With Ballarat's road network beginning to strain as population growth keeps going, it might be good news to know the budget for roadworks and maintenance is going up 40 per cent for the new financial year.

Council engineers are making the most of what summer is available to them to finish this year's set of works, connecting booming residential areas, getting rural roads ready for even more traffic, and modernising infrastructure in the CBD.

SEE WHERE WORKS WILL BE HAPPENING THIS YEAR WITH OUR INTERACTIVE MAP, AND LET US KNOW ABOUT TROUBLE SPOTS BELOW

The Courier went on a brief tour of the city with council's new infrastructure and environment director Bridget Wetherall to see how things are going, and to get some answers about how the system actually works.

It seems like a Sisyphean effort keeping roads up to scratch, particularly in central Ballarat.

Council's budget is up to $16.5 million for roads, Ms Wetherall said, which accounts not just for the actual maintenance, but also constant monitoring.

READ MORE: Another big year of roadworks across Ballarat to ease population squeeze

Every three years, council runs its road surveillance program, which this year involves trucks with cameras recording the conditions on every stretch of the roads council controls.

Note that major arterial roads are run by VicRoads through Regional Roads Victoria, a completely separate jurisdiction - an example is Sturt Street, where RRV is looking after the western section, but everything past Dawson Street is City of Ballarat's responsibility.

Funding can come from all levels of government, like the state government's Keeping Ballarat Moving election pledge to upgrade a number of congested intersections, or the federal government's Black Spot program.

Ballarat's size is one issue, but its age is another.

The first stop is at Armstrong Street South, where workers are completing a refresh - as well as a reseal and new spaces to plant trees, the historic bluestone gutters have been modernised.

Previously, they presented an accessibility problem, and were prone to getting blocked.

The stormwater system is now underground, with the bluestones rearranged to make it a bit easier for drivers to get to the footpath while still providing a heritage look.

"This is a trial for what we could do in other parts of the city - underground, there's increased capacity to carry water away," Ms Wetherall points out.

Next to Brown Hill, where major works are under way on Gracefield Road to improve a residential stretch and make a safer connection to Brewery Tap Road.

New houses have already been built in the area, with permits pending for larger developments.

Ms Wetherall said Gracefield Road had been on the list for upgrades for some time, and was now receiving full kerb and channel and drainage improvements.

"There's more growth and development out there, there's a big increase in the volume of traffic," she said.

"It comes back to the criteria used to assess all our capital works - it could have been creeping up on our list, but it does come down to volume of traffic and how it's used, what type of road it is, and from a risk and safety, and environmental impact perspective.

"Taking all of those things into consideration, it's often an experienced engineer who will record a road or area needing capital investment, and that'll be brought back to a team to discuss, and we prioritise from there."

While we weren't able to make it to our third destination, a resealed Gillies Road at Bald Hills, The Courier was lucky enough to be stuck there two days earlier while trucks smoothed out the road, and had plenty of time to examine the works going on.

Gillies Road will become more important in the future, as another north-south link to an area council has designated as a growth zone.

That means traffic patterns will shift from farming traffic and horse trucks, and already some ground work has been done, with new roundabouts appearing on Kennedys Road.

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But council will have more catching up to do to avoid the traffic snarls that plague residents driving towards the centre of town from areas like Lucas and Delacombe - Ms Wetherall noted there are more than 700 vehicles which use that part of the road daily, and the number is increasing.

"It's just having enough data to state a case, and that's all we can do, to keep that log of how things are changing over time, and then when it hits a critical point when it meeting criteria that does need an increase in investment, or the volume or type of traffic using the assets has hit a point where the current infrastructure doesn't meet its needs, then we have to do something else," she said.

"We can never have enough investment in infrastructure - there's a substantial list of projects we could spend a lot of money on, and we have to prioritise."

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