Road repairs near completion

Author: Frank Matys

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Frank Matys

A reconstruction of Monck Road between Highway 169 and Sebright should be complete by the month’s end, officials say.

When the dust began to rise like filthy clouds over Monck Road, Bill Duffy got it in the ear.
And then he got it on the head.
“I used to be 6’3”, now I’m 5’8” – I’ve been pounded into the dirt with complaints,” Ramara Township’s mayor says of the verbal trouncing he’s suffered over a reconstruction of the county-owned road.
Work began in mid-August to replace the 6.3-kilometre section of Monck Road between Highway 169 and Sebright.
Duffy said the blacktop hadn’t undergone improvements since the 1950s, when his father was reeve of what was then Mara Township.
That the reconstruction was a county initiative mattered little to the hundred or so residents who dialed Duffy to voice their displeasure over the large quantities of dust that hung in the air, mainly on weekends.
Duffy blames an absence of water trucks to keep the fine particles at bay on weekends.
“Complaints, complaints, complaints,” he said.
Joe Callaghan, who lives directly east of Highway 169, described the oft-present dust cloud as “a nightmare” that invaded his bungalow and coated his vehicles in a powdery mess.
“It was worse than fog,” said Callaghan.
Both were pleased to learn the project is moving into its final phase after experiencing a recent setback that delayed the work for four weeks.
A machine used to mix the pulverized remains of the old road with fresh asphalt for preparation of the new road base proved useless.
“It was jamming up,” said Craig Fischer, of Durham-based Seeley and Arnill Construction. “The material was getting stuck in it. It wasn’t the right machine for the job.”
A machine better suited to the asphalt mix was tracked down and is now at work after a delay of several weeks.
Fischer said the work should be complete by the end of October.
“Every road is different,” he added. “You can’t really predict what the conditions are going to be.”
Monck Road was named in honour of Charles Stanley Monck, who served as Canada’s first Governor General in 1867/1868.
Completed in 1873, the road provided access to land for settlement and served as a military road, according to a plaque mounted on a boulder near the intersection of Monck and Rama roads.