This analysis examines the power relations, ideologies, and institutional practices of the May 12, 2025 motion for staff to report back on capital road maintenance. The motion read:

Whereas investments in our roads are critical because they are our lifeline; and

Whereas good roads are crucial for economic development, social access, and safety; and

Whereas municipal roads facilitate the movement of goods and people, connecting neighbourhoods and enabling access to essential services like healthcare, education, and employment; and

Whereas well-maintained roads contribute to safer driving conditions, reduce vehicle maintenance costs, and enhance overall quality of life; and

Whereas the increasing costs to maintain capital assets like roads can't be addressed through property tax alone and it is recognized that city staff continuously seek grants to cover the cost of repairing roads; and

Whereas it is important that the City of Sault Ste. Marie continue to carry out its responsibility to invest in core infrastructure such as roads,

Now Therefore Be It Resolved that staff be requested to report back at the

August 11, 2025 Council meeting regarding the following;

 Summarizing how much funding Council has allocated to the capital transportation budget for the last five years broken down between grants and non-grant funds;

 Specifying grants with amounts the City has received over the last years;

 Stating the percentage of roads considered to be high, medium and low risk of needing repair;

 Capacity of contractors for construction;

 Approximating how much of a dollar increase that would be per kilometre; and

 Outlining the best financial practices Council could consider at budget time to finance the goal of fixing a high portion of roads by a set year (i.e. issuing municipal bonds, incurring debt, etc.)

 

Introduction

The motion itself is standard municipal council resolution framing intended to convey a sense of legitimacy, authority and bureaucratic rationality. Such formal structuring implicitly reinforces the authority of council as the decision-making body while framing roads as an unquestionable public necessity.

 

Narrative setting

• Problem Construction:
  The text constructs a narrative that roads are both essential infrastructure and under financial 'threat', positioning the situation within a sense of urgency and legitimacy.

• Value-Laden Terms:
  Words such as "lifeline," "crucial," "responsibility," and "quality of life" invoke moral imperatives, not just technical ones. Investment in roads is cast as not only practical but ethical and socially necessary.

• Foregrounding vs. Backgrounding:
  Roads are strongly foregrounded as vital for the economy, connectivity, and safety. Other forms of infrastructure (e.g., public transit, active transport like cycling/walking) are notably absent, implying a road-centric ideology of urban planning, or one set on automobility as default, exclusive and privileged. Equally, funding considerations are constrained, excluding a variety of alternate mechanisms.

• Economic Rationality:
  Costs and efficiency are highlighted: references to reduced vehicle maintenance costs, grants, budgeting, and financial practices. The discourse naturalizes a neo-managerialist logic—that public infrastructure must consistently justify itself in cost-benefit terms.

 

Ideological framing

• Hegemonic Framing:
  Roads are framed as non-negotiable public goods (“our lifeline”). This forecloses alternative framings (e.g. investment in public transit, active transportation, climate-conscious infrastructure). The text privileges a car-centric ideology (automobility) aligned with historical and problematic North American development patterns – indeed, patterns that have created and locked municipalities into the exiting funding quagmire, or as we previously noted, a vicious funding-austerity cycle.

• Institutional Authority:
  The city council positions itself as the custodian of infrastructure well-being. The phrase "responsibility to invest" suggests both accountability and guardianship, reinforcing their legitimacy as decision-makers, precluding public participation in the reproduction of social capital and urbanism. In terms of investing, subsidising private automobility is downloading costs to taxpayers – CAA estimates these costs at greater than $17,000 annually per car. Conversely, public investments would prioritise public transit and greater access through pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and urban planning.

• Financial Discourses of Scarcity:
  The text emphasizes that property taxes alone are insufficient, pointing to reliance on grants and external funding. This constructs a narrative of municipal dependency on higher levels of government, situating the city in a structurally weaker financial position. It also legitimises exploring debt instruments and financialization strategies (e.g. municipal bonds), consistent with neoliberal governance models. Finally, it reinforces and legitimises the authority of council by seeming to align with taxpayer concerns or rising taxes and costs of living, yet fundamentally ignores those very concerns through the myopic framing of the motion and lack of any genuine public engagement.

