TIMMINS - With no progress on talks to have the province take back a road downloaded to the city decades ago, the road connecting two provincial highways could be turned to gravel.
The City of Timmins is almost past the point of safely maintaining Municipal Road for the public, director of public works Ken Krcel told council on Tuesday.
"The shoulders are falling apart. My staff is begging for an answer of how to maintain it, and we don't have one because we don't have the resources to to fix it. So my opinion is that we're at risk now. I would rather it be pulverized tomorrow, maintain it as gravel and try to maintain it as action, because at least we have graders and we have staff that can can grade the road."
The 22-kilometre stretch of road in question connects Highway 11 in Iroquois Falls to Highway 101 in Timmins.
It was known as Highway 67 until 1997 when the Conservative government of the day — led by North Bay's Mike Harris — downloaded it to the municipalities. Timmins is responsible for about 10 kilometres, with 12 kilometres belonging to Iroquois Falls.
Driving it is often an exercise in dodging potholes.
Large forest, mining and construction trucks drive it, Ontario Power Generation has been using it to haul resources to its Frederick House Lake dam project, and it's the only public access to Kettle Lakes Provincial Park. There are also cottages and year-round homeowners in the area.
A verbal report on efforts to lobby the province to take back the highway was at the Sept. 17 Timmins council meeting.
At the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in August, staff and politicians from Timmins and Iroquois Falls met with Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria.
No promises were made at the meeting, and CAO Dave Landers said there isn't a lot to report on progress with the province.
When it comes to the state of the road, there's a lot to talk about.
Public works staff have narrowed the roadway with line painting because the asphalt is cracking at the edges and the condition is being monitored for safety, said Landers.
“At some point, if there's no help on the way and there's no other way to address it, we're going to take up the asphalt pulverize it, and we reduce the speeds, and it becomes … an actual municipal road and not a highway like it actually is. So no good news on this one, yet,” he said.
No costing numbers were presented at Tuesday's meeting.
Earlier this year, the city estimated that fixing the road would cost about $1 million per kilometre.
RELATED: Downloaded roads 'unmanageable' for Timmins, Iroquois Falls, says CAO
If the city bears the cost to repair it, Landers said it would mean making big decisions about what other roadwork happens in the municipality.
The MTO is studying the traffic on the roadway.
While initially they were going to do an origin study, which has MTO staff asking vehicle drivers questions, they are doing a trace study instead.
For vehicles to be counted in the trace study, Landers said they have to be going from Highway 101 to Highway 11.
It means that a vehicle driving from Sudbury, for example, and going to Kettle Lakes Provincial Park or a logging truck leaving Barber's Bay and going to Quebec would not be counted in the study.
“Because somehow, that's not provincial travel,” he said,
The trace study review is expected by the end of the year, said Timmins Mayor Michelle Boileau.
“At which point MTO staff feel like they will be better positioned to try to help make a case for Highway 67. How promising that is, we don't know,” she said.
Coun. John Curley doesn't have good feelings from the provincial ministry on the highway.
He questioned what other steps can be taken.
“Because I think we're going to have to act on this one,” he said.
Curley also noted the province has taken back highways — including the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway in Toronto, and Highway 174 in Ottawa — that had been downloaded to other municipalities.
