Moncton area jumps to early lead in worst-roads voting
'With the spring comes the NHL playoffs and potholes,' says Gary Howard of CAA Atlantic.
Five roads in Greater Moncton held the top spots in early voting as the CAA Atlantic's annual campaign to name the 10 worst roads in the province got underway.
"With the spring comes the NHL playoffs and potholes," Gary Howard, a spokesperson for CAA Atlantic, said Tuesday.
Now in its eighth year, the CAA campaign is not "scientific research" by any means, but it does give the public a way to talk about broken roads and potholes, Howard said.
Université Avenue, Connaught Avenue, Berry Mills Road and Killam Drive in Moncton, along with Pine Glen Road in Riverview topped the list on the first day of voting.
But Howard said it's a living list, which means it is constantly changing as votes come in.
By Tuesday evening, even a terrible road in Nova Scotia was getting strong support. although New Brunswick's bad roads dominated the list.
Many people in Moncton say this is shaping up to be a memorable pothole season.
"They're horrible, absolutely horrible, and I don't know what other people's cars are like, but I drive a big SUV but I know right in front of the Coliseum — terrible!" said Amy Ankenmann.
"It's dangerous and they need to be fixed."
James Till, who lives on the Pine Glen Road, said, "it's definitely the worst year yet."
"Almost all streets now are broken up pretty bad."
Bert Collicut said his drive to the Moncton Hospital was anything but smooth.
"It's really bad, especially Mill Road," Collicut said. "We came in Mill Road and it was really bad so there's a lot of work that needs to be done to get the roads where you're not beating your car up all the time."
"I think it's because we had so much thawing and freezing, and the cycle just kept going. There wasn't enough snow."
Gary Howard said the CAA Atlantic poll also gives government the chance to respond.
"We also want this to be an opportunity for government to provide the public with what they're planning to do with maintaining and reconstructing and building roads," Howard said.
"So we want this to be a two-way open dialogue between government and the public."
Howard said New Brunswick may have taken an early lead, but bad roads are a problem across the Atlantic region.
"I travel quite a bit across Atlantic Canada and there are bad roads in every province," he said.
"And it seems to be getting worse.
"The provincial governments in the Atlantic provinces, they don't have as many resources as I think they would like, and are really depending more on the federal government to bring more money to the table, which they should."
Voting for the 10 Worst Roads campaign ends on April 18.