ST. PAUL – The County of St. Paul is reminding residents that construction crews have started work on Armistice Road and the municipality is asking the public to be patient with crews and reduce their speed accordingly.
Days before work began on July 25, the County offered an public explanation about why the oil laid last year had already broken down.
According to the County of St .Paul, last year the municipality completed a time-intensive rip and pack of all suspect soft areas, which involved digging out and replacing soft organic materials with good base clay and gravel, resulting in numerous open patches.
“Due to the majority of the road being still oil, we had to do something to seal the road for the winter and allow the blading trucks to perform their winter clearing without hitting the open gravel sections,” according to the County. “We oiled only one lift (2”) on these sections in order to finish prior to winter.”
Speaking about the road during a July 26 County of St. Paul Public Works meeting, Director of Public Works Daniel Reid confirmed that it was expected the patches would open during the spring season and plans to overlay patches with two to three lifts of cold mix were already made.
Reid noted that the base of the road is still good.
The municipality also stated it would be unable to get the entire road done in 2022, but progress will be notable, and the road will be addressed again next year. Coun. Ross Krekoski asked Reid how much progress ratepayers can expect to see this season, and acknowledged that he had been receiving a number of calls about the road.
Reid said with one crew running, about 50 per cent of the work would likely get done this season.
Armistice Road is located south of the Town of St. Paul, and runs from Highway 881 at Twp Rd 574, all the way to the Town of Elk Point.
While giving his director's report, Reid also acknowledged that there have been nearly double the number of inclement weather days so far this construction season, when compared to all of the 2021 season. As of last week's meeting, there had been 21 inclement weather days where work could not be done.
In 2021 there were 11 inclement weather days, overall.
Another challenge facing crews as they work on projects throughout the County is how difficult it is to get parts for machinery. In one instance, a part was ordered off eBay and Reid says he's hopeful that when it arrives, it will actually be the right part.
Reid also offered the idea of renting another reclaimer in order to move projects further along, although councillors did not speak in favour of the idea. Reeve Glen Ockerman recommended offering staff the opportunity for overtime instead, and getting more use from the machinery the County already has.