• Massive equity gaps

  The resolution completely neglects two primary equity gaps: road equity and citizen equity. The road equity gap is that which discriminates against low income drivers. This has the effect of coercing citizens to use motorised mobility, reinforcing the legitimacy of subsidised road infrastructure while locking in citizens to a car-dependent lifestyle The citizen equity gap is that which discriminates against other pressing municipal mandates by misdirecting and redirecting taxpayer and social wealth towards infrastructure that subsidises private automobility. With capital transportation budget the largest budget, using these distracting arguments is intended to reinforce the need for further funding to substantiate the current trajectory that has historically proven disastrous and costly – what we term the vicious cycle.

Exclusions and omissions

• Climate and Environmental Considerations:
  There is no mention of sustainability, ecological impact, or climate change, even though road construction and maintenance are major sources of emissions and urban heat effects.

• Equity and Inclusivity:
  The text speaks of “connecting neighbourhoods” and enabling “access to healthcare, education, employment”, but it assumes universal car access. It neglects populations reliant on public transit, walking, or cycling.

• Alternative Mobility Discourses:
  Roads dominate. There is no contestation of whether shifting investment priorities could better serve long-term city resilience. There is no mention of LOS, urban planning or access versus mobility. These exclusions consolidate a car-dependent status quo centred around automobility and reflective of motornormaivity in the motion.

• Alternative funding mechanisms:

  Terms and phrases such as “capacity of contractors” and “specifying grants” and “best financial practices Council could consider at budget time to finance the goal of fixing a high portion of roads by a set year (i.e. issuing municipal bonds, incurring debt, etc.)” are highly prescriptive and narrowly conceived solutions to unsustainable transportation, rising costs and an inequitable mobility network.

 

Narrative effects

• Policy Direction:
  The resolution channels council action into quantification and technical budgeting exercises: km-costs, breakdowns of grant dependence, contractor capacity, etc. Such technocratic framing narrows the field of debate to financial/engineering logics, leaving no space for broader value-based or ecological deliberations, or social engagement in the reproduction of public infrastructure, or, indeed, questioning the fundamental rationalities of car-centric urbanism.

• Normalization of Debt and Market Instruments:
  By raising municipal bonds/debt as “best practices,” the text normalizes the financialization of infrastructure, aligning municipal governance with private-market logics.

Summary

This resolution frames road reproduction as an unquestionable necessity, grounded in economic rationality, social good, and the language of responsibility. However, it reproduces a road-centric, car-dependent ideology, reinforcing automobility and reflecting motornormativity, while silencing environmental, equity, and alternative transportation discourses and funding mechanisms. It also reflects broader structural conditions: municipalities’ fiscal dependence on higher governments and the increasing reliance on financial instruments. Finally, in framing the motion from this ideological position, the motion completely ignores citizen and taxpayer cost of living increases and challenges, and additional opportunities for municipal action to resolve many of those challenges, thereby contributing not only to road user inequities (structural inequalities) but also entirely preventable citizen and municipal inequities. It is important to note that these latter inequities are directly responsible for contributing to growing housing and food insecurity, and local rates of poverty, crime, mental illness and addictions by misdirecting municipal funding and resources to roads that could be better spent on pressing social issues. Our earlier budget submission, for instance, recommended redirecting half of the annual $15M savings towards tax reductions, providing an important conduit for reducing cost of living expenses, especially for fixed and low income households.

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The motion text operates within a technocratic and neoliberal governance discourse, depoliticizing roads as a technical problem of funding and repair, rather than a political question of which urban and mobility futures the city could and should pursue, or providing space for those essential democratic conversations.