6 | M.D. of Foothills No. 31
have once been exacted on that indicative of
the road less traveled, the fact remains that
district roadways are seeing increased traffic.
At present, 40% of roadways are paved and
the remaining 60% is gravel. Either surface
comes with unique challenges in terms of
care and maintenance.
Deputy Director of Public Works and
Engineering Hugh Pettigrew leads the team
tasked with ensuring that the roads and
bridges are not simply traversable, but espe-
cially safe for all who pass. A little more than
45% of the district’s entire budget is allotted
to services provided by Public Works and
Pettigrew says “the trick is do everything we
need to do, but not go broke as we do it.”
“There’s more priorities than what we
have money for, and everybody has aging
infrastructure which has to be maintained
or upgraded. Our role, like that of any mu-
nicipality, is to provide good governance and
provide for our residents,” says Pettigrew.
Good governance, he adds, comes with
imparting a certain practicality in the stew-
ardship of resources and intensive analysis
of priorities. With grant funding dimin-
ishing even as traffic has been increasing,
Pettigrew’s team has been particularly re-
