Langley City’s Modern Asset Management Program for Roads, Water, Sewer and Drainage Systems

About 22% of Langley City’s tangible capital assets are water, sewer, and drainage infrastructure. 38% of Langley City’s tangible capital assets are its transportation infrastructure, such as roads. These pieces of infrastructure are critical to the viability of our community.

While the City has been repairing and renewing these critical pieces of infrastructure, there is much work to do. Historically, municipalities did not have robust asset management programs; many were “winging it” with their critical infrastructure. This lack of asset management meant that cities were not maintaining and renewing infrastructure on an appropriate schedule. It also meant that cities didn’t even know about all of their infrastructures!

Langley City has been moving towards asset management best practices. In 2020, the City adopted a formal Asset Management Policy.

Langley City staff have been diligently mapping, verifying and identifying infrastructure over the last several years. You cannot have a good asset management program if you don’t know the state of repair of your infrastructure or what infrastructure you have.

City staff presented a report to City Council on the state of the asset management program at the last Council meeting.

City staff found that 5.2 km of water mains are end-of-life, and another 15 km is likely end-of-life due to the thickness of the mains, reducing from 20 mm when they were new to 7.5 mm today.

Staff also found 2.5 km of previously unknown storm sewer, including maintenance holes, which are now mapped.

The City uses a company called StreetScan which uses modern technology to map the condition of the roads, sidewalks, ramps, curbs, and medians without interrupting traffic or damaging transportation infrastructure.

Once City staff have mapped and determined the condition of Langley’s transportation, water, sewer, and drainage infrastructure, they will create asset management plans that use modern, best practices to maintain and renew the City’s infrastructure.

While not top of mind, maintaining our City’s assets with modern asset management plans will help keep costs down over the long run and reduce unplanned service interruptions to residents and businesses.