Random thoughts: What’s on your mind lately? Part 2
- Thread starter LC18
- Start date
dumb question from me but why is that? the engineering, materials, weather, types of vehicles using the roads are similar... why does it deteriorate so much faster in Quebec?
Choice of material I think but mainly the harsh winter with the constant temperature change, snow plowing and constant salt spreading.
In the Western part of Canada the snow plowing and salting is less intense. You'll see that once there is a snowstorm it's the chaos in the road. Here it's BAU
That's only part of it. It changes literally when you cross the border, where the weather is exactly the same. I will concede that the winter road maintenance is better than in ON, but road conditions overall are insane. There's probably just a higher repair budget here or a higher threshold for road fixes there or both. QC roads are far and away the worst in Canada, worse than most in western Europe and about on par with Central America.
Poor design , second rate materials , inefficient quality control by province / municipality during construction , all produce second rate roads which fail in winter . Pothole repairs are impossible in winter conditions using current poorly chosen repair materials and equipment methods .Quebec sait faire !
All of this, plus if you go back far enough Quebec spent money for parties and public entertainment, a la Rome, in a general sense (and some infrastructure, yes, like the Metro) and skimped on maintenance for years. Instead of proper maintenance it was an abundance of patches and quick fixes, not proper repairs, to the point where the real volume of roads that require require work is overwhelming, both in the scale of man-hours and equipment needed and the dollars required. The roads and bridges and overpasses are a shit show now because everything was allowed to deteriorate at the same time, and now the province is required to do everything at once, and they're still doing a half assed job.. Nobody else in Canada did that.
Driving home last night (aka this morning) I thought the guy ahead of me was drunk but it was just a stretch of road that was so bad that you couldn't drive faster than 20 km/h without getting a concussion. Luckily that road has so much traffic that you'd rarely ever get a chance to get up to 20 km/h
I remember driving to Vermont through QC and was on a road with a posted 80kph limit but if you went any faster than 40 your car would probably explode. Potholes you drive all the way in and out of.
It's a combination of various things. The simple answer is they used cheaper products and products that were less advanced technologically in order to reduce costs, but that's not really a complete answer. The weather thing, while applicable, is a bit of a canard because those same weather conditions apply to adjoining provinces/states that have the same weather as we do, more or less. The more complex answer has to do with the types of contracts the city bought into. Montreal's construction industry was famous for being bought and paid for by the mob, who of course cut corners everywhere, and was absolutely riddled with corruption until the days of the Charbonneau report and the subsequent cleansing. I want to say that was about 10 years ago, but I'm not sure of the timing and can't be arsed to check. The other thing was contracts were offered out to the lowest bidder to provide a service and then go away. With the lowest bidder comes the shoddiest work and the cheapest materials, again to cut costs. Self perpetuating cycle. Also, less controls. Many other places go past the one off deal and instead buy 25-30 year contracts, so that the company that builds it is also required to maintain it on their dime. There's an incentive to do it properly the first time in order to reduce subsequent maintenance and materials costs to the builders which ultimately cost more if the job is done badly at the outset. Quebec doesn't do that, with obvious results. There's other stuff too, but those are the main ones.
Really simple corrupt politicians, most contracts awarded to mob controlled construction companies and tax dollars disappear into the pot holes you are left with.
Weather issue is complete bullshit 100% improvement on roads as soon as you cross the border into the US or Ontario the border marker does not change the weather lol.
Weather issue is complete bullshit 100% improvement on roads as soon as you cross the border into the US or Ontario the border marker does not change the weather lol.
Similar threads
