Back to table to find solution for York Lake Road potholes

The road is jointly owned with the city approximately one kilometre south off Queen Street in the city of Yorkton, and the remaining road to the park in the RM of Orkney.

And in spite of a recent investment by the city, RM, and the Regional Park Authority, the road remains a problem.

A meeting, including the three funders, was held last week where the long-standing road issues were discussed.

With the three funding partners providing dollars and supplies, work was undertaken to fix the potholes and it didn’t work, and residents along the road and at the park are not happy.

“They’ve got good cause to complain,” said Orkney Reeve Randy Trost.

Yorkton Mayor Mitch Hippsley said there are a lot of people living along the road and at the park using the road. In 2017, a midweek traffic count put daily traffic at 517 vehicles.

“It’s a well-used road,” he said. “. . . Is it a very important road – absolutely.”

Since those people work and shop in the city and part of the road is in city limits, Hippsley said it was decided to invest in repair work $130,000 toward gravel and $50,000 for labour, plus taxes. In addition, the city provided $30,000 in value of reclaimed asphalt.

In the end the investment didn’t work as potholes fixed in the fall of 2021, were back in April this year.

While the issue remains, it is not a case of not trying to address the issue, assured Trost.

“We’ve done it twice each time with a different contractor,” he said.

While it is unclear why fixes have not worked, Trost said in the end, “what we’ve done didn’t work.”

So it’s back to the table for the three funding partners to look into what can be done to address the situation long term.

“We’ve gone back to the table as good neighbours,” said Hippsley, adding the key is determining “. . . what we do next.”

In the short term Trost said the RM will “grade it on a regular basis until we figure out what we want to do.”