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Hey, huge chunks of the road are missing

Huge chunks of the road seem to simply be missing.
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We hope with an election imminent it won’t mean that work will grind to a halt. They already seem kind of late off the mark.

We’re thinking particularly of the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Last week we detailed Crofton fire chief Ken Rukus’s concerns about the poor condition of Crofton Road, a particularly bad spot in his neck of the woods, but far from the only problem.

We’re told that several roads in the Cowichan Lake area can only be loosely referred to as such these days, so much do they resemble something pitted by stray asteroids or an off-road obstacle course, rather than a provincial throughway.

And have you tried to drive Phipps Road lately? (If you’re a gardening fan and a regular at Dinter Nursery you already know what we’re talking about). Huge chunks of the road seem to simply be missing. Even if one drives down the centre of the road, regardless of the lane markings, one still has to swerve violently to avoid losing parts of one’s car’s undercarriage.

We wonder if the politicians hitting the campaign trail are getting far enough off the beaten track to get a true sense of just how bad it is out there these days.

We’ve finally (knock on wood with your fingers crossed) waved goodbye to snow now and the tulips are a bright sign of warming weather.

Meanwhile, potholes are swallowing unsuspecting cars in another sign of spring.

We understand that it’s been an unusually bad year. There’s been more snow than normal, creating the need to scrape it off more often, something that’s rough on our pavement. Add frost heave and you get…exactly what we’ve got right now.

Apparently the problem is being studied at present.

We can only hope that will be swiftly followed by some workers in trucks heading out to at least patch the worst spots before someone is seriously injured.

Because as much as potholes may seem like a pretty minor complaint, all things considered, the kind that abound right now can easily cause an unwary driver to lose control of their vehicle briefly.

And if they are unlucky, the consequences could be dire, and not just to the pocketbook.

We need action, fast.



Andrea Rondeau

About the Author: Andrea Rondeau

I returned to B.C. and found myself at the Cowichan Valley Citizen.
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