ANTIGONISH – Mayor Sean Cameron suggests his experience as a skier is coming in handy as he navigates a stretch of roadway on Bay St.
“I am used to handling moguls, and that’s how you got to maneuver that now. You drive a little slower, you’re driving around it, but it’s just not good,” the veteran councillor offered during a Town of Antigonish committee of the whole (COTW) meeting on Nov. 3, as councillors discussed Bay St.’s bumpy and uneven condition, even after patchwork paving and pothole filling measures were carried out.
Councillor Diane Roberts asked if there was a way in which the results of the work could be improved.
“To do a better job, we would need to mill those fully, so that would have to be done in the spring at this point,” Kyle Meisner – town director of infrastructure and engineering – explained, noting that machinery would have to be brought in to remove the pavement.
Roberts offered, “I am getting calls and people talking and saying, you know, what a hell of a job,” of residents’ complaints about the road’s condition in that section.
“We should get that fixed – it is hurting our credibility,” Councillor Leon MacLellan said.
Mayor Cameron added, “And it’s hurting the reputation of our public works staff, who we know has done way better work.”
Councillors offered potential remedies, such as chipping away the asphalt, adding more in an effort to level the stretch and bringing in a steamroller to flatten it.
“Every time I hit that patch coming in from Malignant Cove or whatever, I am going ‘wow, what a terrible job this is,’ because it feels like you are going to take air,” Councillor Patrick McKenna said.
He noted that, if a driver avoids the patching, the roadway is “really smooth,” offering “we have almost created a little obstacle course of fun.”
About the steamroller option, Meisner noted that the flattening process usually occurs when the asphalt is heated to 300 degrees. McKenna mused if a heat source could precede the steamroller as it carries out the flattening.
The in-house measures had to be taken in order to deal with the condition of the stretch of street after contractors completed the first phase of the Bay St. infrastructure project in the spring. During the summer, with ever-increasing complaints about the potholes, council decided something had to be done. Considering that more extended work is planned for that area as part of the second phase of the Bay St. project, it was decided to move forward with a temporary fix rather than a permanent one, the idea being that they do not want to pave and then rip it up.
The price tag for the in-house work – including labour and supplies – was less than $20,000.
