Hwy 101 rehab in Timmins starts next week; minor delays expected
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
14 minutes ago
- CTV News
Car show raising money for animals
Winnipeg Watch The Paws to the Pedal car show is raising money for K9 Advocacy Manitoba to continue helping animals.
CTV News
14 minutes ago
- CTV News
B.C. man believes province was negligent for failing to fix pothole that damaged his BMW
Eric Luo shows where the pothole damaged his BMW's alignment. The vehicle has since been repaired. (CTV News) Junsheng Luo feels like he's been 'travelling in the darkness' since his two-year-old BMW suffered $1,000 worth of damage from a pothole on Knight Street in Richmond back in May. The vehicle has been repaired, but Luo – who also goes by the name Eric – has struggled to get compensation from the government responsible for maintaining the road, which he feels he deserves. In B.C., governments are generally not responsible for paying members of the public whose property is damaged by government infrastructure, unless the government in question was negligent in causing the damage. Luo says he understands this, and believes his case qualifies for compensation. He's also frustrated by what he sees as a lack of accountability on the part of the province. 'Passing the ball' In the days after the incident, Luo contacted the Ministry of Transportation and Transit and filed a claim for compensation using the form available on the ministry's website. He says the ministry staff he spoke to referred him to the City of Richmond, saying the stretch of road in question was municipally managed. A claim he made at the municipal level was denied, with the city's insurer saying it had 'confirmed' that the location is a provincial responsibility. The pothole itself has long since been repaired, though when he spoke to CTV News last weekend, Luo was not sure by whom. 'Nobody is telling me who fixed it,' he said at the time. 'I mean, the people or the party who fixed it should have the responsibility to me to help me compensate this claim.' In a statement to CTV News this week, the ministry acknowledged that it is responsible for maintaining the stretch of Knight Street that interchanges with and passes under Highway 91, where the pothole was located. Luo said in an email Friday that he feels this 'passing the ball' between the ministry and the city led to unnecessary delays and reflects poorly on the ministry's handling of public concerns. 'At minimum, B.C. Highway owes me, as a taxpayer and driver, an apology,' he wrote. Knight Street pothole Luo went back and took photos of the pothole after the incident. (Eric Luo) Negligence According to the ministry, three different agencies are responsible for Knight Street in Richmond. Some parts of the road are maintained by TransLink, others by the city, and others by the province. The ministry referred CTV News to the 'Highway Related Claims' section of the provincial government website, which says the ministry may pay for damage caused by things like potholes, but only if there is proof of negligence on the part of the ministry or its contractors. 'If there was no negligence, the claim is not payable,' the page reads. It also notes that provincial highway maintenance contracts require the contracted companies to meet 'specific standards and response times' depending on the classification of the roadway in question. 'Once a deficiency, such as a pothole, has been detected, contractors must make the necessary repairs within those required response times,' the page reads. Luo says he spoke to an operations manager for Mainroad Lower Mainland Contracting – the provincial highway maintenance contractor – who said he knew exactly where the pothole was. 'This indicates that the issue had been known for some time, yet no action was taken until after my incident, which suggests a failure in maintenance responsibilities,' Luo said in his email. He expressed a similar sentiment in his interview, before he knew which level of government was responsible for maintaining the road. '(It's) very frustrating,' Luo said, at the time. 'This (pothole) is not a thing that I'm the first person to find it. This is a problem that existed for a time that they have already been aware of.' Luo says his existing claim for compensation from the province should be considered a claim of negligence, and he says he plans to continue to press the issue until he gets the money he feels he deserves.
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
First phase wraps up for major road reconstruction project on Bleams Road
A major construction project meant to ease congestion in a busy part of Kitchener is nearing its next phase. CTV's Krista Simpson has details. A road extension meant to ease congestion in a busy part of Kitchener is one step closer to being complete. People and vehicles will soon be able to take Bleams Road from Manitou Drive to Wilson Avenue. 'It's an important connector in our road network,' said Marcos Kroker, head of transportation expansion at the Region of Waterloo's design and construction office. Work is wrapping up on this first part of a multi-phase project that's been years in the making. The new section of Bleams Road includes a bridge over Schneider Creek. Construction on that part of the project started in 2020. Road work began in early 2024 and is nearly complete, with the road expected to open in early to mid-August 2025. 'The project is a great community connector. So it improves the economic environment for us. It improves the road network. It relieves a lot of traffic congestion that we're experiencing on Fairway Road. And it's adding trails to our existing trail network as well,' Kroker said. The new road is parallel to Fairway Road in Kitchener, and it is hoped it will spread out some of the traffic there. A manager at a nearby business on Manitou Drive also hopes there will be some relief in that area, too. 'It should relieve a lot of problems here on Manitou in front of our shop. It's just congestion, lots of traffic congestion,' said Ben Hallman, manager at All-Brite Glass & Tint. Hallman said the problems are made worse by stopped buses slowing traffic, transport trucks having difficulty navigating the road, and backups as vehicles try to turn onto Fairway Road but have to wait because of crossing trains on Courtland Ave. Hallman has been watching the construction as it has progressed over the past few years. 'It looks good. They've done a really good job with it.' The total cost of construction to date is $20.6 million, which a Region of Waterloo spokesperson notes includes: Extending Bleams Road to Wilson Avenue Building a bridge across Schneider Creek Installing a roundabout at Goodrich Drive/Bleams Road and Wilson Avenue Connecting the new road to the Manitou Drive and Bleams Road roundabout Underground infrastructure upgrades including a new Regional watermain This is just the first part of the first phase of construction; the next steps include the addition of a roundabout at the Bleams Road extension and Wabanaki Drive, and another roundabout at Wabanaki Drive and Hidden Valley Road plus additional road capacity and trail networks there. A second phase of the project will extend River Road from King St. East to Hidden Valley Road, including ramps to access Highway 8. All in all, the project will create 3.4 kilometres of new connections. The work is expected to be done by 2030, and by then it's expected 17,500 vehicles per day will use the Bleams Road extension.
