Asset Management & Financial Planning

The City of Cambridge provides essential services for our community that support its strategic vision of “a place for people to prosper.” Providing these services sustainably depends on effectively managing and maintaining a wide range of City assets, which include roads, water and sewer infrastructure, buildings, and arenas. Managing these requires the City to consider many factors. The City must coordinate its planning to balance costs, service levels, and risk across this wide range of assets.

The City of Cambridge has proactively adopted formal asset management since 2006 for core infrastructure (water, stormwater, wastewater, roads and bridges). The City published its first Asset Management Plan for core infrastructure in 2013.

The City adopted Strategic Asset Management Policy in April 2019, which was updated in 2024.

Asset Management Plan

The Asset Management Plan provides an overview of the state of infrastructure owned, operated and maintained by the City to best serve residents and businesses.

The goals of the City are to maintain and improve assets in order to provide reliable and efficient services, build new infrastructure for service improvements, and support future growth.

Our priority is to provide innovative leadership in the management of City assets to help plan, fund and maintain City assets in a sustainable way. Through the adoption of forward-thinking, proactive programs, the City is better able to monitor the condition of assets and to plan for future generations.

To request a copy of the Asset Management Plan please email cfo@cambridge.ca.

Watch the video to learn more about the Asset Management Plan.

City snowplow driver.

We use targeted maintenance, renewal and replacement programs to decide which assets are in the greatest need of repair or replacement. We also consider certain information about our infrastructure, such as:

  • Current condition
  • Capacity (current and future)
  • Risk (consequences of failure and probability of occurrence)
  • Level of service
  • Estimated remaining serviceable life
  • Cost

The amount of planning that goes into asset management allows the City of Cambridge to invest for today and ensures future generations have infrastructure that is well taken care of and operates efficiently and effectively.

Breakdown of current infrastructure value (in Millions $):

Type of Infrastructure

Description

Value

Transportation System

1,041 lane km of local and collector roads (not including regional
roads), 687 km of sidewalks, 130 km trails, 25 parking lots, 29 road bridges and large culverts and 11,504 streetlights

$846 Million

Wastewater Collection Network

560 km of sanitary pipes, 19 pumping stations

$857 Million

Stormwater Management Network

401 km of storm pipes, 1,260 culverts, 134 storm water management facilities, and 3 dams

$1074 Million

Drinking Water Distribution Network

555 km of water distribution network (including Region shared mains), 40,500 water meters

$846 Million

Emergency Services

6 fire halls and 34 fleet vehicles

$89 Million

Parks

76 playgrounds, 101 sports fields, 48 park facilities, 36 shade structures, 10 cemeteries, 61,659 trees

$259 Million 

Indoor Recreation & Culture

6 arenas, 4 pools, 2 theatres, market, 2 museums and 4 community centers

$551 Million

Libraries

5 libraries, library collections, furnishings, equipment

$77 Million

Corporate Facilities

3 corporate, 8 operations, 15 maintenance & storage, 8 leased facilities

$154 Million
Fleet and Equipment

214 fleet vehicles, 14 electric vehicles, 321 equipment assets

$45 Million
Information & Communication Technology Infrastructure

Diverse hardware and software

$27 Million

 

 

The assets are at varying stages in their lifespans. 

  • Canada’s 2022 Core Public Infrastructure survey identifies that 55 per cent (decline from 59 per cent in 2020) of assets across the country are rated as being in very good condition or good condition. Currently, Cambridge exceeds this national average with 62 per cent of its assets in good or very good condition.
  • An estimated total capital investment of $878 million is required over the next ten years to maintain existing assets in a good state of repair and to provide municipal financing for new infrastructure to support growth.
  • The 2025-2034 Capital Investment Plan provides for infrastructure investment of $631 million through various City funding sources resulting in a funding gap of $247 million between our assessed infrastructure investment needs and current capital investment funding for the next 10 years.
  • The resulting funding gap is in key areas such as transportation, stormwater management, recreation & culture and resource management.
  • There is no funding gap for the City’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure needs for the 10-year period to 2033. The infrastructure needs are fully funded through the long-range financial plan to ensure continued delivery of safe drinking water to the community.
  • The City continues to work with all levels of government to identify funding opportunities and to explore alternative revenue streams such as stormwater management utility, implementation of a special infrastructure levy, public-private partnerships, debt financing and sponsorship strategies to address this infrastructure gap.
  • To minimize service interruptions, the City has adopted risk based integrated capital planning and prioritization of capital projects based on multiple criteria.

The Cambridge's Asset Management Division uses technology to collect, organize, store and analyze data about daily activities needed to operate, repair, maintain and renew infrastructure that provides municipal services. This helps us understand the short and long term requirements of operating, maintaining and renewing infrastructure. This information also allows us to manage costs, revenue, reserves and resources to avoid declines in service levels or sudden rate increases.

The City of Cambridge has made significant investments in technology, including:

  • Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
  • Automated Vehicle Location System (AVL)
  • Integrated Life-Cycle-Planning/Modeling tools
  • Work Management Systems (Maximo)
  • GIS Information Distribution Portal 
  • Integrated databases
  • Mobile data collection using tablets