The homework
Written-down ideas you can read, question, and pick apart, starting with one you can read today.
Publish the Growth CIP annual review. The plan already says an annual report should be written. It does not say when, or where residents can read it. Two questions: is this being done, and what were the results?
Publish the debt repayment plans. Before the town borrows, put a one-page repayment plan on the public agenda. Once a year, publish what we owe, what it costs, and when it ends.
Cochrane should publish its own tax history. The residential tax rate for every year since 2020, the by-law behind each number, and a calculator that shows what the rates meant on a real bill.
What it is, in plain language
The Town of Cochrane already knows a great deal about the state of its roads. Ontario requires it to know, and to write it down. The Road Condition and Capital Work Registry would take that information, and the record of work the town does, and publish it in one plain-language place, road by road: what condition a segment is in, when it was last worked on, what that cost, and what’s planned next. Updated once a year, readable on a phone, no freedom-of-information request required.
It doesn’t create new studies or new spending. It publishes what already exists, at a level of detail a resident can actually use. Below is the draft bylaw that would put it in place, followed by a mockup of what the registry itself would look like. Both are drafts. Read them, and tell me what you’d change.
The Town has an asset management plan, and it is a real piece of work
In August 2026 Council adopted the Town’s 2025 Asset Management Plan by Resolution 2026-217, with a by-law to follow for final ratification. I want to be clear that I know it exists, because I don’t think you build credibility by pretending the work isn’t being done. The plan is required under Ontario Regulation 588/17, it covers both core and non-core assets, and it puts real numbers on the road network. It counts 193 kilometres of road surface, roughly 72 per cent of it gravel, at a replacement cost of about $94 million. It rates the asphalt network at 42 out of 100 and the gravel network at 33. It says plainly that the town is reinvesting in roads at about 0.7 per cent a year against a target of 3.8 per cent, and that across all assets the annual shortfall runs to roughly $8.75 million. Staff wrote that down and put it in front of Council. I think that’s worth saying out loud.
What the plan does not do, because it was never designed to, is tell you about your street. It reports averages across a whole network, and nobody drives on an average. If the asphalt network scores 42, that number is made up of some streets that were rebuilt recently and some that have been waiting twenty years, and the plan gives you no way to tell which one you live on. The road network maps are in the appendices as flat images. The condition of any particular segment is not published anywhere a resident can look it up.
That is the gap the registry fills. The plan tells Council how big the problem is in total. A registry tells a resident where their own street sits, what was last done to it, and whether anything is planned. It also lets them check next year whether anything moved, which is the part that actually holds a council to account.
History and plans matter as much as condition
A condition rating on its own is a snapshot, and snapshots are easy to argue with. What residents in Cochrane keep asking is a different question: when was this street last rebuilt, what did it cost, was it in a budget that got approved and then didn’t happen, and where is it in the queue now. That is a history and a forward plan, not a score, and it is the part no existing document carries. The asset plan looks forward in ten-year dollar totals by category. The capital budget looks forward one year at a time and then disappears into the next one. Nothing connects the two into a record you can follow for a single road across a decade.
The plan itself is the best argument for publishing at this level of detail. Its road condition data comes from a 2023 Road Needs Study for the hard-surface roads, a staff assessment of the gravel roads in 2024, and for curbs and gutters no formal assessment at all, with condition inferred from age. The plan recommends an updated condition assessment for most of the road network, and notes that of the seven road assets it flags as high risk, four have never been condition assessed. Publishing segment by segment makes those gaps visible instead of averaging them away, and a gap that’s visible has a much better chance of getting filled.
The draft bylaw
By-law No. ____ · Town of Cochrane · DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION
A by-law to establish a public Road Condition and Capital Work Registry
Whereas section 10 (2) of the Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, Chapter 25, as amended, authorizes a municipality to pass by-laws respecting the accountability and transparency of the municipality and its operations; and
Whereas Ontario Regulation 588/17 requires the Town to prepare and maintain an asset management plan, and to collect and record information respecting the condition of its roads and other infrastructure assets; and
Whereas the Town further records, in the ordinary course of preparing and administering its capital budget, the capital work performed on its road network and the cost of that work; and
Whereas that information is presently reported at the level of the network as a whole, and is not published in a form that permits a resident to determine the condition, work history, or planned work for a particular road; and
Whereas Council considers it in the public interest that residents have plain-language access to information the Town already holds and that taxpayers have already paid to produce;
Now therefore the Council of the Corporation of the Town of Cochrane enacts as follows:
1. Registry established
The Town shall establish and maintain a public Road Condition and Capital Work Registry (the “Registry”), published on the Town’s website and available on request in printed form at no charge. The Registry shall cover every road under the jurisdiction of the Town, divided into segments corresponding to those used in the Town’s asset management records.
