Voicing the frustrations of many local drivers, Councillor Dawn Luhning engaged in a pointed series of inquiries with administration during Monday’s regular Moose Jaw City Council meeting, seeking answers on confusing roadwork, messy construction sites, and a months-long traffic light issue.
The exchange highlighted the critical role of council in demanding accountability for the public works projects that residents experience every day.
Luhning’s first target was the recent paving project on 13th Avenue NW, where residents have been perplexed to see newly paved asphalt being cut up.
“It looks like they’ve been ripped up and there’s pylons now,” Luhning stated, relaying what she said was a citizen's observation that had been privately communicated to her.
“So, it was repaved and then it was ripped up... I’d like to know why this happens and why it, whatever was ripped up... is not done before it's paved.”
Bevan Harlton, the City’s Director of Operations, provided a detailed engineering and financial explanation for the problems on 13th. He clarified that 13th Avenue NW is a "centre drain road," where manholes in the middle of the street also act as storm catch basins.
Faced with two options — a full road rebuild with new storm infrastructure for roughly $2 million or a more affordable surface rehabilitation — the city chose the latter, even though it means that avenue will likely continue to need work.
"The road cost for that job was about $200,000," Harlton explained, noting that the more expensive option would have consumed two-thirds of the city’s entire $3 million annual budget for paved roads.
However, he acknowledged that the patchwork Luhning referred to was warranty work, paid for by the contractor, to correct a low spot discovered after the single lift of new asphalt was applied.
Luhning then shifted her focus to a matter of site cleanliness and quality control, questioning the "mess of tar left dragged out onto Thatcher Drive" from the recent paving of 9th Avenue NW.
Harlton acknowledged the issue, confirming that hot mix asphalt was carried from the site by trucks. He assured council that the city’s project manager was aware of the problem on the same day the paving occurred, August 19, and immediately began communicating with the contractor about the cleanup. He stated the contractor is responsible for the cleanup at their own expense and is exploring options like scraping after sweeping proved ineffective.
He also defended his quality control team's work, saying that they do a thorough, effective job overall.
"Our project manager noted the asphalt on the roads... and began communicating with the contractor at that time as to how to clean it up," he said.
"In terms of quality control and project management, we've got, in my opinion, a very good construction management team across infrastructure renewal and road renewal, and we would have records — of daily construction reports, materials testing, equipment checks — for every day that construction occurs, across all of our projects.
"Again, just to confirm, our project managers were aware of that issue on the same day that the paving occurred."
Finally, Luhning revisited a persistent complaint, asking for an update on the exasperatingly short traffic signal at Main Street and Athabasca for westbound traffic. “It is five seconds long, if that,” she said. “I asked about four months ago if that could be extended and it’s still very, very short.”
Harlton committed to looking into the intersection again.