Why are Peterborough’s roads so bad? Here’s one idea.

You’re reading the June 6, 2024 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning and welcome to the Peterborough Currents newsletter, where we share our latest stories and catch you up on local news.

In this week’s newsletter, we look at a new analysis conducted for the city that shows that Peterborough’s downtown generates far more property tax revenue than big box stores. It also suggests our roads and other infrastructure are suffering as a result. We also learned this week that Peterborough’s community health centre has secured a temporary home in the downtown for when it open this fall.

But first: people donned superhero capes for an event celebrating National Accessibility Week last Saturday. Our reporter Alex Karn heard from participants about what it’s like to navigate Peterborough with a disability.

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Accessibility and inclusion focus of third annual Capable Con

As someone with a disability, Rachel Quilty needs to have top-notch problem-solving skills to navigate Peterborough.

“Even simple things that people don’t think of can be a big challenge,” said Quilty. “Say you’re going to a public washroom for example. The paper towel dispensers literally say please use two hands to pull down. Well I only have one hand, so you know I just kind of laugh.”

Quilty spoke about her experiences at last Saturday’s Capable Con, an annual event organized by Peterborough’s Council for Persons with Disabilities (CPD) to mark National Accessibility Week.

The event saw participants like Quilty dress up as superheroes to celebrate inclusivity and empowerment for people with disabilities.

“We aren’t superheroes because of our disabilities,” said event emcee Leslie Yee. “We’re superheroes because we are learning and teaching those around us how to adapt to accommodate disability.”

Currents reporter Alex Karn spoke to Capable Con participants about their experiences navigating life in Peterborough. Read what they had to say in Alex’s article.

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Why are Peterborough’s roads so bad? Here’s one explanation.

Many of Peterborough’s roads are in bad shape.

Mayor Jeff Leal has called the state of downtown streets an “embarrassment.”

His council is spending $2.3 million to repave some of those streets, including George and Water, this year. But it’s only a temporary fix. The new asphalt will be laid over aging underground infrastructure that the city didn’t have enough money to fix right now. Eventually George and Water streets will need to be torn up again to replace it.

And that’s only the start of Peterborough’s infrastructure problems. As a pedestrian, I have to zig zag back and forth across streets to avoid the many gaps in our sidewalk network. Many transit users have to wait for buses in places where there is no sidewalk.

So how did our roads get so bad? And why can’t we afford to fix them?

An event the city hosted at the Market Hall last week offered some clues.

The city recently hired North Carolina-based firm Urban3 to do an analysis of where the city gets its property tax revenues from. The findings, revealed at the Market Hall event, show that the way the city has developed in recent decades has essentially diluted its property tax base.

Since the 1960s, Peterborough has sprawled outward from the compact, older neighbourhoods that surround downtown. 

That new development has brought a lot of big box stores like Walmart and shopping plazas like Portage Place that deliver significantly less property tax revenue per hectare than the downtown.

Peterborough’s two Walmart stores on average deliver only $74,000 in property taxes per hectare, while Costco brings in $47,000 per hectare, the analysis revealed.

By contrast, many of the 19th and early 20th century buildings in the downtown bring in $200,000 to $1 million in property tax revenue per hectare.

Even Jerry’s Quik Chek convenience store, on Park Street, generates significantly more revenue per hectare than the big box stores.

Downtown as a whole provides 13 percent of Peterborough’s property tax revenue, even though it only occupies five percent of the city’s land area.

If we had built the rest of Peterborough to be as compact as downtown, we would probably be able to afford to keep our roads in good shape and build sidewalks along both sides of every street. 

If we build more densely going forward, it might help us afford better streets and a more walkable community.

For more on what parts of the city provide the most property tax revenue, read my full story on our website.

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Other stories to watch

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRE

Peterborough’s new community health centre (CHC) will open at a temporary site in Peterborough Square later this year while the organization seeks a long-term location, interim co-executive director David Jeffery told city councillors on Monday night.

CHCs provide primary health care to vulnerable and marginalized populations, and Peterborough doesn’t have a CHC. Advocates have argued that’s a missing link in the local health system. In February, the province announced that it would fund a CHC for Peterborough.

But Jeffery also told councillors on Monday that the province agreed to provide the CHC with $4.8 million in annual base funding. That’s less than the $8.2 million that was originally requested and that MPP Dave Smith told Currents the centre would eventually receive.

“It’s challenging news,” Jeffery said. “We asked for more and got less.” Jeffery said he’s been consulting with other health care leaders in Peterborough to identify what the centre’s priorities should be given the reduced budget.

PALESTINE PROTESTS AND CONVOCATION

Trent University will not erase a memorial to Palestinian children killed during the Gaza war, Arthur Newspaper reports. Students wrote the names of thousands of children reported to have been killed on the campus bridge across the Otonabee River. The bridge is a focal point during convocation ceremonies, which are continuing this week and next at Trent’s Peterborough campus. An emailed statement from Trent’s communications department said the university will not erase the names during convocation, Arthur reports. 

CITY FUNDING FOR CANOE MUSEUM

Now that the new Canadian Canoe Museum is open, the City of Peterborough will begin disbursing the capital grant it committed to the construction project, according to a funding agreement approved by councillors on Monday. City council committed $4 million in municipal funding to the museum years ago and has already paid $1.5 million of that, according to the agreement. To disburse the rest of the grant, the city will give the museum $500,000 per year for the next five years.

MULTICULTURAL FESTIVAL

June 27 is Canadian Multiculturalism Day, and the New Canadians Centre is celebrating the leadup to that day with the month-long Canadian Multicultural Festival. There are a lot of events planned, including a multicultural food crawl, leading up to a neighbourhood block party on June 28. Learn more here.

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