Blackwater Road

I just got back from a trip on the Blackwater Road out of Prince George. The trip was about 125KMs. The road is gravel. What a delight to drive that road! Most of it is at least twice as wide as the 108 and Bells Lk rds. In my total trip I guess, conservatively, that I did not hit more then 10 metres of washboard. 10 meters as in approximately 30+ feet. And not only that, the approach's to cattle guards was seamless.

Now the question I have is this: If they can construct and maintain a gravel road like that, WHY CAN'T THEY DO THE SAME DOWN HERE. I have some ideas as to why not, but, I will keep them to myself. If you have been following this blog then you probably can guess.

It's a real shame to see our tax money spent this way.

Slow down when driving around the Horsefly area, you my be able to prolong the life of your vehicles.

108 Rd South

Last week I took the 108 Rd South to Lac La Hache. The road I am speaking about is accessed off of the 2300 Rd south of Macintosh Lakes. I was told that it had some work done on it. My source told me that they were rebuilding it and were using the same stuff as was used on the 108 Rd North, SAND. The main difference in this case is that it is an active logging area so the big logging trucks are using it and they are not happy. Go figure.

It was not the Horsefly IRL crew but another IRL crew. It appears the same company the same modus operendi! To put it simply, if you do not have a 4 wheel drive vehicle, do not use this road. It is an absolute disaster.

It is getting increasingly more difficult figuring out what this company is trying to do. If this is there idea of road rebuilding or even maintenance, then I suggest that the life span of the road is going to be very short. In other words, I suspect that the road will have to be closed. It will be impassible.

An other disturbing thing about this is when IRL passes the buck to another company ie losses the contract, the new company will have a massive clean up to do.

Is this gross incompetence?

Interesting.

Suprise

I just received an answer to an email I sent to the Ministry of Transportation 2 months ago, some of which I will share here.

" I appreciate the effort you have made to document your concerns. Please be assured my ministry takes its commitment to the safety of our

transportation network very seriously. The performance of our
maintenance contractors is an integral part of this commitment, and
ministry staff regularly audit and evaluate their performance to ensure
they are meeting our standards and work with them to quickly address any
maintenance issues that arise."  The significance of this statement is: maybe some one is really looking at this, albeit with a little prodding.

"
Ministry staff have reviewed your concerns about washboards and culverts
and advise me Interior Roads Ltd., the maintenance contractor
responsible for roads in the Horsefly area, have been undertaking
ongoing repair to the infrastructure in this area. Since 2007, extensive
ditching has been done on Bells Lake Road and 108 Mile Road, and
gravelling work has been done on 108 Mile, Bells Lake, Black Creek,
Lowden, Millar and Horsefly Lake roads. In addition, $1 million has been
invested in the resurfacing of an additional 10 kilometres of Horsefly
Lake Road this year" It is good to see that there is some further work going to be done on these roads. We all realize this, however it is not that work is going to be done but the quality of the work as well as,in some cases, why (?). See my last post on the installation of culverts on Bells Lake Road.

The next bit is of significance and should be noted by everyone in this area:

If you have questions about these improvements, please don't hesitate to
contact Nick Antifaeff, Area Manager of Roads for my ministry's Cariboo
District.  He can be reached at 250 398-4520 or by e-mail at
Nick.Antifaeff@gov.bc.ca.

There is more in this email which I will share in another post with comments

Bells Lake Road - Culverts part 2 or 3

Well I went and had a look at the culverts recently installed that I mentioned in a recent post. Here I thought that they had removed the old ones and installed 2 new ones! Why they would do that in the first place was a bit of a mystery to me. However I was not disappointed? They actually added 2 more culverts. That makes 4 to handle spring time run off during a 2 week period. See below:
You will note in the above picture the 4 culverts. This picture is taken on the exit side and you will note that the marked culvert actually runs up hill. I wonder if this is an engineering feature. I also wonder if the maintenance folks mistook the direction of flow. You will note that his area is well cleared. Now take a look at the entrance side of the road.


The normal procedure in road construction is that a catchment basin is dug in this area. Now I sure everyone knows why?
1. It gives the water a place to gather where it will eventually rise and begin to flow through the culverts. A natural flow control if you will. Come on folks this is not rocket science.
2. A catchment basin also is a place where flotsam will gather which can be cleaned out easily.


