'We got ripped off': Keswick Ridge residents blame province for Route 616 potholes
Road was repaired just 6 months ago, but recent rain undid the work, business owner says
As rain pounded New Brunswick over the weekend, Lloyd Maurey watched the highway outside his Keswick Ridge business fall apart.
It's a road thatmight be found in the Third World, he thought.
The one-kilometre stretch of Route 616 was rebuilt just six months ago, and now it's rutted and potholed,Maureysaid Tuesday.
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The fill underneath thechipsealis seeping through, saidMaurey, owner of Ed's Shop,a fabricating and machine repair shop.
"There's other sections where the mud's seeping through the surface," he said. "It shouldn't be mud. It should be crushed rock."
Eventually somebody is going to run into the back of something. Somebody is going to get killed.- AndrewLovell, River View Orchard
Although the recent freeze and thaw ultimately wrecked the road, he said, it didn't help that Route 616 wasn't properly repaired in the first place. He blamed the degree of damage on what he considers meagre repair efforts by the province.
"This is whitewash on a rotten fence," he said.
He said a stretch about 50 feet (about 15 metres) long has between 20 and 30 potholes.
Other sections of Route 616 are even worse, he said.
"I've had people stop at my shop with oil pan plugs ripped out of their cars because of the dips and dents in the road there," he said.
Come rush hour, Maurey said, Route 616 is a heavily travelled road, and on weekends, people use it to get to Crabbe Mountain, a popular ski hill northwest of Fredericton. He said it's crucial for the road to be repaired to adequate engineering standards.
"We got ripped off out here, the citizens of New Brunswick got ripped off," he said.
'Somebody going to get killed'
Andrew Lovell, owner of River View Orchard in Keswick Ridge, said the road is dangerousandin desperate need of repair.
"Eventually somebody is going to run into the back of something," he said."Somebody is going to get killed."
By spring, he said, drivers will be hard-pressed to reach 40 or50 kilometres an hour because the road will be so rough.
"It is going to affect businesses eventually because who wants to drive on a cart track?" he said.
Emergency responders will also be affected by the road conditions, he said.
"If an ambulance or fire truck needs through, the road is so rough it would be dangerous to drive fast on it," he said.
Poor-quality construction
Before Route 616 was rebuilt,Maurey said, it was "pretty rough."
In 2017,the roadcame inninth place inCAAAtlantic'stop 10 worst roads in Atlantic Canada, a drop from fifth place in2015.
"It was cracked and broken and potholes emerging," he said.
But the repairs done last year amounted to a"minimal ditching job," he said.
"They should've dug my culvert and everybody else's culvert who's been put in the past 40 years," he said. "The ditches should have beenunsilted to the level of the original ditches."
MaureytoldInformation Morning Frederictonthathe's tried to talk to Carleton-York MLA Carl Urquhart about the poor road conditions but has not yet received a response.
CBCNews asked the Department of Transportation for the cost of the initial repair and did not get an answer. But department spokesperson Jeremy Trevors said it was too early to discuss the cost of repairs from the recent storm.
Maurey said he isn't blaming the paving company responsible for the repairs, but he believes it did a lot of work for nothing.
"That was definitely not standard practice," he said.
Peoplein thecommunity areupset and get red in the face every time he raises the issue ofroad conditions.
"Somebody from the province, I assume had to sign off on it and say that it's good," he said.
"It's not good, it's terrible."
With files from Information Morning Fredericton
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