Residents bring road concerns to M.D. council

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By J.W. Schnarr
Taber Times
jwschnarr@tabertimes.com

Something needs to be done about the state of Range Road 18-2, say a pair of local residents who are tired of dealing with road issues near their residences.

Merv Brandt and Albert Weik appeared before Municipal District of Taber council during their regular meeting on Dec. 9 to discuss what they perceive are major issues with the state of the M.D.-owned road.

Brandt said in spite of the good job M.D. staff had done so far on the road, there was still much work that needed to be done – mainly around a hill on the road which has been the source of local traffic woes.

“You guys did a heck of a job fixing that road, and it’s very nice, but we need gravel,” said Brandt. “The hill, half the time, you can’t get up it. When I moved down there, I didn’t realize part of the equipment I’d need is a 4X4. It’s no good.”

Brandt said the issue is a lack of gravel on the road.

“They put (gravel) down one side of the hill and quit,” he said. “They didn’t go all the way to the bottom. The grader sat at the bottom of the hill, waiting.”

“He waited at least half a day and thought maybe more gravel was supposed to come,” added Weik. “But it didn’t come.”

Brandt said the road leading out to his home has been damaged, as often his vehicle picks up mud and debris from the unfinished section of the road which ends up on his property.

“It’s just a mess,” he said. “You get home and all this mud just drops into your driveway.”

Reeve Brian Brewin said there were a lot of unforeseen circumstances this past fall which involved M.D. work crews scrambling to deal with moisture on many roads.

“To be honest with you, a lot of these roads need gravel, but they really needed to have a grader on them before (the moisture) froze up.”

“I know we had a really heavy rain there, and wet snow,” said Brandt.

“I phoned and asked you guys to come and grade the road before it got really bad. We couldn’t use that road for four days. They never graded it, and they didn’t get the water off it, and it was just terrible.”

“One of the problems you have with any new road is that they take up a lot of gravel to work up a base,” said Brewin. “That’s kind of what you’ve got there, with that new road, it’s going to take some time.”

Following discussion, Brewin said he would look into the issue to see what could be done about it.

“I’ll talk it over with our Public Works guys and we’ll see what we can do,” he said.

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