2-9, 2-10, 2-11, s.2.7 and s.12 · Asset Management Plan Addendum 2025 (Dillon, August 2025), Tables 3-1 and 3-2 · 2026 Final Budget: Roads, Bridges and Fleet operating notes and capital project listings. What you pay for water and sewer is its own page: the bill, shown in full.
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