Currently underway is a complete reconstruction of Chura Court, with similar projects to follow.
“Chura is one of several streets that was programmed last year to be reconstructed,” said Wes Hicks, manager of capital projects for the City of Prince Albert.
Other streets slated for overhauls this year are Telfer Bay, Longpre Crescent and Gisi Road.
“Those four streets had early structural failures, especially Chura, Telfer and Longpre, because those are only 10 years old,” Hicks said.
“Gisi is 30 years old, but it’s suffering the same kind of structural failures. The asphalt has broken up, but it’s due to the substructure and the moisture content from the last couple of years.”
The high levels of moisture in the area have resulted in premature failures of certain roads.
To rectify the problem, the city is starting from scratch, and completely reconstructing the roads in question.
“So they’re very time consuming and they’re rather expensive, but without it they will not stay together,” Hicks said.
“It’s just a factor of our soil conditions in Prince Albert, and several years of extremely rainy seasons.”
The rebuild of Chura Court has meant that homeowners on the street have little access, vehicle-wise, until the project is finished.
To Stacey Monette, it’s a slightly irritating, but necessary evil.
“It’s a pain to carry your groceries in and out, but we’re glad that they’re doing the street,” she said.
“Overall, it’s going to be worth it once it’s all done and it’s nice and it’s not crumbling.”
The lack of access to Chura has also turned the connecting sixth avenue into a makeshift parking lot.
“I feel kind of bad for the people on sixth, because all our cars are parked out (there),” Monette said.
“So any parking that they had on the street is kind of gone, so that’s kind of a pain.”
Weather permitting, the rebuild of Chura is expected to be completed early next week.
“Due to the rain we had (Tuesday), that set them back probably two days worth,” Hicks said.
“With weather holding out we’ll get it backfilled by Friday, and hopefully they’ll be re-asphalting it the following week, say Monday and Tuesday.”
In terms of preventative measures to keep premature failures to a minimum, the city is looking into tighter specifications as a standard, “but the more you add to those specifications, the higher the cost becomes for each street when you build them for the first time,” Hicks said.
“You have to weigh and balance that, because you can make (specifications) extremely stringent, but then that cost becomes so prohibitive you won’t be able to develop any new subdivisions. If you make it too light, the streets become very inexpensive, but then they don’t last, so there’s a balancing act there.”
For now, the city’s paving crews are focused on doing the job, and doing it right.
“The paving program is continuing. We have a lot of roads scheduled,” Hicks said.
“We’re going to build these ones right this time, so they last for many, many decades to come.”
braden.dupuis@paherald.sk.ca