As you can see here, there should be some trouble this spring

This must also be an engineering feature. Place the culvert up high enough and it should take only a little water.

I had a look at the old culverts and they both had mud in them. In short they did not appear to have been cleaned out.

Now all this leads to several questions:

1. Was this installation engineered:
2. Why did they not pull the 2 old culverts out and replace them with a larger single culvert with a welded wire screen at the inlet
end. They could have reused the old culverts and still have 2 nice new shinny ones left to use.
3. Does anyone know what the average flow rate is during flooding. This would determine the size of culvert needed!
4. What is the size of the catchment area. This information would also help to determine what size of culvert would be needed.

I suppose we should be thankful that this was done. Only the coming spring run off will determine if it was done right.

Our tax dollars at work. In these severe economic times it is comforting to know that a great deal of thought is going into the maintenance of our roads.

More to come. It's a never ending source of discussion.

Work Safe?

A friend was travelling to Williams Lake along Bells Lake road a couple of weeks ago. He came across a workers sign on the side of the road approximately 7kms from the 108 Road. The local highways group had the road block and were replacing culverts which I have mentioned in past posts. There were no signs at 108 Road Junction or the Horsefly Road/Bells Lake road junction. As My friend was travelling to a Drs. appointment he had to turn around and go the long way to Williams Lake. While waiting at the road block, no employee made any attempt to come to him to inform him how long it would be. I wonder what would have happened it a logging truck or a cattle truck was using the road at that time?

It was also pointed out that there were no flag persons and that none of the workers were waring hard hats. I wonder if they had correct footware. What was happening was they dug up the old culvers and replaced them with nice shinny new ones. The back hoe operator tried to move the back hoe a few feet to hook up the culverts to swing them into place. He could not move the back hoe because he left the stabalizers down as well as the bucket digging into ground. It took him a bit before he figured it out.

Now the questions that I have are:

1. Why was the road not blocked off at the main junctions?
2. Why were there no flag persons?
3. How come no one had safety gear on?
4. Why was there no public notice of this project?

I wonder what Work Safe BC would have to say about this little project

Now I have not had a good look at the installation other then a quick drive by so will not comment at this time. When I get a chance I will do a good look and take some pictures. At least we now have some "unplugged" culverts at this time. The proof of the pudding will be, of course, this coming spring.

All for now .... Any comments?

Horsefly Road

Well the Horsefly road has had some work done on it from roughly the Jessica Lake Rd into Horsefly. It certainly is an improvement, BUT, does the cost of the work justify the method? I believe the technique they used is called "Hot in place replacement" or something to that affect.

A couple of comments: 1. There did not appear to be any prep work done prior to the procedure taking place. eg. There has been a bad section, the bump signs are still up, near Jessica Lake Road. Now that section has been like that for at least 10 years if not longer. Every spring the road heaves which causes breaking up resulting in a rough patch being placed on it. Now this tells me there is something going on under the surface. This was just paved over which I suspect we will see the results of next spring. 2. The lift was, I suspect, the exact thickness of the existing surface. Being nice and fresh it will be interesting to see how it will stand up to the tri-axle overloaded logging trucks which I see on it already.

It would be interesting to see the numbers on this project. In the mean time enjoy it while it lasts.

Washboard Roads

In a previous post I mentioned that some parts of 108 Rd were so bad that it was a hazard to drive on. Well I see that the maintenance folks did some spot grading on that section of road.

When I heard that this had happened I decided to take a drive over it. What I can report is that what was done was a complete waste of the tax payers money. What I'm about to say is MY opinion.

I drove over the previously mentioned section a day after the spot grading had taken place. Now this really gets under my skin. I don't think that more then a mm was taken off of one section of washboard. This section happens to be on a hill and was perhaps the worst section of washboard. ONE MM is what I said. In other words, the job was not done. The washboard is still there?????? Other sections of the road that were nearly as bad were not done. Now remember that this is part of the road that was up graded last year.

