*** is with road maintenance crews these days

Hwy 5 and 16 in BC were a pathetic mess this past week, moreso today. 90% of my trip was spent putting along on a sheet of ice. Maybe, MAYBE a tandem load of sand spread out on the road over a couple hundred kilometers. Lots of cars and trucks in the ditch. How is this level of service even close to being considered acceptable or safe? Are companies bidding these contracts so tight these days that they can't afford to deliver adequate service? Its winter, its Canada. This is normal weather here and not some kind of weird anomaly that happens once in a decade.

Probably lack of experienced and gung ho crews available to peel up the pack ice and know what and when to do like every other industry.

It's been quite a few years since we had snow like the storm two weeks ago dumped out. It started snowing at 30 degrees, was 28F for close to 4 days, and dropped into the deep freeze. Our roads around here are ****. Unfortunately, it takes temps in the high teens and 20s for the ice melt to do any good, and anymore they blend so fricking much salt with the sand it just melts down into the ice and is useless. No different here. Good thing is we're supposed to get about 3 days in the 30s so they should be able to peel it off.

Crazy thing is I saw 4 plow trucks and only one plow truck was actually doing anything. Weather was not bad most of the day. I remember driving that highway 10 years ago during worse storms and the roads were in better shape. I really don't understand why there wasn't at least a decent amount of sand thrown down. A couple shovel's worth of sand thrown down leading into a corner is not nearly adequate.

Many moons ago running freight from Buffalo to Chicago the powers that be decided they could save some money avoiding the toll roads stateside and send us over the top through Ontario. Well most of the roads were maintained great until you exited 401 around London and headed across 402 to the Sarnia/ Port Huron bridge. There's a giant puddle called Huron north of the 402 that can dump feet of lake effect snow and the road is maintained by "contractors". I remember one trip in particular when I was cutting trail across that sucker with a set of doubles in a foot and a half of snow with several big trucks following on the west bound side and there were no fewer than 4 big snowplows in the ditch on the eastbound side. I got on the radio and asked if anyone wanted to pass me, the only response I got was "No Mr. Cornflake you're doing a fine job". Ahh the good old days.

What amazes me as the maintenance contractors get bonuses for doing a good job.

Around here there are few contractors, the State does it themselves. They put the blade down hard and peel off the ice and the road gets abused hard as a result. The County on the other hand, would rather save the road from the incessant scraping, so some places get pack ice and are very hard to drive until it melts on its own.

mekanik said: What amazes me as the maintenance contractors get bonuses for doing a good job. Click to expand... There was a multi-vehicle crash on 16 just west of Jasper's west park gate a couple days ago that had the highway 100% closed for over 11 hours and then 4 hours of alternating traffic before it was all cleaned up. Not one single mention of it on any media source that I can find. Usually serious stuff like that gets a mention in the news. Really odd.

Our local newspaper is like one guy now. The photographer became a reporter and now the editor and still photographer. He apparently works 9-5 except bank holidays. Anything that happens outside those hours does not get reported unless it affects like 1000 people. I tell you there are like 12 people making the whole world go around nowadays.

Birken Vogt said: Our local newspaper is like one guy now. The photographer became a reporter and now the editor and still photographer. He apparently works 9-5 except bank holidays. Anything that happens outside those hours does not get reported unless it affects like 1000 people. I tell you there are like 12 people making the whole world go around nowadays. Click to expand... Yea! but you forget Nige and I are both retired now! So might have to dial that back to 10!

I think its all dollars n cents or an excessive lack of. Maintenance on BC roads is pathetic and always caught up on after the fact. The crews for the most part have the knowledge and ability ,but are told to stand down when they are needed most. Its not unlike the fire season ,theres real reluctance to hire outside contractors when the sh*t hits the fan. Theres a resource of unused equipment available to get the job done but the bearuocrats that are good at taking our tax money are poor at spending where its needed.

Tugger2 said: I think its all dollars n cents or an excessive lack of. Maintenance on BC roads is pathetic and always caught up on after the fact. The crews for the most part have the knowledge and ability ,but are told to stand down when they are needed most. Its not unlike the fire season ,theres real reluctance to hire outside contractors when the sh*t hits the fan. Theres a resource of unused equipment available to get the job done but the bearuocrats that are good at taking our tax money are poor at spending where its needed. Click to expand... I hear ya on fire season. Last year or 2 was brutal, tons of local contractors with hundreds of years combined experience in the bush, on fires, know the area and how the fire will usually behave were sitting sidelined. Cherry on top of all that is the government telling people they aren't allowed to stay and save their properties but in the same breath they also say they don't have the resources to fight the fires. Back in 2003 when **** every piece of available equipment was utilized and anyone who could operate was out doing what they could. Just don't see that these days. I remember seeing skidders running up and down the highway, putting out spot fires. Don't see stuff like that happen these days.

Washington State has a highway web site that pinpoints all the construction and accident delays. If that isn't enough there are traffic cameras that can be viewed on all the freeway interchanges and a lot of the problems areas of state roads. Most of the news media couldn't keep up with the number of idiots and lunatics causing delays. Only rush hour in Pugetopolis is covered and for the most part they just link into the interchange cameras.

All those that are calling the shots still have fat jobs no matter what. But most of them are incapable of doing any than interfere with getting things done.

A common issue you don't hear about {allotment of funds for snow removal on roads. Cities and counties for eons have a chest for funds set aside for snow removal. Problem is other projects that have over runs on budget during spring, summer and fall often end up raiding the war chest for snow removal, and don't get replaced. And one thing cities, counties and states hate is overtime.

Birken Vogt said: I tell you there are like 12 people making the whole world go around nowadays. Click to expand... But, a certain wealthy businessman cuts a fart and the whole world pisses their pants. Something is going on, and it's not necessarily a good thing.

Call me cynical but would not suprise me one bit if they let the roads get this bad just so they have more reasons to push EVs and cricket burgers.

92U 3406 said: I hear ya on fire season. Last year or 2 was brutal, tons of local contractors with hundreds of years combined experience in the bush, on fires, know the area and how the fire will usually behave were sitting sidelined. Cherry on top of all that is the government telling people they aren't allowed to stay and save their properties but in the same breath they also say they don't have the resources to fight the fires. Back in 2003 when **** every piece of available equipment was utilized and anyone who could operate was out doing what they could. Just don't see that these days. I remember seeing skidders running up and down the highway, putting out spot fires. Don't see stuff like that happen these days. Click to expand... Because putting the fire out isn't a story. 17000 acres burned is. And something that can be used to........... Ooops,, prolly shouldn't say any more.........

Shimmy1 said: Because putting the fire out isn't a story. 17000 acres burned is. And something that can be used to........... Ooops,, prolly shouldn't say any more......... Click to expand... Yeah I know where you're going with that. I'm not going to elaborate either. I like hanging out here.

The last two years, we've had "meetings" telling us how to curtail the use of salt in road applications. Im all for less use of salt, but come up with an alternate that works before telling us to stop using what does work.