Rural municipalities across Alberta are facing a growing infrastructure deficit that threatens both community well-being and provincial prosperity.
RMA members manage the majority of Alberta’s roads and bridges and thousands of kilometres of linear water utility systems, but provincial funding has been declining in recent years, and federal funding formulas continue to overlook the unique realities of rural communities such as longer distances, smaller tax bases, and higher per-kilometre costs. This has left rural municipalities struggling to maintain essential assets.
Sustainable, predictable funding is vital for the sustainability of rural municipalities. Rural roads, bridges, and utilities are not just for local residents; they are the backbone of Alberta’s economy, connecting industries with access to markets and natural resources, and linking families with communities. To ensure these systems and the industries they support remain reliable, municipalities and the province must work together on funding approaches that reflect rural realities and support proactive, long-term infrastructure planning. By building this partnership, the Government of Alberta can foster both local and regional resilience and province-wide prosperity.
RMA is conducting this five-week campaign to draw attention to the escalating rural infrastructure deficit, demonstrate that funding rural infrastructure is a strategic investment in Alberta’s long‑term prosperity, rather than a cost to contain, and highlight the urgent need for investment in rural infrastructure. This campaign will walk Albertans through the deficit step by step – from the scale of the problem, to its economic impacts, to the urgent need for reinvestment – and build a clear case for why rural infrastructure must be treated as a provincial priority. Each week highlights a different part of the story, culminating in a call for the Government of Alberta to partner with RMA and rural municipalities on long‑term, predictable funding solutions and short-term, essential increases to existing funding programs that reflect the essential nature of rural infrastructure.
Overall Deficit Results Summary
Throughout 2024, RMA worked in collaboration with Tantus Solutions Group to develop a series of reports to quantify and better understand the rural infrastructure deficit. To learn more about the scale and nature of this issue, RMA’s Infrastructure Deficit Project reports can be found here:
Overall Rural Municipal Infrastructure Deficit
Putting all three studies together reveals an alarming deficit figure.
Collectively, across all asset types, the RMA member Infrastructure Deficit is $17.25 billion.
The graph below shows that the overall RMA member portfolio is well below the target condition level. All three asset types currently sit on an expensive point of the curve, which increases the risk to fundamental usability, safety, and reliability of the network.
Grey Line = Inverted S-Curve (Road and Bridge Assets) | Yellow Line = Utility Curve (Utility Assets)
The following table shows a comparison between the current portfolio and a hypothetical ideal target state portfolio. The comparison shows overall portfolio values, life consumed, condition, the annual holding cost (investment required to hold the position on the curve), and the effective age.
|
CATEGORY |
CURRENT |
TARGET |
|---|---|---|
|
Deficit: |
$17.25 Billion |
$0.00 |
|
Portfolio Value: |
$34.75 Billion |
$52.00 Billion |
|
Life Consumed: |
76.01% (weighted average) |
50.00% (Bridge & Road) |
|
Condition: |
61.46% (weighted average) |
93.96% (Bridge & Road) |
|
Holding Cost: |
$6.41 Billion |
$1.17 Billion |
2023-2028 Outlook
If the Government of Alberta maintains current grant funding levels and methodologies for municipal infrastructure, 2028 will see a dramatically decreased infrastructure portfolio condition rating. Such a decline in condition places serious risk to the viability, resiliency, and safety of core municipal infrastructure.
Note: This graph provides an estimate of future conditions and may not align precisely with the life consumed shown in the subsequent chart. While both are closely related, the chart figures should be considered more accurate in representing future conditions.
The current level of provincial funding is nowhere near enough to maintain the current 67.20% condition rating. Further, in 2028, the cost to move the portfolio to the target levels will more than double to $40.71 billion. This highlights the urgent need for increased funding and strategic investment to prevent further deterioration and ensure the safety and functionality of core infrastructure.
|
Year |
Life Consumed |
Condition |
Value |
Holding Cost |
Cost to get to Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2023 |
76.01% |
61.46% |
$34.75 Billion |
$6.41 Billion |
$17.25 Billion |
|
2024 |
78.91% |
50.47% |
$28.54 Billion |
$5.57 Billion |
$23.46 Billion |
|
2025 |
81.80% |
40.97% |
$23.17 Billion |
$4.15 Billion |
$28.83 Billion |
|
2026 |
84.69% |
32.72% |
$18.50 Billion |
$4.15 Billion |
$33.50 Billion |
|
2027 |
87.58% |
25.73% |
$14.55 Billion |
$3.45 Billion |
$37.45 Billion |
|
2028 |
90.40% |
19.96% |
$11.29 Billion |
$2.72 Billion |
$40.71 Billion |
Calculating an Infrastructure Deficit
Given the target point on the curve above, the infrastructure deficit is the difference between the current condition of assets observed and the target state level of condition. The deficit calculation, therefore, is based on the one-time investment required to move the portfolio to its target state, and can be represented by:
Infrastructure Deficit = Portfolio Target State Value ($) – Portfolio Observed Condition Value ($)
Financial Summary
As noted above, the overall infrastructure deficit for RMA member-managed bridges and culverts is $2.29 billion. To understand the gravity of this number, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, it is important to understand the meaning of the term "holding cost".
Holding Cost:
How much it costs to keep the portfolio at the same condition level from one year to the next. As an example, if a culvert sits at 50% condition in 2023, it naturally deteriorates to approximately 48% condition in 2024, consistent with the deterioration curve.
The cost to “fix” the bridge in 2024 and return it back to 50% condition level constitutes the holding cost.
Rural municipalities manage a majority of Alberta’s roads and bridges yet receive only a fraction of provincial and federal infrastructure funding. According to RMA’s Asset Deficit Summary Report, Alberta’s rural infrastructure is facing a total deficit of over $17 billion as of 2023; since the Report’s release, that number has likely grown in excess of $20 billion. The rural road portfolio alone faces a deficit of nearly $12 billion, equating to $16,800 per rural resident; when including bridges and utilities, this rises to over $24,000.
Current provincial allocations cover less than 5% of annual infrastructure holding costs, forcing municipalities to spend upwards of 50% of their budgets on transportation infrastructure while still falling behind. This inequity often requires municipalities to increase property taxes on other ratepayers or reduce levels of service in other areas to try to mitigate the impact. RMA is calling on the Government of Alberta to recognize this imbalance and ensure funding formulas reflect rural cost drivers, such as remote construction locations, increased labour and maintenance costs, and longer overall lengths.
Learn more about the burden facing taxpayers here.
Call to Action
RMA urges the province to seize Budget 2026 as an opportunity to invest in rural Alberta and close the rural infrastructure funding gap by revising funding formulas to reflect rural realities and provide predictable, equitable support for the infrastructure that underpins Alberta’s prosperity. While immediate attention must be given to the fiscal imbalance, it should also be paired with longer-term commitments to collaborate on solutions that ensure rural municipalities remain partners with the province as they work together on Alberta’s growth.
Get Involved
It’s time for the Government of Alberta to partner with RMA and rural municipalities to approach rural municipal infrastructure as an investment that is essential to Alberta’s prosperity.
Contact your local MLA and tell them it’s time to invest in rural roads, bridges, and utilities. By supporting increases to predictable, equitable funding programs, you’re helping protect your rural community’s future and strengthen the economy for all of Alberta. Stay tuned for a member toolkit resource coming soon.
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