I am no expert. I am not an engineer. I am not a graderman. I have some experience with roads through staff who were required to maintain roads. And, I do know when a job has been done correctly. The questions I have to ask is WHO is in Charge? Is there anyone in charge? I can not comment on the competence of the graderman solely on the UNACCEPTABLE job that was done. Was he given orders to do it that way? If he was not, then did his supervisor inspect the completed (?) job? I have to wonder if any of these people have an annual work evaluation carried out.

My next quest will be to see if I can get any budget information for this area as well as work plans. I know what you are thinking: you gota be joking. Well I will try.

The final question I ask is again why are the standards for Horsefly different then other areas in the Province.

Until next time

Culverts?

In an earlier post I mentioned that I had heard that culverts (14) were requested for this area. If you have driven around you will see that there definitely is a need. I also mentioned that the request for these culverts was turned down. With all the road construction going on in the central part of BC I understand why there is little to no money for rural roads(?).

I guess what is beginning to get my goat is: OK no new culverts! Does that mean that the works crews can not get out and try to repair the ones that are causing all the problems? Perhaps there is no local works crews! Perhaps salary monies have been withdrawn as well. Perhaps no one cares.

Same old - Same old #2

I have just returned from the Vanderhoof area and have a question. How can two areas in the same province have such different road construction and maintenance? I'm waiting for an answer!

The roads in the Vanderhoof area, I'm talking about gravel roads, are for the most part wide, seem to be well constructed and very well maintained. Sure they have wash board sections, even some pot holes, but in general there is not a gravel road in the Horsefly area that can come anywhere near as good as there roads. I always thought that the Ministry of Highways and Transportation had a standard that applied to all the Province. This obviously is not the case. WHY WHY?

I just returned from a drive into Horsefly along the 108 Road. I did not return on the 108 as it is washboard from Walter's Lake Road to Horsefly. This road was supposed to be repaired last year which they used sand on it instead of gravel. I guess we are now seeing the results of it.

Is anyone in charge? Does anyone care who does not have to use it on a daily basis? Maybe we, the user's, will have to put up barricades closing the roads because of poor maintenance and possible hazards.

Culverts?

Things seem to have dried up fairly well and some maintenance to the roads is underway. In my last post I mentioned that the Highways dept. has turned down request for culverts for this area??????? Now I want to show you a culvert on the Bells Lake Road.

If you have been following this blog, you will have seen some pictures of Bells Lake road in my Apr 15 post. The following pictures and comments relate to this area.

After the wash out and flooding the highways group put down some decent gravel and did a fairly nice job, particularly in relation to the previous years repair (?).




Take a look at the picture above. What you see is a damaged culvert. Do you think that this had anything to do with the flooding? Although it is not evident in the photo, the broken piece is laying in the mud.


You get a better idea what the catchment area looks like in this photo. Also note the angles of the 2 culverts. Hmmmmm!

In this photo, the other side of the road, the culverts are some what parallel although they do not appear to be the same hight. Is this an engineering decision? Also if the culverts are parallel on this side of the road and not so on the other side what does that tell you?



Now take a look at this rather blown out photo of the current running out of the culverts. The one on the right is moving a fair volume of water while the one on the left is moving very little. What does that tell you?

This should be an alert that the culverts and the catchment area's on these and ALL other culverts need to be attended to. I would suggest in a month or two would be ideal times as the water level should be at it's lowest. BEFORE WINTER PLEASE.

I have mentioned before that it appears that there is not a maintenance plan in place. It would be nice if I am wrong but it appears that I nor others will never know. It is absolutely amazing what a little communications can do. Let us know, Highways, what you are doing and what you plan for the year. We have a number of print media that I'm sure would be happy to print such information.

Until next time

In the scheme of things

On a recent trip to Kamloops there was a lot of construction on 97. Fortunately there were few delays as I had an early start. Even if there was I would not have been put off as we really need improvements on that highway.

On the other had I have been told that the local highways crew requested a number of culverts (see my last post) and were turned down flatly. Now when you take a look at the number of culverts in this area and in particular the large number of damaged ones, it becomes a concern. The question begs: why do we have damaged culverts in the first place?

