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Came to life: on December 31, 2004 23:59 PM Not a journalist, but highly opinionated

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Snow Removal Problem

by POKO on Jan 30th, 2005 07:29 AM

The Manitoulin Expositor had the following letter to the editor and editorial in the paper, the subject of which was snow removal.
The Ontario Government awarded Belanger Construction with the contract for snow plowing this year. Strange because the company that plowed snow last winter did a bang up job keeping the highways clear and safe.
That was then, but this is now. Manitoulin residents are less than thrilled this year with Belanger's efforts. The overall condition of Manitoulin roads is poor compared to previous years. West End residents have the biggest bone to pick with Belanger.
It seems that anything west of the Gore Bay OPP station is insignificant. The intersection shows an amazing transformation of semi-clear road to snow-covered road. Residents on the east side of this intersection get a road that is plowed regularly and is by & large acceptable. Residents to the west of this intersection get a poorer effort. Well, its a half-hearted effort. What it actually is - its inferior! The snow has been allowed to gather as less plowing and less sanding seem to be the order of the day.
Someone in Belanger Central has deemed the amount of traffic going west of Gore Bay is too low to qualify them the service people east of the intersection are getting.
The result, with the fluctuating temperatures of late, is a very uneven and treacherous roadway. Travelling through Evansville, even at the speed limit, is like a rollercoaster ride you wish you weren't on.
The Evansville General Store started up a petition. Hopefully with that and the articles in the Expositor, our local MPP will be forced to have Ministry of Transportation inspectors come, inspect our roads, and take the contractor to task.
I'm not gonna hold my breath on this one. I have worked for both the Federal and Provincial governments at various points in my carreer - I'm well aquainted with big-business and how a government works with them. Besides, at this point in time our MPP, Mr. Brown, seems to me more interested in photo ops than serving his constituents..
He does take a strikingly impressive picture, but that doesn't get the job done, does it!

courtesy Manitoulin Expositor

Letter to Editor

Highway road maintenance criticized  
Worst roads seen in 25 years  
 
 Luckily, when the Varieurs slowed down to greet an oncoming snowplow and the inevitable whiteout from its wake, the tow truck that rammed their vehicle from behind did not send them headlong into the line of oncoming traffic following the snowplow. They walked away shaken but not seriously harmed.

The experience has sent Ms. Varieur, never one to shy away from a challenge, on a quest to get something done about what she described as the appalling conditions she encountered on Island roads that day. Not on all the roads mind you.

"The municipal roads were excellent," she said. "We drove up to Highway 542 at Big Lake and found the roads had not been plowed for some time. I have lived long enough in the North to know what a recently plowed road looks like; even when the snow is coming down in a blizzard, you can tell when they have been plowed recently. They hadn't been plowed in hours."

Ms. Varieur has since canvassed her neighbours, and they all agree, they have seen plenty of heavy winter storms over the last quarter century, and the roads have never been kept up so poorly as they have been this year.

"You don't expect miracles," said Ms. Varieur, who agrees that it is sometimes difficult to keep roads clear in a Northern Ontario winter. "But you do expect responsible service."

It is the latter that she maintains is currently lacking.

Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Brown said his office has been receiving far more calls than is normal for this time of year.

"I myself have talked to the district manager on this matter," said Mr. Brown. "In our country winter road maintenance is important. On the other side, it is Canada and it is winter. We do know we have changed contractors, and that may be a factor, but the Ministry of Transportation is responsible for the patrols. There is ministry supervision that is going on."

The calls have been coming into his office in increasing numbers since November, he noted.

"Frankly, we did have a good experience with the old contractor," added Mr. Brown.

The issue has been a bone of contention in the Island's West End as well, but the problem seems to be endemic right across the Island.

Jane Johnson of Tehkummah noted that one of the customers at her bed and breakfast normally travels to Wikwemikong on a regular basis. On that Wednesday the customer returned within 20 minutes, she had come across a broken-down plow on the highway and the roads were impassable beyond that point.

"You have to wonder," she said. "Are they maintaining their vehicles as well as they were before?"

