Josh Freed: Let’s crack the case of Montreal’s cracked roads


We’ve been hit by a pandemic of potholes infecting car tires, axles, and driver anxiety as we zigzag around gigantic craters.

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As spring springs along, we’re seeing another Quebec pandemic. No, not COVID Wave 126.

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This one’s a pandemic of potholes infecting car tires, axles, and driver anxiety as we zigzag around craters big enough to swallow big game.

Friends visiting from BC and England both asked whether we’d been hit by stray bombing, or an earthquake, as they’ve never seen roads like this in the developed world.

We can’t even blame our once-laccadaisical construction crews anymore, as they’re out 24/7, orange-coning off every second street.

Some streets, like Docteur-Penfield and des Pins Aves., have such permanent construction that I don’t believe they’re actually roads anymore. They’re training grounds for new road crews. They only open occasionally to test trainees’ work, then close for classes again.

A recent CAA study found Canadian motorists spend $3 billion a year on extra car repairs due solely to bad roads. Of this, Quebecers spend $1.4 billion — almost half. On the plus side, Quebec’s garage owners are the happiest in the land, especially with this year’s “bumper” crop.

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It all raises the eternal Quebec question “what’s wrong with our roads?”, which now seems even worse than their usual worst. I consulted some experts to help crack the case of our cracked pavement. Here are some theories:

Theory 1: Winter. Quebec ministers, minions and meteorologists routinely blame potholes on our many freeze-thaw-freezes, which let water seep in, freeze, then expand — and that’s certainly true.

However, drive to Vermont, which has a similar climate, and even blindfolded passengers know precisely when they’ve left Quebec, because their car stops shuddering like a roller-coaster.

The bad news is our weather won’t be changing any time soon; in fact, given climate change, it may get worse. The good news: it’s not the cold, it’s the constant fluctuations, says the CAA’s Nicolas Ryan.

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If we only had minus-40 temperatures all year round, our roads would be as good as Florida’s. So pray for global freezing.

Theory 2: Technology. Others think it’s also about our road materials. Quebec is overly enamored with century-old concrete, the popular poutine of Quebec road filler.

But many countries are experimenting with more durable new materialsfrom recycled glass, old tires and “polymer-modified asphalt” to, for all I know, peanut butter.

Scientists in Britain are even developingself-healing bio-concrete” that apparently involves self-mending bacteria. So maybe we can eventually fix our roads with medical laser surgery?

Theory 3: Less corruption. Many say that since the Charbonneau Commission there’s much less corruption here, as contracts now go to the lowest bidder. The downside is: what do you get for the lowest price?

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If you needed private cardiac surgery, asked one authority, would you choose the cheapest doctor?

Many top contractors have apparently switched to better-paying private work. So Montreal sometimes gets the leftovers, who generally don’t try the latest methods.

Ex-Westmount Major Peter Trent was the longtime CEO of a major polymer concrete tech company before entering politics. He says many European countries routinely sign 30-year road deals, where the contractor is responsible for maintenance, so it pays to do work well.

Here, if repaved roads develop problems, who gets paid to fix them? Often the same people who repaired them last time. Now, what could go wrong with that?

Theory 4: Politics. Some cynical Montrealers think city hall actually likes potholes, because if our roads get bad enough we’ll all abandon our cars and ride bikes. But in fairness, the city recently pledged a massive 10-year, $5-billion road repair project that should supposedly help our streets — by 2032.

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Until then, do your part by contacting Montreal’s spot-a-pothole program.

You: Hello, pothole police? I’d like to report a dangerous pothole on des Pins, near Ste-Famille.

City: Yes ma’am. Where exactly are you?

You: I’m in the pothole.

Theory 5: Motorists. In the last decade, we’ve been buying more and bigger cars, adding extra strain to Montreal’s battered roads. In recent years, we’ve averaged almost 200,000 potholes a yearbut during COVID we stayed home, giving our pavement a rest.

Last year we patched a mere 120,000 holes, the lowest in years, though we barely noticed since we weren’t driving. So Potholes “R” Us.

Theory 6: Money. Everyone agrees the biggest problem is that we’ve ignored serious, timely road maintenance right across Canada since the early ’70s, as we patch, repatch and re-re-repatch cracks, often too late.

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A 2021 CAA study estimated it would cost over $125 billion to reconstruct Canadian roads properly. But who’ll spend that when we could blow it on other things?

For $125 billion we could buy over 5,000 large private islands to winter Canadians in the Caribbean — or pay over two million new nurses for a year. Or buy three Big Macs for everyone on Earth.

In fact, $125 billion in single bills would stretch almost 20 million kilometers, enough to circle the planet 500 times.

hmm. That might just be enough to pave all our roads with dollar bills.

Until then, I’m rooting for that self-healing concrete. Let’s dream on, as we bump along.

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