Municipal works are complicated things, and road works, involving not only the department of roads but often of several utilities, can be especially difficult to orchestrate.
Veteran councillor
John Parker understands this, but even he was nonplussed at the tribulations of what ought to have been a relatively simple watermain update on Millwood Road between Bayview and McRae.
After two years and no apparent end in sight, with questions to city staff going unanswered, or receiving vague or inconsistent responses, he'd finally had enough.
"I'd lose track of what was happening when," Parker says, "staff would lose track of who they'd called, and residents would call and I'd get frustrated having to tell them I didn't know what was happening."
So he wrote a letter with all the questions he and his constituents had had over the months and years, and demanded a comprehensive reply.
He found out that the delay had been caused by a French farce's worth of miscommunication and bad decisions. The work was first meant to repair the watermains. When the ground was dug, workers discovered the sewers were in bad shape, too. After some winter weather delays, the city decided to inform the utilities that if they wanted to do anything in the area themselves, now was the time. The utilities had to figure things out, and then do their work. When that was done, the road department called the water department to make sure they'd finished their work, and when they were told they had, they began re-paving, only to receive a call from another desk at the water office saying that no, in fact they hadn't finished their work. "That's why you'll see some areas where brand new sidewalk is being broken up," Parker says.
The final word is that, after Enbridge is finished with some gas lines, the city will re-do all the surfaces by November 31.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: John Parker
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