Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen board members had long lists of roadway complaints to share with Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure representatives at this week’s meeting — issues operations manager Jeff Wiseman could only agree were problems that keep on piling up.
Wiseman and Ryan Thorpe, both with the ministry, laid out expected 2019 projects, including ongoing flood repair throughout the district and Highway 3 resurfacing and repair in a number of different spots.
Wiseman told board members to reach out privately about their concerns so they could arrange a meeting, since it was clear that there was too much discussion needed for one brief appointment.
A question came from the board as to whether a combined priority list from all the directors, especially of smaller issues like paving and potholes on side roads in rural areas that aren’t as regularly monitored, would be helpful.
“The biggest help and benefit that we can get is the identification of those, and if there are some that have a high priority, that’s fantastic,” Thorpe said. “We still have our own criteria that we’ll go through.”
Wiseman stated “I don’t want to get expectations up that if you were to provide me with a list of your top 20 roads, that would keep me going for 50, 75 years,” he said. “We know that our side roads are in tough shape. Our highways, quite often the pavement on our highways gets no older than 30 years. We have side roads that are 50-plus years old.”
Wiseman said he shares the frustration, as a fellow tax payer, with the slow grind of the system. He encouraged all the directors to send information about problematic side roads to help with potentially buddying-up smaller projects with nearby larger re-pavings, though he said most of the contract crews already know where the hot spots are.
Source: files from Castanet
Photos:ODN
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Does the Town of Oliver get off lightly – NO this quick way of circumventing a mall and the highway should be fixed or closed. I doubt any of senior Town staff really cares much and the problem will sit for more years……
