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Preamble:
WHEREAS under the Municipal Government Act (MGA), municipalities in Alberta are responsible for the “direction, control and management of all roads within the municipality”; and
WHEREAS in accordance with section 22 the MGA, no road in a municipality that is subject to the direction, control and management of the municipality may be closed except by bylaw, or where council determines that a road that is described in a surveyed road plan is no longer required for use by the travelling public because an alternate route exists, then by resolution; and
WHEREAS no road may be closed by resolution or by bylaw unless the resolution is approved by the Minister of Transportation, or in the case of a bylaw, before it receives second reading; and
WHEREAS seeking the Minister’s approval is a lengthy process, normally requiring months or even years; and
WHEREAS in accordance with section 188 of the MGA, if a bylaw does not receive its third reading within two years of its first reading, it is deemed to have expired; and
WHEREAS road closure files have previously been lost or misplaced by Alberta Transportation, which requires municipalities to re-start the process;
Operative Clause:
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) requests that the Government of Alberta streamline the Minister of Transportation’s approval processes associated with municipal road closures;
FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED that the RMA requests that the Government of Alberta create a digital tracking system that would ensure bylaws or resolutions are not misplaced or lost by Alberta Transportation.
Member Background:
Municipalities frequently entertain requests for the legal or permanent closure of road allowances. Such road closures involve a multi-step process under the Municipal Government Act (MGA).
If a municipal council wishes to entertain a road closure, the municipality will typically draft the road closure bylaw. Required information in the bylaw includes a bylaw number, the name of the road authority (municipality), purpose of the closure (create title, disposal (sale), or lease), advertising (including the name of the publication(s) and dates published (see section 606 of the MGA), and a description of the proposed road closure.
A municipal council must give the first reading of the bylaw prior to submitting the signed and dated original bylaw proposing closure to Alberta Transportation for approval. Such an approval process typically takes months or years, as a matter of course.
Upon transmission of bylaws to Alberta Transportation, Smoky Lake County has experienced several of these files “going missing.” The loss is unlikely to be discovered within the allotted two years within which the bylaw is “alive” and before it has automatically expired without having received second and third readings. This necessitates that the process begins over again, having wasted time and money.
RMA Background:
RMA has no active resolutions directly related to this issue.
Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors
In May 2022, Transportation and Economic Corridors updated the recently launched Roadside Planning and Application Tracking Hub (RPATH) application to streamline municipal road closure processes.
RPATH introduces new features and functionality not previously available to RMA members:
Municipal Road Closure and Service Road Agreement applications should now be submitted to RPATH. Please visit www.alberta.ca/roadside-planning-and-applicationtracking-hub-rpath.aspx for more information. Transportation and Economic Corridors is confident RPATH will help provide a level of service RMA members expect and deserve.
Development:
The Government of Alberta’s response outlines the Roadside Planning and Application Tracking Hub (RPATH), a program updated in 2022 that is intended to streamline municipal road closure processes. This program includes features which aim to make information more readily available to members.
This resolution asks specifically for the Government of Alberta to streamline application processes for road closure processes and create a digital hub which will track bylaws and resolutions within Alberta Transportation. Although RPATH appears to streamline the process for applications, there is no indication that Alberta Transportation has developed a system to track and store bylaws and resolutions as they relate to municipal road closures. As only one part of this resolution has been addressed, RMA assigns this a status of Accepted in Part.
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