Questions Asked About Notoriously Rough Roads And Potholes
By Robert Thomas
The poor condition of many of Moose Jaw streets was front row center at Council’s most recent Executive Committee meeting.
Concerns which had one councillor, Councillor Dawn Luhning, not avoiding the issue but flat out saying many city roads are in very bad shape.
“I don’t think I’ve seen…the roads in the city being as in bad of shape as we have now with the horrendous potholes we have”
The discussions surrounded a report from the City’s engineering department on the progress when it came to paved roads and sidewalks.
City engineer Doug Harlton told the committee it was a case of not putting the cart in front of the horse.
Due to the fact there were repairs needed in underground infrastructure in many of the affected roads.
“I don’t want to get reactive and paving over some of these roads until what’s underneath gets fixed,” Harlton told executive committee.
He said it was important not to jump the gun when it came to resurfacing roads because in many cases what was seen on the surface was an indicator of what was going on underneath the roadway.
A ROUGH ROAD AHEAD SIGN GREATS MOTORISTS ON A SECTION OF CARIBOU STREET WEST THAT HAS GRAVEL SECTIONS IN IT - MJ INDEPENDENT PHOTO
The City could end up resurfacing a roadway, only to have to dig it up a few years later to repair and replace the underground infrastructure such as sewer and water lines, Harlton cautioned.
Despite the report focusing, to a large extent, on Coteau Street West from 9th Avenue SW to 12th Avenue SW Council had concerns and questions about other roadways.
Councillor Dawn Luhning asked questions about the condition of 13th Avenue NW from 7-Eleven running south to Caribou Street West.
“It’s in horrible shape. It’s probably right behind Coteau Street (West),” Councillor Luhning said, adding “and it has been in horrible shape year after year after year.”
PYLONS GREAT MOTORISTS IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTERSECTION ADJACENT ST MICHAEL SCHOOL - MJ INDEPENDENT PHOTO
“That road has been re-paved, and re-overlaid a number of times, and as I said a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t think I’ve seen not only that road, but the roads in the city being as in bad of shape as we have now with a horrendous potholes we have,” she said.
She questioned when 13th Avenue NW would be repaired at the same time Councillor Luhning also asked about “the multiple repairs” a couple of years later that seemed to be taking place on roadways.
“For me it’s just not up to par and how do we as a Council do better so our roads are kept in good condition?”
Harlton said the condition of underground infrastructure shows itself as bad road conditions.
“The locations with cast iron and breaks manifest themselves through poor road condition. The two are directly linked,” he said.
Harlton said he would like to come back with a written response regarding 13th Avenue NW to allow for checking to see if there is cast-iron that would require replacement under the roadway.
Another road’s terrible condition highlighted by Councillor Luhning was Caribou Street West which, despite being a major roadway, has a rough gravel section due to repairs done to underground infrastructure.
Conditions of the 4th Avenue Bridge
The highly deteriorated road surface condition on the 4th Avenue Bridge was also another roadway raised by the committee.
EVEN at MIDNIGHT IT’S EASY TO SEE HOW ROUGH AND POTHOLEd THE SURFACE OF THE FOURTH AVENUE BRIDGE IS - MJ INDEPENDENT PHOTO
Executive Committee was told the overall deteriorated condition of the Fourth Avenue Bridge prevented major repairs to the bridge’s roadway.
The reduced weight necessary for the structure made it impossible to bring heavy equipment and trucks onto the bridge to conduct extensive surfacing repairs director of public works Darrin Stephanson said.
“The reason why we can’t get up there and just do some real rudimentary pothole repairs it’s because of the weight limit on that bridge,” Stephanson said.
“So you can’t take milling machines up there. We can’t take big paving machines up there and actually resurface that bridge properly. It needs to be rehabbed. To increase the.(weight) capacity,” he said.
While waiting for the bridge’s rehabilitation the surface conditions will continue to deteriorate.
“There are a number of things that will be addressed in the rehab that Engineering is planning but that surface will continue deteriorate, certainly driveability of it, and that’s because the (load) capacities not there,” he said.
“We can’t take equipment up and do any meaningful kind of repair on that bridge.”
Necessary extensive repairs to the bridge have been delayed due to the lack of sufficient funding in place to do the work Harlton said.