I suppose that when you look at the big picture, highway 97, gravel roads in the Horsefly area, who do you think is going to win! As the rancher would say: it looks like we are going to have to continue to suck the hind teat. Maybe if everyone contributed to fixing up the road in front of and along there property line, then maybe we would get some good roads to drive on??

As an after thought, I just had to have some work done on my car's front end, a 2008. As I said to the service rep, these cars were not designed to be driven continually on or roads. He agreed. I guess it's back to the fuel gobbling truck.

In the scheme things I guess we are insignificant.

Road Building ?

Last year, 2008, some long awaited repairs were done to 108 rd from Bells Lake road to approximately the 20 board. We all wondered about these repairs as they put done approximate 6 to 8 inch's of sand with a little bit of gravel. Most who live in this part of the world have never seen this type of road repair before. The general consensus seems to be that it will not stand up and I think this time of year, April, we are seeing the start of the deterioration. Only time will tell, hopefully not to soon.

Now when you go back and look at some of the work that has been done you begin to wonder what else will go wrong. I am, of course, speaking about a culvert at Malcolm Creek.

When we take a look at the following photo, all does not appear to be that bad. Right?

Now let's take a closer look.

The depression you see is where there is a culvert running below the road. The only problem is it is approximately 1/2 inch below the surface. Remember the road was resurface last year and this depression started to show up approximately 2 to 3 weeks after the project was completed??????

Now lets take a closer look.

The yellow line represents the edge of the road. What is that you say? A hole in the side of the road! Remembering of course that the road was resurfaced last summer, how could this be? Now let's take a closer look:

The yellow line is the same one in the photo above. So what do we have here. A culvert and it does not reach the side of the road. What you don't see is that a piece of culvert was added but not attached ie welded together. Then to top it off, they tried to cover up the error (?) by covering it with an abutment sign. That is the type of sign that they put on the ends of bridges, the yellow and black stripes signs.

As this road is narrow, if you were to meet an oncoming vehicle at this point and you moved over so that you could both pass, I think you would be in serious trouble. It is a SAFETY ISSUE.

You would also think that if there was any QC (quality control) during and after the project that this SAFETY ISSUE, would have been caught and rectified IMMEDIATELY.

I guess that this is the quality of construction and other things that we will have to continue to put up with.

Same old, Same old. Still lots to report on including road flooding etc. etc.

Comments

Same old - Same old

Well it's that time of the year again: Floods and washed out roads. It seems to me that if you have a problem EVERY year in the same spot that you fix the problem.






If you look back in past posts you will find a similar picture. Now what is wrong with this. Well for starters it's a safety hazard. Secondly it is a money problem. The money problem might not be the case because all it takes for this to be temporarily fixed is a load of gravel and some signs. You will notice no signs when the picture was taken but they did appear later in the day. I might add that this situation started 4 days earlier (safety hazard).







I talked to a highways employee to ask why it had not been signed. I was told that they had run out of signs because they need so many on other roads. They had to drive to Williams Lake to get
some more???????










Now this particular problem can be fixed. The problem I see is that it would cost more money in one year to do it right then they are willing to spend on it. If you ignor the problem, spend as little money each year only when it is brought to the attention of the government, then you will not have to spend much money each year. Has anyone tallied up the cost over the years.









You can see in this picture a couple of culverts. The interesting thing here is that there is not that much water flowing through them. I wonder why. Back to the preventive maintenance problem I have spoken about earlier. Clean out the culverts in the fall and guess what. You just might have fewer problems in the spring.












I have to wonder when the amount of money spent on proper maintenance to our roads out weighs the safety of the travelling public! I narrowly missed this travelling along this road late one night. If I had hit it what level of damage would my vehicle have sustained? What level of injuries would I have received?

Again just the same old, same old, in the continuing saga of poor road maintenance in the Horsefly area.

Comments!

PM #2

Well spring has sprung, at least on some days. I titled this entry PM#2. For those who might not be familiar with the term PM, it would appear obvious that the road contractor does not, it means Preventive Management. The concept behind PM is to get things fixed before they go wrong. The "dahhhhh" factor is, get this: IT SAVES MONEY. Yes it does and guess who's money it is saving. Right again: yours and mine ... the tax payer.

