14 Regina roads in the running for CAA Worst Roads campaign

Drivers in Regina are expressing their displeasure with the state of residential roads in the city.

CAA’s Worst Roads Campaign is underway, seeking input from the public to find the worst road in Saskatchewan. Of the 26 roads currently in the running for the Top 10 list, 14 are in Regina. Seven of those are in the Whitmore Park/Hillsdale area.

980 CJME took a bumpy ride out to the neighbourhood to hear from residents.

Procter Place

Jill Peterson has lived on Procter Place for five years and feels the road has been ignored by the city. It’s currently tied for 10th on the CAA list.

“Procter Place has always been very bumpy,” said Peterson. “It’s always been like that, it’s just getting worse and worse.”

Peterson said the street is bad for water main breaks and said there have been three breaks so far this spring. She called the repair job “dangerous.”

“It looks like the water main, when they filled the hole back up with dirt, they maybe didn’t fill it up all the way,” she said.

When asked if she would support an increase to property taxes to help pay for more residential road repairs in the city, Peterson said her taxes have gone up enough and the city should be using that money to fix the roads.

Academy Park Road

Some residents who live on Academy Park Road don’t feel like the street lives up to Canadian standards. It too is tied for 10th.

“I’ve travelled a lot. I’ve been on some bad roads and these are up there with countries that don’t have paving,” said Jodie Knechtel.

The street has potholes, cracks between the patches of repairs and several lopsided sections.

“I’m afraid my vehicle is going to fall apart every time I drive down it,” Knechtel said.

Her neighbour, Dan Pooler, was particularly concerned about a troubling dip running lengthwise down the middle of the road, which often collects water.

“It’s like a lake. I call it Academy Park Lake,” he said.

While he admits he doesn’t pay enough attention to civic politics, he believes there must be somewhere to find savings and direct that money toward more residential road improvements.

“I do see other roads that don’t seem as bad as this one being paved over. That’s hard to understand,” said Pooler.

Robin Clark lives around the corner on Acadia Drive, which appears to be in similar condition but isn’t on the CAA list.

“You wonder how Detroit became Detroit? Well, they stopped fixing things,” said Clark. “We’re already at the stopped-fixing part.”

He feels the city has decided to get more bang for its buck doing minor repairs on other roads while his street is ignored.

When asked if he would pay more property taxes to improve residential roads, he said only if there was a guarantee his road would be fixed. Clark added he has been paying taxes for years and hasn’t seen much work done.

Cowan Crescent

Residents on Cowan Crescent believe their street is busy enough to warrant a more permanent repair. It’s tied for seventh on CAA’s list.

The road is home to a church and Regina’s only Francophone school, Ecole Monseigneur de Laval.

Tenille Bryan said most people she knows avoid the east portion of the road because it’s so bad, filled with potholes. She said the road often floods in the spring and the water collects in the sinking centre of the road, instead of flowing down the sides.

Bryan described a sinkhole that formed one year, filling with water.

“The neighbour used a canoe to go on it,” she said.

When asked if she would pay more property taxes to support residential road improvements, she hesitated for a moment but said “yes.”

City responds

The City of Regina doesn’t put much stock into the CAA worst roads list.

Norman Kyle, director of roadways and transportation, said it’s fairly subjective, adding the city’s approach is more analytical. It measures the cracks and stresses in the pavement then uses a spreadsheet to classify the condition of the roads.

“We know where our poor roads are and that’s why over the last five years, the city has continued to invest in roadway infrastructure,” said Kyle.

A one-per-cent mill rate is dedicated to the improvement of residential roads in Regina. The 2019 budget allocated $14 million for 84 residential road projects representing 24.8 kilometres.

Regina’s summer road construction project list has yet to be announced but is expected to be within the next few weeks.

CAA’s Worst Roads Campaign is accepting votes until May 8.