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Thread: National Park road maintenance

  1. #1
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    Default National Park road maintenance

    Has anyone driven through Banff National park or Kootenay lately and seen what they are putting down on the roads for gravel out there?
    I went up to Radium on Friday, back on Saturday, lost a driving a light and got a huge blast hole in my windshield. Eventually I came up on one of the Parks Canada sanding trucks spreading between dime and quarter size gravel on a basically just wet road, so much for sanding "chips". Whatever happened to actually just sanding roads, it seems like they are laying down "pit run".
    Anyway I sent a nasty email to Parks Canada about the damage, now I am just waiting for my generic "get stuffed" reply.
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    I am not sure who has the maintenance contract for Kootenay National Park but I am living in Radium this winter and lived in Kimberley last winter. Out here highway maintenance is handled by a company called Mainroad contracting. They are allowed to use 13mm gravel on the roads, where as most other provinces only allow up to 8mm or even 6mm. It is brutal for broken windshields and because of its large size it often seems to just roll off the road. Highway maintenance in general is a joke here compared to Alberta or the US, often times the roads aren't touched for days after a snow fall and then they just dump a pile of the giant gravel on.

    Last winter there was a group called "Taking Back East Kootaney Highways" who were circulating a petition to try to get better highway maintenance. Here is a link to the site where they show some of the huge gravel that is put on the road:

    http://www.ekhighways.org/news/
    Last edited by Mixalot27; 01-25-2016 at 08:48 PM.

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    It's been like this forever (part of the reason why I have a beater to take to the ski hills). They can't put down any sort of salt or chemical because it's in the park and laws won't allow it. Sand won't work as the road is too heavily travelled and again sand is unnatural to the park so they won't use it. The only way to make snow/ice covered roads partially safe is to use huge pieces of gravel.
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    Originally posted by Mixalot27
    I am not sure who has the maintenance contract for Kootenay National Park but I am living in Radium this winter and lived in Kimberley last winter. Out here highway maintenance is handled by a company called Mainroad contracting. They are allowed to use 13mm gravel on the roads, where as most other provinces only allow up to 8mm or even 6mm. It is brutal for broken windshields and because of its large size it often seems to just roll off the road. Highway maintenance in general is a joke here compared to Alberta or the US, often times the roads aren't touched for days after a snow fall and then they just dump a pile of the giant gravel on.

    Last winter there was a group called "Taking Back East Kootaney Highways" who were circulating a petition to try to get better highway maintenance. Here is a link to the site where they show some of the huge gravel that is put on the road:

    http://www.ekhighways.org/news/

    haha driving between Fernie and goldne friday once we passed the stealth checkstop leaving radium we encountered this!! It was like a gravel truck spilled its load in some spots?!

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    Originally posted by Redlyne_mr2
    The only way to make snow/ice covered roads partially safe is to use huge pieces of gravel.
    Or, ya know,

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    To be honest this boulder gravel is used in LOTS of places in Alberta. My parents live in Peace River and the shit they use up there holy shit...

    Not joking when I say during the winter I hope you don't have a nice vehicle because it will look like shit after the first month. Between the boulder gravel in winter and the highway repair with chips..

    Ugh

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    Originally posted by Redlyne_mr2
    It's been like this forever (part of the reason why I have a beater to take to the ski hills). They can't put down any sort of salt or chemical because it's in the park and laws won't allow it. Sand won't work as the road is too heavily travelled and again sand is unnatural to the park so they won't use it. The only way to make snow/ice covered roads partially safe is to use huge pieces of gravel.
    I guess forever is relative to how old you are .


    We use to hit Sunshine, LL , fortress and what not back in the 80's and it was sanded, not gravel, not boulders, but real sand. I was talking to my Dad about the rock they use a few weeks ago, to his recollection, in the 60's through the 80's, it was a rarity to change a windshield on vehicle, sometime in the 90's it became a regular maintenance item. I even remember as a kid,there being actual sand bins on the sides of the highways on hills.
    I could see using sanding chips, but rocks approaching an inch in diameter is getting silly, seeing as they are flying up and hitting vehicles, even in opposite direction of travel, that says in itself, large rock is easily displaced from the driving lane. We've all seen it even in Calgary, the rock gets pushed to the side, and the driving area of lane is pure polished ice. Sand sticks, its funny that even when I worked at mall back in the 90's, the City use to tell us to use sand on our ramps off the major roadway, in their own words"because it works better", than gravel.
    Too loud for Aspen

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    Last edited by Cos; 12-20-2016 at 09:13 PM.
    Originally posted by adam c

    Line goes up, line goes down, line does squiggly things and fucks Alberta
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    Smashed up animals make for great traction though.
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    Well I got a response from Parks Canada, with a claim form attached to fill out and return to them..
    Too loud for Aspen

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    Last edited by Cos; 12-20-2016 at 09:19 PM.
    Originally posted by adam c

    Line goes up, line goes down, line does squiggly things and fucks Alberta
    "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones"

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