PG Road Work Well Underway
Saturday, March 16, 2013 @ 4:29 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The Transportation Division within the City of Prince George is busy making the roads you drive, driveable.
Sixteen road rehabilitation projects have been identified in 2013, with a budget of just under $5.2 million allotted to get that work done. The person responsible for overseeing capital paving, pothole repair and snow clearing operations, Streets Operation Supervisor Mick Jones, says those identified projects should be posted on the city’s website in the near future. He expects the first of those 16 major projects to get underway in mid-May, depending on weather and equipment and contractor availability.
Jones says as far as pothole repair is concerned, the city tries to focus on the higher traffic volume routes that are in need of extensive patching, probably prior to scheduled rehabilitation, and also focuses immediately on potholes which could cause damage to vehicles.
A number of problem potholes have become quite visible recently, including an area in the BCR site which includes Boundary Road, Penn Road and Milwaukee Way. Jones says some enhanced patching is already planned on Eastern Street, “and we’re also going to look at a section of Boundary Road from Sintich to Penn near the railway tracks. It really is bad, it’s a tough time of year.” Jones identified the problem in the BCR site as “the stopping, starting and turning, and then when you compound that with the heavy traffic that’s when we start to run into some of the bigger issues. If it’s just heavy traffic on a straight stretch it’s not bad.”
Jones says the focus is on the arterial and collector routes right now, “but that additional 1.9 (million dollars) that council gave us last year made a huge difference. We were able to do Tabor Boulevard, the top part of Ospika, and if we didn’t get those done last year I can only imagine what they would be like for potholes. We would be focussing constantly up there. And this year with the road rehab budget at just under $5.2 million it looks like we’ll have another good year making decent progress on arterial and collector routes. But the pothole thing isn’t going away in the near future.”
Jones says some potholes are just sitting right now “because the asphalt plants haven’t fired up. We do have cold mix and we have hot mix, we have the heat in use, so there’s a number of materials we can use but obviously warm weather and dry road conditions make for a longer-lasting patch.” He says the city purchases some hot mix material in the fall “and we store it in a covered building and then our hot box units are able to heat it up to the required temperature. It takes about 8 hours to heat a load. We have two of those hot box units so we usually have one heating at all times and the other one is out on the road.” He says right now anything available is being used, depending on the day. “Some of it is cold mix, some hot mix and we also tried a proprietary cold mix-patched polymer-modified which is a little bit more expensive but is supposed to perform better in wet conditions, so we’re tried that on some stretches as well. We have people patching potholes on every shift, days, nights and afternoons.”
Comments
You better check the top of Ospika as there are already cracks and pot holes forming. Small repairs now or big repairs later. And no I don’t mean right now I mean when things thaw out that paving job will need some attention. Maybe it will even be warranty work.
What needs to happen is to completely tear up the road base and rebuild it right from the bottom. The roads now weren’t built for the amount of traffic they handle. It doesn’t matter how many times you repave it, if the base isn’t strong enough its going to crack and get potholes. Sure it will be super expensive in the short term but imagine how much they would save over the long term.
I just have no idea where the money for it will come from. Maybe sell all the useless real estate the city has collected?
Sell it to whom?
Good point
peegee you are correct about the road base, and when they rebuild them use cracked rock instead of crush. The cracked rock has proven to be a better base but the City still won’t use it as it is more money up front.
Another thing that needs to be done is continuous pour of asphalt instead of the system which gives the cracks which are weak and let water in. If you look at most of the road you can see the lines across the road and then the potholes and the open cracks. The highways do not have the lines as they do continuous pour so it can be done.
And supply the proper equipment of patching, train the people how to use it 9if mthere is anyone on staff that knows howmn too!
Also consider a heavier layer of asphalt. Two inches is a big laugh. How can it last?
Cheers
Grind off the top two or three inches of roadway, mix it with used motor oil and then lay it back down. Repeat again in two years. Probably doing this for years. Should work and create employment again.
So Mick Jones, or rather his undelings will “have a look” at Boundary Rd. Wow, he should be made to drive over it a few times a day! And in his own personal vehicle too.
Why can’t they heat the hot mix seperately from the trucks and just dump it in? Maybe use some of that heat from the city energy system as a warm up for it.
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