City hall is pouring millions of dollars into upgrading Coteau Street East from Ninth Avenue Southwest westward, but despite an increase in area traffic, it may not enhance any surrounding roads.
During the recent regular city council meeting, Coun. Doug Blanc pointed out that the city has closed Coteau Street West from Ninth to 11th avenues as it continues its cast iron replacement program and wondered whether city administration planned to perform extra maintenance on surrounding streets like Iroquois or Lillooet to address the detoured traffic.
“I did receive a call and did walk to the corner of 10th and Iroquois, and boy, there are some major craters up there you could lose a car in,” he said.
Bevan Harlton, director of operations, explained that the city’s normal process for capital projects is not to apply those dollars to address possible area road deterioration. However, he would determine whether the councillor’s concern is something his department can address.
“We had extra eyes on the alley on the north side of Coteau. I can follow up operationally and see how the roadway has changed and whether road repairs can be done,” he added.
City hall is speaking with the contractor about extending the workday so employees start working earlier, not only to expedite the work but to protect them from the heat, said city manager Maryse Carmichael. The city will inform residents if it decides to repair and fix the surrounding roads; council approved that extension back in February.
Thatcher Drive conditions
City administration responded to an inquiry Coun. Dawn Luhning submitted in June, where she asked about the road conditions on Thatcher Drive West between Ninth and 11th avenues.
In his report, Harlton said line painting on the westbound lane requires adjustments to the road’s 3.7-metre width to match the eastbound lane width. Currently, traffic is travelling too close to the pavement’s edge, which is causing cracking along the road’s north edge. Therefore, public works staff will make adjustments to the line painting when they paint this area.
“Engineering services has engaged with Cypress (Paving Ltd.) to address road structure deficiencies from the 2022 resurfacing project. The deficiencies will be corrected this year,” Harlton added.
In response, Luhning said she wasn’t sure if the report answered her concern since there was “some vagueness” when she submitted that initial inquiry. Instead, she planned to submit a picture so administration knew what she was talking about.
Harlton said he thought about including a picture in his report’s response but decided against it. However, such a picture would show that there are four locations with “alligator cracking” that is also causing a seam to open on the north side of Thatcher Drive.
Parking tickets
Harlton also provided another response to Blanc’s inquiry about when police issue parking tickets in proposed street cleaning locations.
He explained that the roadways crew lead determines the week’s street cleaning locations and posts that information to the City of Moose Jaw’s website the Friday before. The city’s communications department also emails locations for street cleaning and road closures to the parking enforcement supervisor.
Roadways staff hang signs in the locations a minimum of 72 hours before the scheduled cleaning day, Harlton said. Those signs show a “no parking” symbol with wording indicating that a street-cleaning day is coming.
“The Moose Jaw Police Service also confirmed that they have been enforcing no parking restrictions in the street cleaning areas all over the city, including South Hill, for over four years,” he continued.
Police visit these areas when they can and attempt to co-ordinate with crews, which means they can’t ticket every area all the time, Harlton said. Police estimate that they have issued more than 100 tickets this year, which is down from past years.
Staff remove the “no parking” signs once sweeping is concluded, while the city reschedules areas that it missed future sweeping programs, he added.
