Dear Editor:
I have resided on Sideroad 25, Belwood, for over 32 years.
The rural roads have always been very deplorable and unsafe due to the increasing and enlarging number of potholes.
Over the years, sifting has been the mode of maintenance but to no avail. This method, when it is applied makes the road more difficult to drive on since the sifting is not compacted. If the rain happens to fall a day or two after it is worse.
Compounded to that most of the sifting is carried away under the undercarriage of vehicles using the roadway. Not to mention what is washed into the gutters on the sides of the road.
Not only is this, in my view, a waste of taxpayers money, but an environmental disaster.
Considering that after the affixing of the sifting to the undercarriages of vehicles, these vehicles deposit most of it into car washes thereby damaging the machinery and adding unnecessary cost to those businesses. In some areas the sifting has now formed part of the properties. Making the original gutters non-existing.
I know the first cost would be high but considering the reduced maintenance cost this solution would pay for itself in the long run.
Some might say it would cost jobs. Not so, the employed can now maintain the drainage system, if that is the case.
I have noticed during my residency in this area that there seem to be many “Get work projects” meaning, in my view , unnecessary asphalt road work when that could be directed towards upgrading rural dirt roads that would benefit the community and eventually the budget of the county.
I hope my logic find favour with the county’s planners.
Lloyd Bartholomew,
Centre Wellington