The City of North Battlefords operations department will have to deal with a roadway failure on 15th Avenue in the city.
A report was presented to council Monday on the situation from City Engineer Bob Anthony, in response to inquiries from council members about it.
According to his report, a deflection in the roadway surface was discovered of approximately 0.2 to 0.3 metres on 15th Avenue, approximately 15 meters east of 95th Street. The location is close to John Paul II Collegiate.
The deflection prevents the flow of surface drainage along the curbs, resulting in ponding on both sides of the road.
“It looks like it’s soft and wet underneath, what we typically call a frost-heave,” said Anthony at council Monday.
It is not entirely clear what happened with the road, but according to Anthony’s report it was likely the surface had become badly deteriorated with potholes and broken or missing pieces of asphalt.
Moisture would have soaked into the deeper layers of the roadway, into the subgrade materials, according to his report. At that point the structural integrity of the roadway is lost and the wet material is subject to expansion and contraction during freeze-thaw cycles.
The other possibility is that the moisture in the road subgrade came from natural groundwater, but that isn’t considered as likely.
The belief is that the road had been repaired previously by overlaying the area with new asphalt. However, the problems with the road have to do with structural failures underneath the surface. There is no record of the road being dug up, Anthony indicated.
The recommendation from administration was for that area to be repaired using a deep patch to excavate and remove the saturated subgrade material, replacing it with the appropriate granular layers and new asphalt.
The cost is estimated at $12,000, calculated based on $60 per square meter over an area of approximately 200 square meters.
The repair will be scheduled as budgets and priorities permit. There is money in the budget for this work, Anthony indicated, and it was the intention of administration to get the work done at that location.
“This one’s pretty bad. It’s a pretty high traffic area, next to the school. The buses are there, it’s causing a pretty big puddle there beside one residence. So this is something we’re going to get fixed this summer,” Anthony said.
