Colinet residents hit the street to repair potholes
“The road has never been maintained. It is a constant battle.” Jason Barrett
Beneath grey skies on Tuesday, Oct. 26, a group of Colinet and area residents stepped up to help their region.
With shovels and buckets in hand, a group of 25 people arrived at parts of the 16-kilometre stretch of unpaved highway between the towns of Colinet and Markland. There was even someone helping with an all-terrain vehicle with an attached plow.
Fed up with having their concerns about Route 81 ignored by the provincial government, the community group — organized by Stephanie Nash-pearce and Robert Nash — took gravel from the shoulder of the road and used it to fill in dozens of the potholes that plague drivers in the area.
It started as a couple of people before the group ballooned to over two dozen looking to help.
For two hours, the volunteers filled in close to 100 potholes in two of the more dangerous areas of the road.
The area they were working in is a notorious one. It routinely gets voted amongst the worst roads in Canada and was named the worst a couple of years ago.
“It is extremely frustrating,” Nash-pearce said of the state of the road.
A resident of Colinet, she has to cautiously drive her vehicle over the road each day for work. Her daughter is a figure skater in nearby Whitbourne, so sometimes Nash-pearce will guide her car carefully over and through potholes more than once a day.
She said there are areas of the road where vehicles have to coast over the potholes to try to cut down on vehicle wear and tear.
“We use that road to access our doctors and dentists and our grocery store. That’s our nearest convenience and the road conditions are deplorable,” said Nash-pearce.
The road is graded by the provincial government twice a year, but shortly after that is done, the road reverts to its previous form through a combination of use and weather.
In an email, a spokesperson with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure said the local depot will grade the highway as soon as conditions allow.
Earlier this year, the province announced $1.4 million in funding to pave over six kilometres of Route 81 just south of Whitbourne. That is in addition to the 4.2 kilometres of road paved in 2020.
“All highway maintenance, including pothole repairs, are completed based on priority. This fall, the crews have been focusing on road damage in the region caused by recent weather events such as hurricane Larry,” the department spokesperson wrote.
Jason Barrett lives in the area and has seen several cars go off the road on the particular stretch of highway when trying to avoid the potholes.
He was among the 25 people who lent a hand Tuesday afternoon to fill in some of the potholes.
“The road has never been maintained. It is a constant battle,” said Barrett.
People’s issues with the road go back decades. Barrett can remember his grandfather complaining about the state of the road when Barrett was a boy.
Barrett has called every provincial minister he can think of, hoping to see some changes, but nothing has ever been done, he said.
One volunteer, 92-yearold William Davis, has been advocating for the majority of his life to get the road fixed.
For Barrett, it’s high time something finally gets done with the road to bring it up to par with other provincial highways.
“It is a safety concern,” said Barrett. “It is laughable. It really is.”