2. Contents
For each road segment, the Registry shall record:
- a plain-language name and description of the segment, including its endpoints;
- its surface type and approximate length;
- the most recent assessed condition, the date of that assessment, and whether the assessment was a formal condition study, a staff assessment, or an estimate inferred from the age of the asset;
- the most recent capital work performed, the year it was performed, and a plain-language description of what was done;
- the recorded cost of that work;
- any capital work currently identified in an approved budget or capital forecast, and the year in which it is expected to be carried out; and
- where work previously identified for the segment was not carried out in the year planned, the year it was originally planned for and its current status.
3. Segments that have not been assessed
Where no condition assessment exists for a segment, the Registry shall say so in those terms. The absence of an assessment shall not be recorded as an unknown or omitted entry, and a segment shall not be excluded from the Registry on the ground that its condition has not been assessed.
4. Reasons for sequencing and deferral
Where work on a segment is deferred, sequenced behind other work, or dependent on a condition outside the Town’s control, the Registry shall state the reason in plain language. Reasons include, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, underground water or sewer infrastructure that must be replaced before the surface is rebuilt, an application for external funding that has not been decided, outstanding design or approvals, and coordination with work by another authority.
5. Sources of information
The Registry shall be compiled from information the Town already holds, including its asset management plan, road needs studies, capital budgets and forecasts, and records of completed work. Nothing in this by-law requires the Town to commission a new study, survey, or condition assessment in order to publish the Registry.
6. Annual update
The Registry shall be updated at least once each year, no later than [date], and shall state the date on which it was last updated. Each update shall preserve the previous year’s entries in a form that remains publicly accessible, so that a resident can see what has changed from one year to the next.
7. Plain language and format
Entries shall be written so that a resident without technical training can understand them. Where a technical term or a numeric condition rating is unavoidable, a plain-language note explaining it shall accompany it. The Registry shall be published in a format that is readable on a mobile device and that can be downloaded in full.
8. Effect of the Registry
The Registry is a record of information and does not commit Council to carry out any work identified in it. The inclusion, omission, or description of any work in the Registry does not create or alter any obligation of the Town, and does not affect the Town’s duties under the Municipal Act, 2001 or under O. Reg. 239/02, Minimum Maintenance Standards for Municipal Highways.
9. First Registry
The first Registry shall be published within twelve months of the day this by-law is passed, on the basis of the information then available, and shall identify any category of information in section 2 that the Town is not yet able to report together with what would be required to report it.
[ Discussion draft. The reporting deadline in section 6 should be set to fall after the capital budget is approved, so that a single annual exercise serves both, and the segment definitions in section 1 need to be reconciled with how Public Works actually keeps its records. If publishing a cost figure would disclose commercially confidential pricing from an active contract, that needs a clause too. This is a starting point for conversation, not final legal text. ]
What the registry would look like
| Road segment | Surface | Condition | Last work | Cost | Planned next | Why it waits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Example Street (1st Ave → 4th Ave) | Asphalt | Fair (2023 study) | Resurfaced in 2019 | (sample) | Resurfacing planned for 2027 | Watermain beneath is scheduled for replacement in 2026. Paving first would mean digging it up twice. |
| Sample Road (Hwy 11 → town limit) | Gravel | Good (staff assessment, 2024) | Regraded in 2023 | (sample) | Routine maintenance | Not waiting on anything. |
| Placeholder Drive | Asphalt | Not assessed | Rebuilt in 2011 | (sample) | Was in the 2025 budget, not carried out. Now unscheduled. | No condition assessment on file. Needs one before it can be ranked against other work. |
Tell me what you’d change
This is a discussion draft, and I mean that. If a column is missing, if the language is still too technical, if there’s a reason it can’t work the way I’ve written it, I want to know before it ever reaches a council vote. Write to me at dan4cochrane@gmail.com.