Building resilience in the Saugeen Region.
Roads
Rural areas need a long-term approach to road construction and maintenance decisions.
The Grey County initiative to implement a few kilometers of bicycle lanes is a good one, but needs to be greatly expanded. These lanes actually provide three benefits - bicycle and pedestrian access to roadways lacking sidewalks, paved shoulders providing extended road surface life span, and rumble strips which help to reduce accidents from tired or inebriated drivers going off the shoulders.
The Counties and the Municipalities should have a formal plan to expand paving coverage. (You may be surprised to learn the Counties even have gravel roads).
The rationale for such a paving program would be multi-fold:
- elimination of ongoing gravel road maintenance (gravel, grading, dust control chemicals)
- reduced municipal demand for gravel (and gravel pits)
- improved road safety
- reduced fuel use and increased vehicle life
- reduced life cycle cost (lower tax demand over the medium term)
The County and municipalities need policies ensuring grinding/reuse, and gravel alternatives, are the norm, and move away from 'tar-and-chip' to asphalt.
Similarly, the municipalities all need to move to brine-spray solution for frost control (some are still applying sand/salt for this purpose).
Tags: bicycle lanes, gravel pits, road maintenance, road policy
© 2010 Created by Shane Jolley
Powered by 
.
