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The rut race begins

Iqaluit drivers wonder if bad roads are better than no roads at all

JOHN THOMPSON

A taxi splashes through Iqaluit's streets on Monday. A gravel shortage means potholes could become especially nasty this year. (PHOTO BY JOHN THOMPSON)

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"Some roads indicate it's getting time to patch the canoes," said Pai-Pa driver Alan Hetherington as his taxi splashed through Iqaluit's bumpy streets on Monday.

He's exaggerating, but you wouldn't want to enter the Grind and Brew without a good pair of gumboots that day. The shop's parking lot stood completely flooded, as city workers scrambled to unplug culverts clogged with ice.

Meanwhile, two graders scraped the muddy streets, fighting an uphill battle against potholes.

Iqaluit's pothole-strewn roads mean sore necks and expensive repairs for drivers, and muddy clothes for pedestrians splashed by passing vehicles during the melt.

And with a gravel shortage that's struck Iqaluit, workers have little material to repair the streets this year.

"We're at a critical point," said Mark Hall, the city's director of public works.

Potholes are created by the freeze and thaw of the roads, which loosens the packed surface. Then, when a car tire rolls over the soggy streets, it scoops mud and creates a hole that grows bigger each time a vehicle passes by.

Most years, city workers "crown" potholes by filling them with gravel, then covering them with sand.

Without gravel, excavators and graders will have to work especially slow this year, or else drivers can expect to find the roads littered with big rocks dislodged from the road's foundation.

"We need to be careful. We won't want boulders sitting on the road surface," Hall said. "We'll have a smooth road made of large rocks."

The city does have a small amount of gravel, set aside for paving three kilometres of city roads with chipseal this summer.

If the roads get especially nasty, the city might have to dip into that supply - compromising a long-term project aimed at building smoother streets.

"I'm very, very loath to use that," Hall said of the chip-seal supply.

As for Hetherington, he keeps the potholes in perspective as he jostles over bumpy streets to pick up his next customer.

"Many people in the settlements would say, 'What's the problem? You've got roads."

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