Have you noticed that many of the areas that were supposedly ‘fixed’ last year are a problem again this year?

Once water starts to get through the asphalt and into the base, the base needs to be repaired. Pouring asphalt down the hole isn’t going to fix the problem for more than a year. You need to excavate out around the hole, redo the base in that area and then repave.

Of course, fixing it for 20 years instead of 1 year might cost twice as much…

Yep! Take a drive up Ospika to Tyner. If they don’t fix it this year it will be a real mess next year!

Nice pothole in the NEW section of Domano built last year already.. Is this a quality issue? workmanship… ????

If you think the roads are bad just waite till the water stops flowing in your pipes and the sewers start to back up.

They didnt have the funds to plow the residential areas last winter but they had the funds to haul the snow off the shoulder on Ospika to Tyner.
Cheers

Road repairs in this city consist of scraping a thin layer of old asphalt off the road, and skimming a new layer on – no effort is being made to rehab the substrate layers which are were the potholes are developing.

I have been watching the repairs over the last 15 years, since we arrived in this city. The only thing that surprises me, is that some of the roads that have been ‘repaired’ don’t fail the same year as they were done. The only effort to fix the potholes I have seen is tossing a few shovelfuls of gravel in the depression before applying the new layer. As an example, this happened during the big repairs done on Domano between Trent and Domano a couple of years ago, which are letting go already.

The entire city is caving in, road by road. Sewer grates are heaving, curbs are sinking or broken, and actual sinkholes are showing up. If I wanted to be 4-wheeling, I would have moved to the rural area outside the city!

Heavy trucks are also beating up our roads badly.

Take a drive on 22nd Avenue starting at the bypass and going to Ospika. Notice how beat up the road is all the way to the freight yard and how much smoother it is afterwards.

22nd Avenue is one of the streets due for fixing this year. I suspect that the heavy truck traffic will beat up the repairs in short order.

If they repaired or even built the roads properly, counsel will have less discretionary funding for other things, like trips to china, and helping friends with their multi-million dollar companies.

We are still doing things in the pioneer fashion: quick, cheap and short-sighted.

There are still Roman built roads used today by motor vehicles. Now that was civil engineering, unlike the “modern” methods used in Canada.

While I agree that our roads look and feel bad, we need to remember that it has to do with our climate. City Hall does need to look at the quality of the repairs and materials as well as the employees performing the road repairs, however, we still need to be mindful of the uncontrollable factor: the weather.

When was the last time anyone saw a crack sealing crew out there? Why does the city of PG allow heavy truck traffic to enter residential neighborhoods for periods up to 3 hours to enable the drivers to stop at home for lunch? Why does the city of PG allow the Bandstra and Elite Transport trucks to park at the end of Domano overnight? Heavy trucks have no business travelling our streets unless they are there for business. The city wants to fine taxpayers for putting their garbage out the night before or watering on the wrong day.

Mismanagement and out of touch priorities are the reason our roads are falling apart.

There is absolutely no doubt that the City has spent our tax dollars on various projects that they (not taxpayers) wanted, and as a result out roads and infrastructure have gone to hell in the past 10/15 years. That’s what happens when you try to do things on the cheap.

The City had to know that there would be a price to pay by putting off proper repairs to roads, etc;, however they carried on regardless, and we are now reaping the rewards.

The Citys roads are a testament to how our City in managed, and its pretty obvious that we are not doing a good job.

Our roads state emphatically that we are not capable of looking after the most basic requirements of the City.

weather is something to be dealt with, not used as an excused for inadequate engineering and construction.

That is the purpose of engineering: to overcome conditions.

Climate? Roads? Pay someone to draw a parallel “hockey stick” in relation to our climate affecting our roads. Then scrutinize that hockey stick for diddling.

I recently took my wife to the airport for a flight to Vancouver.As we were standing around waiting for the message to enter the security area,I overheard a young couple tell an older couple that our roads suck.Now from this quote I assumed the young couple were not from PG.If this is young people spreading a message about our roads,how does the mayor and council expect to attract anyone to move here?Now just imagine the amount of people in 2015 coming and spreading the same message around!The people in city hall better hope we have all the holes filled in with snow when people arrive for these games.I know Brian Skakun reads this site from time to time,so maybe he can pass this post about comments made by these young people onto the mayor and the other members of council.Then maybe they can pull their heads out of their asses and spend our money on what really matters!

