Resurfacing roads and addressing resurfacing potholes in Winnipeg

We’re continuing to look at the state of our roads and streets in the city of Winnipeg. Right now I’m joined by Winnipeg city councillor Brian Mays. I want to tell you, councillor, we’ve been sort of taking a little tour around town today and some of the streets look like the surface of the moon. Your thoughts? Yeah, I mean that’s that’s the state of the roads at the end of the winter here the last few years. And we have poured a lot of money at the road resurfacing over the last decade. But yeah, we still got issues with potholes for sure. Is part of the problem the the winter that never was, so to speak. I mean, not a lot of people are complaining. It wasn’t severe cold and not a lot of snow. But then it started to warm up and we, we started getting an early look at potholes. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, I’m no Rd. engineer, but that’s my sense of it from talking with the staff is, yeah, a lot, the freeze thaw, a lot more water out there, a lot of it. I mean, it certainly wasn’t a cold winter, but we had a lot more ice than usual, I think. So yeah, it takes time. We got some old roads. So it it’s taking a toll. We were earlier travels we were all just off Cordon Ave. What’s it like out in Saint Patel? I mean I was at door knocking this morning a couple of streets that you know we Kerwell, Scottsboro, we resurfaced these a couple of years ago. They look great but you know some of the other streets where you haven’t done the resurfacing, yeah you still your Belliveau, you still got you got a lot of complaints coming in. So some of this is just we used to spend 30 million a year on roads, now we spend like 150. So we’re we’re improving but yeah still problems in a in a lot of streets and it’s you know every year every spring people come up with ideas on how to lessen the impact of them. People come up with while we should be using this type of asphalt and we should be using this type of when we’re doing road construction projects. What do you think of that I mean I’ve heard it every spring while we’re not using the right materials. Yeah I mean you hear this every year that you know when I, when I use the current aggregate and if we just got it from a little bit further north and this I I mean I don’t know I I can’t imagine our staff were deliberately doing it the wrong way or you know trying to be inefficient about it. So I’m assuming we’re the technology is getting better We did hire that guy from U of M for years to consult on changing the mix around to make it more effective. So I think it’s I think we’re putting a lot of time and money into it. You know, yeah I’m not going to minimize it. I I drive like everybody else and you have to to swerve around. But you know I think I think the road resurfacing we’ve done I mean we did almost a billion dollars under Bowman. I I think that really does you know it it has paid off well we’re pretty much into spring now and that’s going to be the start of a another road construction season. Any highlights you can pass on to us real quick of what you see coming down the Pike? Well in Saint vital end of things a lot of the major streets are getting done this year for parts of Saint Mary’s, Dakota St. Anne’s finally finishing the bridge project, not as many of the local streets. But you know there’s always, there’s always demand and they’re always sore spots. So you you can’t quite believe after 10 years you haven’t gotten them all dealt with, but you know, it’s kind of an ongoing battle.