I was travelling down Bells Lake road a couple of weeks ago. There were a lot of bare spots and of course there were spots with a fair depth of snow still on the road. Now it seems to me that if one was in the PM mode, there would have been a plow truck out there moving the snow of the road. It was soft as could be seen by the ruts and of course felt at night and early morning by the deep ice ruts. Now correct me if I'm wrong, if the snow had been taken off then the current mud holes that are there now might not be there and the road might be dry. With a dry road there is a remote possibility that there would be less pot holes. Get my drift.

In the same light, PM, it would seem to me to be logical, that if you filled some of those GROWING holes at the cattle guards they might be less dangerous then they are now. I wonder how long it will be before someone figures out how to fix cattle guards. Of all my travels, and I have been doing a lot lately, the cattle guards in the Horsefly area are hands down the worst.

Feel free to jump in with your story's ... I'm sure that they will be good ones.

Drive safely

Preventive Planning?

I travelled to and from Williams Lake the other day and noticed around the Pioneer log house building site, they have cleared a large area behind it. I also noticed, what I thought at first, was a large herd of cattle. Taking a second look it was not cattle but deer. It's been a long time since I have seen so many deer together in one place.

Now this got me to thinking: What is going to happen come spring? Oh yes it will eventually come. Very likely the deer will be heading down to the road. You all know what this means. Dead deer, and lots of vehicle damage. Hopefully that will be all.

It would be nice if the highways folks, or the contractor for that matter, used a little bit of common sense and forethought. It would seem logical that the placing of deer reflectors at that location would go a long way to cutting down the potential carnage.

Some food for thought!

And the snow continues to fall

I have just returned from a stay (month long) in the Punshaw area SW of Prince George. Other then the
cold weather, a few days anyway, it was not all that bad. What makes it not that bad was the very good
condition of the roads, especially for the winter.

Having had to make a number of trips into Prince George I had to drive on the Punchaw Rd, then onto
the Blackwater Rd, approximately 1 hour drive from Prince George. In short, the roads were extremely
good, well maintained, and seemed to always be plowed out right after each snow fall. Not only were
they plowed out, they were sanded and pushed right back. No getting narrower with each snow fall.
One of the enjoyable (?!) parts of the winter driving, being to Prince George or Quesnel, was that each
cattle guard I came to: guess what? They were properly plowed out, the cattle guards were set at the
right height. No bone jarring hits and very likely easy on the suspension.

When I returned to this part of the country I was surprised to see the roads well plowed out. But quess
what has not changed? If you guessed cattle gruards, you are right. Come on folks (IRS), this is not
rocket science. Any graderman I have talked to tells me this. I also have talked to some former
employee's of mine, professional drivers, who have had YEARs of plowing experience, all tell me the
same thing. There is no excuse for the condition of the roads around all our cattle guard's.

One last thing: On my return, I had to dig out the enterance to my drive. In the Blackwater country, all
drive way's were plowed out by the highway crews. That little bit of effort goes a long way to
maintaining a good customer relationship. It's little things that make a big difference.

A nice touch in the Blackwater/Prince George area: All logging company vehicles are marked with a
placard displayed on the fround of the vehicle. Pick ups included. I also understand that a couple of the
bigger operators have hired road cops. What a novel idea, policing speeders. Sounds like a good idea to
me.

If you want to add a comment please do so ...

Black Water Road

I have recently had the opportunity to travel up the Black Water Road (Prince George – Quesnel area) this past month. What a difference when you compare it to our area. Even on side roads with 1 or 2 people living there, the roads are very well maintained. With a recent snow fall, the roads were cleared a day and half after with follow up clean up and grooming following in 3 days time.

Another thing that I noticed is how each driveway had been cleared. This is a very nice service and can go along way to getting the taxpayer on the side of the road contractor. I even noticed where some drive ways have no place to place there snow, pushed across the road, the Contractor makes sure that the snow is pushed back so as not to cause any danger to vehicles using the road. This is not the case, or at least has not been the case recently in our area.

The question is: Why is there such a difference in the standards in the way the roads are maintained. One last thing, my favourate, all the cattle guards I crossed, were perfect. Hmmmmmm.

Have a safe one.