Councilor Blais submitted an inquiry to Council because he was concerned that some recent resurfacing work on the OR174 had not solved the rough condition of the road.
Quote:
What is the status of the repairs to the repairs of HWY 174?
Has the Contractor been informed of their poor level of service to the Community?
|
The answer has now bee released and it doesn’t sound promising:
Quote:
Renewal and maintenance work on Highway 174 between the 417/174 split and Montreal Road has proven to be a challenge due to the way the road is constructed. The two interior lanes in both directions run over a concrete base. This base has moved at many of the joints and has resulted in an uneven riding surface. These breaks, if left untreated, will result in accelerated deterioration and could pose safety risks.
Maintenance work was undertaken in 2008 to repair these breaks by milling and paving at the joints. These breaks have reappeared and staff recently repaved the affected areas. Works undertaken to date are temporary maintenance solutions and eventually more extensive rehabilitation is required.
Staff are currently reviewing renewal options. Field data is being collected to assist in determining both short and long term solutions. Staff expect to identify a preferred approach by the end of September 2011.
It should be noted at this time that staff anticipate the renewal options to be both a challenge and costly.
|
Quotes taken from http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycou...%20-%20Blais%20-%20%20HWY%20174%20v1.htm
So for some reason Staff assumed that there would be little further movement of the concrete plates under the OR174 lanes and that grinding the rough spots and resurfacing the road would solve the problems. This makes no sense to me what-so-ever, based on my experience, but it was a way to waste money, I guess.
Now Staff is looking into what it will take to actually FIX the problem. Of course, the only real solution is to dig up the road, remove the concrete slabs, and build a proper roadbed. The problem being that this will involve shutting down the road lanes during construction. The money is not so much of an issue although it is likely to be in the $100M-$150M range for the full four Kilometres.
With the Province planning to add an extra lane to the 417 west of The Split, it would be best to actually do the work on the OR174 at the same time. There will be major traffic problems due to the 417 construction so extending that to the OR174 might seem lessen the blow. Also, by fall of 2012 we should have the 85 new double-decker buses. If these can be employed for enhanced service between Orleans and Downtown then there could be a modal shift from cars (which would be bottle-necked by the construction) to buses (for which there should always be clear bus-lanes maintained).
Since the problem originated from the Province (assuming they were the ones who initially laid a concrete road), they should be required to help cover the cost of the road rebuilding.
Threaded Mode