My street was paved in the late 50’s and was still good when the City replaced it(they said it was schedule) and the new pavement has had to have repairs every year. The Reason is cracks that run across the road and each year the cracks get wider. Our base is good it is the paving system that breaking down.

People should introduce a law/regulation which allows the city residents to repair the streets in the neighborhood and send the bills to the city instead of paying fees and taxes. Like doing the repairs in a rented property and subtracting the bills from the due rent.

Every PG street an “undesignated” truck route?

Does weather have an effect on our roads or not? Loki, not everything can be overcome.

Yes, weather does have an affect.
Weather is merely a condition to take into design consideration of materials, application process, and finishing.

Try telling an engineer that he/she cannot “overcome” a certain obstacle. They will not get much other work done until that challenge is met.

This is not new stuff. We have been paving for almost a century now. Different regions have different conditions, so we cannot build permanent roads in this region as they do in other (lower mainland?) regions. The problem is that we hire designers and engineers that are not from here, and therefore are not aware that they have to do something different or that design process has not been budgeted for the local project by the non-local designers.

If this was made a part of the RFQ, then it could, would , and should be a design consideration.

However, when we have a city counsel that has de-prioritized quality road building for bogus, extra-jurisdictional jaunts, we will continue to have roads built that were not designed for our regions conditions.

As someone else already noted, they built fine paved roads in the 1950’s. Yet, the replacement resurfacing is not holding up so well.

What else could be other than: materials, design differences, and application processes.

Almost Anything is possible. One must first believe, then work your behind off towards that solution goal. How else did they build the seven wonders of the ancient world with hand tools and human labour. They busted a sweat through the entire design and build process.

PG is not unique when it comes to weather, at least not in comparison to the rest of the country. Literally every single Province and Territory in this country has to deal with winter, freeze thaw cycles and the problem that causes for roads.

At the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. If PG wants better roads the solution is simple and it comes down to one of three things or a combination of all three:

1) Raise taxes so that more money can be directed towards road repair;
2) Re-allocate spending from other areas to road repair; or
3) Improve the techniques they use for road repair

It’s not rocket science. IMHO, a good first step would be for the folks in city hall to realize that PG isn’t some special place that has unique problems. Talk to other cities who have the same issues with good roads, find out how they approach repair, what it costs per KM to keep the roads in that condition and then evaluate how the budgets have to be managed to get there.

But hey, I know the mayor doesn’t like spreadsheets so that task may be too hard, LOL :)

It is just not the weather, it is the form of pavement they use – smooth and porous and cracks where each new load was put in the paver. B Gaul, head of the roads also stated that the liquid deicer was causing the breakdown of the pavement, but that it was better to save lives. So maybe if people were willing to slow down and drive on winter roads instead of demanding pavement all year round we would have less potholes.

Ever notice how highway

Ever notice how highway 16 and 97 withstand our severe winters Its been a number oy years since they have been repaved and there are no cracks or pot holes.

They need better techniques to buil;d the roads. The sub-divisions are built by a developer and they dont care how long the roads last and the City dosent care how they are built so how can our streets last?
Cheers

316 and 7

Yes, roads constructed and paved within the City last a far shorter time than the roads in the Provincial highway system. Yes, the developers do it on the cheap and the City does not demand a standard, so we pay year after year, while the developers laugh all the way to the bank. How sad!

Canada games will be in February. Potholes will be filled with snow. No need to make sure the roads are fixed by then, visitors won’t know any better.

On average I spend more in a year in vehile repairs directly related to our road conditions than the portion of my taxes that go towards road repairs. I wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes to get our roads fixed right because this would actually save me money if (and this is a big if) there was a way to make sure the extra money wouldn’t get misdirected to other unneeded projects.

We ARE paying more for road repairs. Don’t you remember the special tax that was brought in for road repair a few years ago? It didn’t improve the situation then or in years since. Wonder where that money goes?

The road maintenance, snow clearing, patching and sweeping in this town is so badly managed, if it isn’t simply a way to keep paying a lot of people paycheques, I don’t know what is.
So why hasn’t the management changed? Oh yeah, I forgot…….politics.

Edmonton has winter/weather but some how their roads are good!

“On average I spend more in a year in vehile repairs directly related to our road conditions than the portion of my taxes that go towards road repairs”

This is not meant to defend our horrible roads BUT – I have to ask, what the heck do some of you do? I have driven in PG for 25 years, and with work I put on a heck of a lot more kms than average. Short of losing a hubcap about 15 years ago I have not had one mechanical failure that I would / could blame on road conditions…