Crews scramble to patch ‘horrible’ roads

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This article was published 07/02/2024 (589 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The early thaw has brought out the worst in Brandon’s roads, exposing potholes that are creating treacherous driving conditions for motorists across the city.

On Monday and Tuesday, provincial crews were filling potholes on 18th Street. Some sections were so badly cratered that they appeared to pose a risk of damaging even slow-moving vehicles.

It may still officially be winter, but City of Brandon staff are also hard at work on road and drainage maintenance they usually perform in the spring as warm weather continues to melt the snowpack.

“The roads are horrible, I’ll be the first to say that,” said Patrick Pulak, Brandon’s general manager of operations, in a Tuesday phone interview.

“It’s just that this kind of came out of nowhere. Normally we’re not prepared to be doing potholing in the first week of February. Regardless, it just took us a bit of time to do the switchover and as of today, they’re in full response mode.”

When the snow starts to melt in late winter and early spring every year, Pulak said, Brandon typically has two crews roaming around the city filling potholes.

Currently, there are three teams working on that task. On top of that, there are two trucks and two loaders out dealing with excavations that couldn’t be filled in before the cold weather set in.

“This is one to two months ahead,” Pulak said. “In fact, our response has been greater than what we normally do in spring just because of the rapid change in weather.”

According to Pulak, some of the water pooling on Brandon’s streets is a result of catch basins for storm sewers still being frozen and not draining quickly enough. To deal with that, there are vacuum and steam trucks going around to dislodge blockages.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Environment Canada was forecasting snowfall starting this evening and on Thursday, with the overnight lows dipping to -18 C by Saturday night.

Pulak said the goal for city crews is to fill potholes until snow accumulation gets to the point where they become hard to find and to clear catch basins to get as much water to drain as possible before it freezes like it did last fall.

When the roads freeze and then thaw again, the state of the city’s roads could become even worse.

“That’s what destroys roads,” Pulak said. “That’s what potholes start from. This kind of scenario, we have to take that into consideration planning our next response. What we see now just may be the tip of the iceberg and maybe worse in the spring.”

The material being deposited into potholes right now is not a true asphalt mix, Pulak said, because there are no asphalt plants in operation right now. Instead, something called a winter mix is being used to try to lessen the damage the holes are doing to vehicles. Pulak likened it to getting a temporary filling from a dentist before a permanent one is installed.

Come summer, he said, the city will have to investigate more permanent solutions.

Despite the extra work, Pulak said the response to the weather isn’t having too big of an impact on the city’s budget. To try to get the work done faster during normal operating hours, staff are being pulled in from other departments.

Some of the hot spots for issues with potholes and drainage right now, according to Pulak, are 18th Street, Park Avenue between 13th and 18th streets and 26th Street between Victoria and Park avenues.

Though it is in city limits, 18th Street is part of Highway 10 and is the province’s responsibility to maintain. Pulak said provincial crews have been performing maintenance on the street.

Other provincially-operated roads in Brandon include First Street from Richmond to Victoria avenues, Victoria Avenue west of First Street, Richmond Avenue east of 18th Street Highway 1, Highway 10, Highway 110, Provincial Road 457 and Provincial Road 459.

By email, a provincial spokesperson said Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure crews had patched the asphalt at the intersection of 18th Street and Victoria Avenue on Monday and are monitoring the status of other roadways so that repairs can be completed as soon as possible

“The Trans-Canada Highway, PTH 110, Provincial Road (PR) 340, PR 457 and other roadways in the vicinity of Brandon are also being patrolled routinely and repaired as needed to ensure the conditions are safe,” the email said.

“Maintenance crews have also been working to manage adverse conditions on provincial gravel roads in the vicinity of Brandon. Work on soft, muddy areas of these roads is ongoing and will be carried out over the next several days in an effort to improve road conditions in advance of colder weather.”

Around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Manitoba Infrastructure issued a notice saying Highway 465 southwest of Neepawa had been closed except for local traffic due to muddy conditions.

If Brandon residents have road issues to report, they can either do so online by visiting brandon.ca/report-an-issue or calling the public works department at 204-729-2285.

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