Road rehabilitation costs have increased dramatically since 2018, with one form of road repair increasing by $200,000 a kilometre since 2018 to $612,379 this year.
The figures, released to the Herald under the Official Information Act lay bare how costly road maintenance has become with drainage renewal costs increasing by more than 250% from $174 per treated metre in 2018 to $611 this year.
The figures note drainage renewal figures for this year are “artificially inflated as invoices have been received, but the data for the completed work is yet to be recorded by contractors”.
Costs for sealed road resurfacing, another form of road repair, have remained relatively stable and have increased by less than the CPI, increasing from $59,651 per km in 2018 to $66,356 per km this year.
Pavement resurfacing includes chipsealing and thin asphalt. Pavement rehabilitation, the more expensive of the two, includes granular overlay and structural asphalt construction.