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Mayo Lake Road and Hartsmere Road rehabilitation to go forward

June 17, 2020

June 17, 2020

By Michael Riley
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The rehabilitation of Mayo Lake Road and Hartsmere Road in Carlow Mayo Township will be going ahead within the next couple of weeks. In their June 9 council meeting, Mayor Bonnie Adams and the councillors present welcomed engineer Jason Ward from Perspective Engineering to give a report on the status of the rehabilitation of these two roads.

Jenny Snider, deputy clerk and treasurer for Carlow Mayo Township, says that 4.1 kilometres of Mayo Lake Road and 3.2 kilometres of Hartsmere Road are going to be fixed up.

“The municipality received funding for this project in 2019 though the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program: Rural and Northern Communities Funding Stream, provided through the federal and provincial governments. This project is in its second and final year. This year’s work will be the completion of pulverizing old bituminous surface, applying gravel and then resurfacing with hot mix asphalt,” she says.

Ward said at the meeting that everything was pretty straightforward and that the pulverizing should commence on June 25. The quarry granular Grade A would be put on after that and would take about a week and a half, and then the asphalt would be applied, which would take about eight or nine days.

Ward said that all the documentation had been submitted for the pre start meeting on June 11. This was a conference call meeting between the road superintendent Charles Mackey, Ward and the contractor that will be completing the Mayo Lake/Hartsmere Road project. It was an information sharing session and organizational meeting between the three of them, and according to Snider, no official minutes were taken by the municipality.

Adams and council then discussed how best to notify people of the construction and of any delays. They floated the idea of a radio spot, an ad in the newspaper or just putting a warning sign up on the electronic sign board outside Mayo Community Centre on Mayo Lake Road.

Ward pointed out that while people might be delayed for about five minutes at any given time, there would be no blockages. With that information, Adams decided on just putting a warning on the electronic sign board, which was agreed upon by all. Everyone in the council meeting just wanted to ensure that people weren’t too inconvenienced and to keep them informed.

Ward then brought an additional item to the council’s attention. He had heard that the Canadian Ministry of Infrastructure may soon have funding available for municipalities to undertake local infrastructure projects. He explained that the emphasis was on shovel ready projects, those projects that had already had an engineering study done on them and could be submitted within a few days.

Ward said that the ministry was hoping to start this initiative as soon as people got back to work, to stimulate the economy. While there has been no official announcement yet, he urged the council to think of any shovel ready projects they may have in the township that they could apply to this program in the next month or so, if the program did become available.

After a brief discussion, Adams brought up the Boulter Road project, which has had an engineering study already, and is in need of much repair. Ward agreed that this project was feasible.

“You could do others that are not shovel ready, but that would take time and money to get the engineering done before you can apply. If the engineering is done, you could apply within a few days,” he said.

The Boulter Road project focuses on a road that is really breaking up and would be quite costly to fix. In the short term and in the long term, Ward estimated that the cost to fix it could exceed $2 million, so it would be a good candidate to apply for the government funding if it arises.

Councillor Mike Cannon suggested doing New Carlow Road, as it’s in bad shape and the dust is terrible, according to him and what he has heard from constituents. While lauded as a good idea, it was pointed out by Ward that it’s not shovel ready. He says it would take an average of eight to ten weeks to get an engineering report done and make it shovel ready. He also points out that fixing the road in that case would cost around $200,000 versus the $2 million plus it would cost to fix up Boulter Road.

In terms of a cost analysis, according to Ward, it would be best to go with Boulter Road.

“You may want to start thinking about this so that when the applications open, you’re ready. I just wanted to make you aware that this was something coming available and give you the best information we have currently,” he says.

Adams and the council decided that Ward’s comments made sense, but deferred further discussion and a decision on a possible Boulter Road project application to a later date.



         

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