Part of Hughes Road is on a steep hill and Town staff, short of spending $400,000 to rebuild the road, were recommending that the seasonally maintained road be closed because every time it rains the gravel washes off. Council, on the other hand, opted to investigate further.
The closure of a seasonally maintained road in Port Sydney did not sit well with area residents, despite the headache that road has been causing for public works staff at Town Hall.
“We’re dealing with 150 metres of road that goes straight down a bald rock, that’s the issue,” said Town Director of Operations and Protective Services Steve Hernen. “With the weather patterns we’re seeing today, we just can’t keep gravel on that road.” He said every time it rains complaints start pouring in.
You could go down and find truck loads [of gravel] in the fields and that’s the battle we’re up against. We can go back to seasonally maintained and try and maintain it that way but every time it rains, I know we’ll get a dozen or fifteen calls saying ‘when are you getting down here to fix this road’ and unfortunately because it is seasonally maintained it’s not high on our priority list, which just means the calls keep multiplying. Steve Hernen
Hernen advised that to bring that road to proper standards it would cost approximately $400,000. “If you really want to fix this road that rock has got to be dealt with, the ditching has got to be dealt with and a proper base has got to be put in,” he said.
His recommendation to close that road entirely, while approved by the Town’s General Committee, did not make it past Huntsville Council’s August 28 meeting, held in Port Sydney. At that meeting, three residents spoke against the closure, noting it would cost residents more time and money to use another route, add at least another 11 kilometres to their route one-way, and create a bigger carbon footprint as a result of more vehicle emissions.
“Some people think that climate change is a Chinese hoax and I’m not one of them,” said Port Sydney resident Howie Crockford, who has two farms in the area. “I believe that climate change is real. When you look at the number and frequency of torrential rains that we’ve had this summer – unprecedented in my lifetime – it’s hard to argue otherwise,” he said.
Crockford said the road has fallen into a state of disrepair as it had not been graded as usual this past spring. “By mid-July the hill was impassible,” said Crockford, who also suggested that a $400,000 estimate to fix the road is overpriced and ventured that it could be done for as little as $8,000.
“I’ve heard a figure of $400,000 mentioned to fix the hill. Believe me, if it’s going to cost that much I’d be the first one to say don’t do it and save money. However, I’ve talked to a local contractor a couple of times, and I won’t mention his name, I don’t think it’s appropriate. But he builds roads, he builds good roads, and he’s assured me, Hughes Road, he could put the road back in shape with a pitch system that would not wash out every time it rains… and he assures me that he could do that for $8,000.”
Hernen said he’d be happy to meet with the contractor. “If they can fix it for $8,000, then there are quite a few roads we can put him on,” said Hernen. “I’d be happy to meet with somebody if they’ve got an $8,000 solution that they think would work on that… but what we looked at is the amount of time and effort we’re trying to put into this piece of hill, which is a nightmare hill,” he added.
In the end council, with much lobbying from Port Sydney and Utterson area councillors Det Schumacher and Jason FitzGerald, agreed to do a site inspection of Hughes Road and asked that staff meet with Howie Crockford to see if there might be a cheaper wayt to fix the road in order to maintain proper ditches and accommodate runoff. They also agreed to designate the road back to a seasonally maintained road, which according to Hernen would mean filling it with gravel, once more, at least until the next rain storm as it is impassible in its current state.
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