Ms. Johnson said she has also noticed another change in road maintenance since she arrived in the area eight years ago.

"They put the grit down the middle of the road instead of on both sides," she said. "If you turn right or left, you wind up on sheer ice."

Both women had contacted Marcel Quenville, area roads supervisor for the Ministry of Transportation.

Mr. Quenville indicated that an investigation was under way and his office was gathering information on the reports for individual trucks on the night in question. Any questions from the press, however, had to be vetted by his superiors according to a province-wide ministry directive.

Information from his review was not available as of press time Monday.

The accident that cost the Varieurs their vehicle happened between "eight or nine in the morning," near Honora Bay. After making their way across unplowed Island highways, with snow reaching up to the doors on their Honda SUV, they finally saw a snowplow approaching.

Anticipating the blinding whiteout from the plume of snow that the plow was sending up from the deep drifts on the roads, Ms. Varieur took her foot off the accelerator. "I didn't want to brake, that can be the worst thing you can do in heavy snow," said the veteran Northern driver.

Unfortunately, the tow-truck behind her did not slow as much as it headed into the whiteout. Luckily, Ms. Varieur had also pulled slightly to the right, to give greater distance between herself and the plow.

"People should slow down in bad weather," she said.

Ms. Varieur blames the weather conditions and the lack of road maintenance more than the drivers for the incident, however, and she has no intention of letting up the pressure until she is satisfied that something has been done about it.

The lack of plowing was not caused by the roads being closed, she noted. Her investigation has indicated that some of the roads she was travelling hadn't been plowed since 11 pm the previous night.

"The point is: it wasn't the Manitoulin roads that were bad," she said. "It was the Manitoulin highways that were bogged down."

One thing that is not going to get bogged down, is Ms. Varieur's determination to "get something done."

"If I didn't speak out, and somebody got hurt, I couldn't forgive myself," she said. "I am not just going to let it go."

Editorial:

Provincial highways are a disgrace 
 
'You get what you pay for' is an old adage that seems to run contrary to the corporate strategy of always accepting the lowest bid. Recognizing this contradiction,  astute businesspersons exercise diligent oversight of the contractor involved to ensure the terms of the contract are met.

As Manitoulin Island settles deeper into the grip of winter's icy talons, a growing number of voices are sounding the alarm over the state of maintenance of our winter roads-especially in the Island's West End.

The problem is not uniform. Roads that have recently been abysmally, poorly maintained and treacherous seem to be only those all under the purview of the province and its contractors. Municipal roads are being maintained as they always have: remarkably well especially considering the limited resources of rural communities.

The issue is also not one of declining standards or unfamiliar personnel. The contract under which the new contractors maintain the roads, and even the people they employ to do the job, are largely the same as they were under the former contractor, Belanger Construction. The standards set forth in those contracts are the same-2 cm of snow accumulation remains the trigger point that is supposed to set the snowplows rolling.

There is a new government overseeing the Ministry of Transportation and a new contractor has won the right to maintain the Island's provincial roads. The buck stops at the top.

The Ministry of Transportation may no longer deliver the snowplows directly, but they are still responsible for keeping the roads clear, and their political masters are the ones we hold accountable at the ballot box.

People need to get to work, to the hospital or to the store for food; oil and gas trucks must be able to get to the storage tanks to keep homes warm-these are not minor inconveniences that will soon be forgotten. Measuring the importance of keeping the roads clear by the number of votes that travel those roads would be a very grave mistake.

There are people's lives and livelihoods involved here.

We trust and we fervently pray that the reconsideration of the policy outlawing studded snow tires that was recently announced is not a harbinger of deteriorating levels of road maintenance in rural Ontario.

Although much has been made of the urbanization of Ontario, and the concentration of political power in the Golden Triangle, there are still a lot of rural voters in this province. With a massive majority of the 11 Northern ridings being represented by government members, we suggest it might be in Mr. McGuinty's best interests to give his Minister of Transportation a quick call on this one.

In politics-as in most of life-he who pays the piper calls the tune, but in politics if the audience doesn't like the song, the piper soon has a new employer.

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