More than three-quarters of Canberra's footpaths are not inspected for damage, with Roads ACT relying on the public to report defects, Auditor-General Maxine Cooper has found.
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Dr Cooper called on the government to put in place a proper program for managing footpaths, pointing out that 60 per cent of paths will be 50 years or older by 2030, reaching or passing their life span.
In a report released on Friday, she said the maintenance budget for paths had been cut over five years, from $5 million in 2011-12 to $3.2 million in 2015-16. At the same time there were more paths, so the budget was now $1150 per kilometre, compared with a budget of $1970 per kilometre five years ago.
Footpaths in 26 of the city's 110 suburbs were in priority areas, with the city as top priority and inspected every year, and residential areas ranked for inspection every four years. But 77 per cent were not inspected.
"There is no systematic approach for conducting inspections of the condition and safety of community paths that are not in high priority locations," Dr Cooper reported. "A systematic approach would assist in avoiding higher costs resulting from a failure to identify and rectify small defects before they become large."
Dr Cooper also highlighted a backlog in road resurfacing.
Over five years, the budget for road maintenance had increased by 24 per cent, but the backlog - the difference between targeted resurfacing and actual work - had skyrocketed by 400 per cent. The road backlog totalled 2.1 million square metres in 2015‐16.
Federal "roads to recovery" funding in 2015-16 and 2016-17 had stopped the backlog growing, but done nothing to reduce it. Roads ACT expected the backlog to grow again in 2017-18, from $53 million worth of work in 2015‐16 to $71 million in 2019‐20.
Dr Cooper said Roads ACT was trialling alternative surfacing, including using recycled materials such as printer toner in the asphalt mix to extend the road life and reduce costs, but a long‐term strategy was needed.
More than 86 per cent of territory roads (as opposed to municipal roads) were in good condition, showing that "a high proportion of ACT roads provide good ride comfort". But if the current resurfacing rate continued, roads were likely to deteriorate. By 2023, the incidence of rough roads would increase from 11 to 18 per cent.
Dr Cooper said most of the city's traffic signals needed replacing, with 36 per cent of traffic signal sites older than their useful life of 25 years.
"Without a comprehensive replacement schedule, for all traffic signal components, the frequency of faults will increase as the components age beyond their design life, resulting in increased risks to road safety," she said.
About 70 per cent of traffic signals had been converted to LED, with plans to convert the rest by 2024.
The government's maintenance budget for roads, paths, streetlights and traffic signals is about $31 million a year.
Dr Cooper said there was no operational plan for road resurfacing. The operational plans for paths and traffic signals were out of date, written in 2010 and 2005 respectively. Only the plan for streetlights was current.
Transport Minister Megan Fitzharris welcomed the report and said the government was already working on a better strategy to manage footpaths and traffic signals, and had put an extra $1.5 million a year into road resealing at the most recent budget.
"The auditor-general is right. There is work to do," she said.
