Frost Heaves

Ideas on what to do to attract more people that wish to live in Bruderheim

Roads that can no longer be repaired

To attract more families — families with children or planning to have children — to come to Bruderheim and settle here, a little extra is required.  As good as Bruderheim looks, it must and can be made to look better. 

Maybe that is what Bruderheim is doing, but one has to wonder.  A few years ago it had been decided to contract the public works department of the County of Strathcona to perform the maintenance work necessary to keep the Town's infrastructure up to par and operational.  The state of repair of all communities in the County of Strathcona is clearly visible to anyone visiting them, and it is impressively good.  It appears that Bruderheim's state and quality of repairs don't measure up to theirs and are substandard. 

The state of our streets makes a big impression on visitors.  Anyone wrecking his car on account of the state of our roads or thinking that he will be better off negotiating our streets with a four-wheel drive is not likely to move here. 

The first photo on this page is of the intersection of 48th Ave and 55th St, looking west, in the West Woodlands subdivision.  The crumbled road surface never saw much traffic, as that portion of 48th Ave still needs to be extended farther west.  Frost heaves caused the wide-spread and general destruction of the road surface.

Repair jobs will do nothing here to solve any problems.  The road needs to be reconstructed, if that is even possible in an area that apparently should not have been built over.   There are a few Russians in the neighbourhood.  Maybe we should talk to them.  In Russia they had a passable method for building passable roads through swampy areas.  The Russians laid down small tree trunks instead of pavement for roads that went through swamps that could not be drained.  That construction method was wide-spread in Europe during the 16th century.  Don't knock it, it worked well for many centuries.  Archaeologists are digging out such roads in a number of places.  Some of those ancient roads through swamps in Europe were in use as early as the 12th century.

The south side of the intersection of 48th Ave and 55th St sports the sign shown to the right.  "Dream home"?  Nightmare is more like it.  If you don't have any problems, think of what sort of problems you may be able to get into by doing what the sign urges you to do.  It will cost you a mere $100 to get started on a whole new outlook on life.  At any rate, if you are seriously thinking of spending that $100 to get you involved in something you never thought was possible, you better first speak with some of the people living on this street.  Maybe they will be happy to share their pumping equipment with you, but I suspect that, if you move to this street, you are better off buying your own.
   It seems to me that both the Town and Gem Homes will be well advised to take that sign down.  Otherwise either one or both could be made liable for false advertising.

The next photo is of 48th Ave going east in the West-Woodlands subdivision.  I heard various stories of what led the few people that built large homes in this area to do so.  We checked out this area when we decided where to purchase or build a home in Bruderheim.  One drive through the streets in that area of Bruderheim had convinced us that this part of Bruderheim was not for us.  We had wanted to upgrade our living conditions, not to jump from the frying pan into the fire.
   Moreover, the condition of the roads in West Woodlands was not satisfactory right from the start, deteriorated over the years and appears to be unlikely to be improved any time soon.

It is a little harder to understand why in the West-Woodlands subdivision the road surface is subsiding around or adjacent to perhaps all of the man holes for the sewer system.  Something must not have been done right to cause that to happen at just about every sewer manhole in West Woodlands.  It is obvious that some work has been done to fix the worst of those problems.  In some places such work was done more than once, to little avail.  Efforts to fix the problems with the road surface subsiding around the manholes in West Woodlands were less than successful.
   Perhaps those manhole problems can be addressed more successfully when or if the roads in the West Woodlands subdivision will be reconstructed, but it will take a fairly smart design expert to come up with a successful method for building paved roads that will last in muskeg.  One successful method involves elevating the road bed and to have deep ditches on both sides of the road to keep the road bed from becoming water-logged.
   In the meantime, there are rings of various sizes that can be installed under manhole covers, so that the covers are flush with the road surface.  Using them will make things look a bit better, make negotiating the road easier and less of an adventure, and, to boot, that will prevent the grader operator from ripping out the manhole or wrecking the grader when ploughing snow.  What is preventing the town administration of installing them?  Are we dealing with a case of someone being penny-wise and pound-happy?
   Smart developers stay away from building in troublesome locations, crafty ones sell swamp land in Florida to the unsuspecting.  However, Florida has a great advantage over West Woodlands.  It never freezes hard enough in Florida to cause frost heaves.

The West-Woodlands subdivision is not the only location in Bruderheim where residents have to deal with the consequences of shoddy road construction.  For instance, the Brookside subdivision has car traps too.

Next Page: Roads that get flooded regularly

Back to index page for Impressions and Ideas on how to make Bruderheim even better

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Posted 2005 05 21
Updates:
2006 10 29 (reformated)