Remote communities in Canada depend on annual sealift, winter roads and small airplanes for transportation services. These annual services are least expensive and necessary to transport heavy, indivisible, or bulky goods. These services are inconvenient however, even for storable cargo, because annual re-supply imposes significant inventory financing costs on buyers. Goods have to purchased and assembled in advance of transport, then inventoried for the balance of the year. Airplanes provide year round service for perishable and higher value goods that they can accommodate (typically less than 7 tons payload), but they are expensive. Perishable food product prices can be easily double the cost of the same goods in the south.

  Construction of airstrips during the early 1970s improved the communications and services available to the remote communities in Manitoba. While some airports need upgrading, and few more need to be constructed, the long-term problem for aviation is the absence of replacement aircraft. Air service to the remote communities depends on aircraft that are reaching the end of their practical operating lives. Some airplanes have been identified that could be used, but they require longer runways and significantly higher freight rates to be economically viable in the North.

  Significant distances are travelled to reach these broadly dispersed small population centres. Approximately 33,800 people live in 39 remote communities in Manitoba.

  The Manitoba government spends about $5.5 million annually to build, maintain and operate over 2,000 kilometres of winter roads. The cost to build a winter road ranges from $2,000 to $3,000 per kilometre. Winter roads open in January and close during March each year. Most winter roads are a combination of ice roads built over frozen lakes with based portions built over muskeg or solid ground. The cost of converting a winter road in to all-weather gravel roads is about $ 0.5 million per kilometre. For Manitoba, the cost of converting the winter road network would be about $1 billion in total.

  Few kilometres of all-weather roads are likely to be built in the North because the burden of sustaining the existing road infrastructure exceeds the financial ability of the Province of Manitoba. The Manitoba Government�s 2020 Transportation Vision consultation process identified the following significant issues facing the existing road network:

• Rapidly deteriorating aging highways
• Over 1/3 of the paved surfaces are rated poor
• Almost 1/4 of the bridges are at or beyond their normal service life of 50 years and need immediate repair
• Over 2/3 of the gravel surfaces are below standard
• Increased highway traffic and higher truck weighs are impacting the road surfaces
• There are increasing restrictions on year-round RTAC/A1 routes

  The 2020 Vision report estimates that 30 percent of the existing roads (4,600 km) need pavement rehabilitation, or reconstruction, at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion. A further 40 percent (5,100 km) need to improvements within the next 10 years at a cost of $1.1 billion. Given the backlog of deferred maintenance and reconstruction facing the existing highway network in Manitoba, residents in the North can expect only marginal improvements in the all-weather roads to their communities.

  One of the most basic commodities required to support life in remote communities is fuel. Diesel fuel for power generation is loaded at fuel depots located in Winnipeg. An entire year�s supply is shipped in bulk tanker trucks during the short winter road season. If a community runs out, emergency supplies are airlifted in at great expense. Lack of fuel for heating is not an option for life in the harsh climates of the north. Bulk tanker trucks also transport Jet A fuel for aircraft and gasoline to supply cars, trucks and snowmobiles. All fuels are stored in tank farms located in the communities. For the most part, northern stores or independent fuel dealers operate the bulk storage sites.

  Onsite inventories impose significant inventory carrying costs. For example, the Northwest Company delivers approximately 3.5 million litres of diesel to the 11 communities where it supplies fuel and maintains storage. If the inventory levels were reduced to a month�s supply, the maximum amount of fuel that would have to be stored would be approximately 300,000 litres. The resulting reduction in carrying costs, assuming a fuel cost of $0.70/litre and an interest rate of 3.5 percent would be $80,000 annually. Another benefit of year round supply is the opportunity to manage fuel prices better by being able to purchase throughout the year rather than during a short window. Finally, the risks of environmental damage due to a major tank leak would be lessened.
Winter roads are the lifelines for these isolated settlements providing them with access to storable goods, such as fuel, canned foods and durables. Winter roads also create employment for road construction and maintenance, and facilitate intercommunity travel. Transportation over winter roads is costly on a ton-kilometre basis because of the low vehicle utilization and limited two-way hauling. Additionally, severe weather affects reliability and adds an element of risk in terms of both safety and operational efficiency. In many years, some trucks layover until its safe to go back out on the road the following winter.

Climate Change

  The supply of transportation services to the north has not changed greatly in the past three decades. Some refinements in the winter roads have occurred where sections have been re-routed to land and away from lake crossings. In addition, pre-fabricated wooden bridges have been installed over river crossings to cut the distances and improve the reliability of some winter road routes. On the other hand, the evidence of climate change is creating new concerns about the sustainability of existing transportation means.
The milder winters experienced in Manitoba are cutting the number of days that winter roads can operate in the province. Whereas 50 to 60 days of operation was the norm east of Lake Winnipeg prior to the mid-1990s, less than 30 days utilization is observed in half the years since 1997. Thus far, the problem is less pronounced further north, but the impact of climate change is expected to be greater there because the magnitude of global warming is accentuated in the higher latitudes. Warmer temperatures could make the sealift operations safer and extend their season, but this is of limited value in Manitoba that depends mainly on winter roads.

  The impact a warming trend in temperatures is estimated to have very deleterious effects on the operating season of winter roads. Detailed statistical studies of climate change in the Berrens River region have projected that warmer temperatures will reduce the winter road season by 5 to 14 days over the next 75 years.

Estimates of Winter Road Operations, 2020- 2080

  The warming climate trend has caused government planners to reconsider the viability of winter roads. Their response is to begin realigning winter roads over land to reduce their dependence on ice crossing that are no longer reliable or safe. The costs per capita of upgrading and maintaining these road systems is high because of the difficult terrain, including muskeg and multiple stream and river crossings, and the length of road that must be built to service a community of only a few thousand people.

Quality of Life

  Like all technological and economic changes, better transportation has mixed social effects. The loss of wilderness setting and traditional lifestyles could be the outcome of constructing all weather roads. Some First Nations worry that opening access to hunters from the south and cottage developments could affect negatively on traditional trapping areas. At the same time, all-weather roads would reduce the social isolation. Inter-community travel is expensive by air charter, or limited to the period of winter roads. The cost of air travel limits inter-community contact and visiting children who are away at school in the south.

  Hybrid air vehicles could have less detrimental impacts than all weather roads. The communities could continue to enjoy a geographical buffer from the outside, and preserve the virgin forest intact. At the same time, hybrid air vehicle will be combination vehicles that carry passengers as well as cargo. It seems likely that hybrid air vehicle would follow routes that connect communities rather than doing point-to-point deliveries from some larger base to individual locations .

  Patients requiring complex medical services in Manitoba are transported to hospitals in Winnipeg or Thompson. The availability and comfort of this transport depends on the severity of the problem, but air ambulances are too expensive for more than emergency cases. Hybrid air vehicle could provide a much better system of transport for medical treatment. The space available in a hybrid air vehicle could accommodate cots, and it is conceivable that a hybrid air vehicle could be outfitted with a dental unit that could provide care during each circuit.
 

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