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