The spring weather is finally making an appearance and it's prompting City crews to begin assessing the road damages.

With the snow barely off the ground, the City so far hasn't decided which streets or sidewalks will be upgraded this summer.

Mitch Minken, general manager of infrastructure and operations with the City of Swift Current, said a recent decision by a select amount of taxpayers has made the City go back to the drawing board. 

"We're still in the assessment process for this year and unfortunately we've had a pretty rough winter," he explained. "We had some plans going in and our local improvement projects were petitioned out so that changed our priorities."    

The long winter that carried into the early spring has taken a toll on the roads within Swift Current more than normal according to Minken.

"It was quite a rough year with the freeze-thaw cycle," he said. "Our preliminary look is that we've seen a lot of damage. Where we're at right now is that we need to wait for the frost to come out so that we can do a proper assessment on the damage that's done and we will be setting our priorities from that assessment once it complete."       

This year's capital budget for roads included roughly $140,000 for minors improvements such filling potholes and about $700,000 for major repairs like paving streets and redoing sidewalks.

"We're comfortable with the amount that we've got allocated to take care of it [the roads]," Minken said about the City's budget for road maintenance. "It's just a matter of dispersing that in an appropriate manner."