To answer the question of every frustrated driver in North Battleford: yes, everyone at City Hall is aware of how bad the pothole situation is.
The amount of potholes have become a familiar topic at city council meetings and it was again Monday.
“I think this is the worst year for potholes, at least, I can remember,” said Councillor Ryan Bater.
“I’m not saying that, suggesting it’s a shortcoming of the city government. It’s a result of the weather we had this past year.”
Bater wanted to know whether the operations department was able to handle the number of potholes.
“Do we have enough resources to address the problem?” Bater asked.
Director of Operations Stewart Schafer remained confident. He said of the potholes, “they’re there and they’re still popping out, and our crews are working as hard as they can to fill them up.”
But he admitted the challenges in keeping up with the situation. Potholes happen when water from melting snow and ice on the roads gets into cracks in the asphalt, causing it to break apart. Unfortunately for North Battleford residents. there have been more than enough days of snowfall and of temperatures that have hovered around zero.
“With the freeze-thaw cycle that we’ve had over the past couple of weeks, they were coming up faster than we could catch them,” said Schafer.
Still, Schafer is advising residents to notify the city if they come across a pothole they believe needs to be filled in.
Mayor Ian Hamilton again urged residents to proceed with caution on the local roads.
He also cited statistics from a report out of Saskatoon that stated there were 11 freeze-thaw incidents the year before, but 28 this year, almost three times what it had been.
“This is not just a North Battleford thing, this is pretty much throughout the province,” said Hamilton.
As for areas of concern, Bater noted “one of the worst areas” was on 101st Street between 19th and 20th avenues. It was covered in gravel and Bater wanted to know what the plan was for that area.
Schafer responded this was the result of a commercial dig and it will be paved. The City has gone back a number of times to make sure that road is smoothed down, but Schafer cited the impact of snowfall and rain.
