Potholes: a message from Mother Nature?
There's a little pull-out tray between the cup holders in my van that tends to accumulate spare change. I think there's enough in there right now to buy a cup of coffee, or a litre of gasoline.
And of course every time I hit a bump, the change in the little plastic tray rattles like a snare drum.
Bang, crash, thump, grind, ratttle, snap! How many words can you conjure up to describe all the noises your car makes as you navigate through the mine field of potholes, cracks and broken pavement also known as the streets of Metro Moncton?
I'm sure there's a bean counter somewhere who has figured out how much the value of your car goes down every time you smash into a pothole -- not to mention the jarring effects on every part of your body.
Earlier this week, the city approved about $80,000 for emergency repairs on the worst six spots for potholes, with work to begin as soon as possible. But before you can get the words out, everybody will say that their street or route between work and home is the worst and should get priority.
We all know potholes are bad, but what's even more frightening is the statement from city engineers that this past winter was so bad that some streets and roads lost three years of life in one season. Rising and falling temperatures play havoc with the natural freeze-thaw cycle. The ice melts, the water flows into the cracks and then freezes again, splitting the roads wide open. When the weather changes so much, the situation gets worse.
If that trend continues, how long will it take before our asphalt roads disintegrate faster than they can be repaired and rebuilt?
Strange weather attacking the roads, the very source of the greenhouse gases -- could Mother Nature be sending us a bitter message?
To pour salt on this wound, the rising price of oil that is driving up the price of gas is also driving up the price of repairing the roads, so we get hit doubly hard every time we get behind the wheel.
I'll let that one percolate for a second while I move on to the next aspect. The other night I had just finished hosting the Meet the Candidates night at the Riverview Arts Centre and had stepped outside to make a phone call when a disgruntled citizen started ranting and asking why the town would spend all that money building a new road for the squirrels and the deer when the existing streets are in such need of repair? Good question.
The answer, as I have gotten it from town officials, is that they need the new road to open up land for commercial development, which is needed to generate more tax income to build new stuff and fix the existing roads.
More cars, more traffic, more shopping.
On the other side of this coin are municipal election candidates with a one-track mind of the environment and energy. On Tuesday, I sat in on a presentation by candidate Roy MacMullin, who basically said the world is burning a gazillion barrels a day and will run out of oil in about 30 years. He says we need to cut our consumption drastically -- right now! Ride bikes, take the bus, do something, he urged. The same day, I attended another presentation by labour groups, during which a bus driver complained about the amount of traffic and the need for us all to use buses and ride our bikes more.
It seems terribly ironic (or is it tragic?) that we've made so much progress and invested so much time, money and energy over the last 70 years to build this magnificent system of streets, roads and highways for our fancy gas-burning cars, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs -- only to be told that the era of the personal vehicle is coming to an end. They tell us to conserve energy by trading big vehicles for little ones, but the little fuel-efficient vehicles would get beat to death on our rough city streets.
In the span of one century, we've managed to change our entire economy and lifestyle to revolve around oil-powered machines. So what will we do if the predictions are correct and our grandchildren have to adjust back to a life without oil?
For some reason, I'm having a vision of horse-drawn buggies in morning traffic, cutting each other off and creating chaos at the Tim Horton's drive-through.
n City Views appears daily in the Times & Transcript. Alan Cochrane is an editor-at-large. His column appears each Friday. He can be reached by e-mail at cochrana@timestranscript.com
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