Re. Allen Mckay’s letter, headlined There’s too much gravel on our paved roads:
In his letter, he did not offer the location of the highway to Alberta Transportation. That’s like asking a plumber to fix a hotel toilet without giving the room number of the toilet requiring repair.
His experience with gravel does not sound like a normal one.
The gravel may be the result of overloaded trucks coming from a gravel pit. Drivers of these trucks are required by law to prevent loose gravel from falling off the their truck when driving our highways.
When we lived in Cochrane, I operated a school bus on Hwy 1A to Calgary.
In the winter, deposit layers of lime would coat on the surface of the bus and commuting cars.
I inquired with the local road maintenance company about what could be done to reduce the amount of dirt/salt residual on the highway. The hazard being my taillights covered in lime not being visible to drivers looking through dirty front windows and through the morning fog not seeing school bus stopped to pick up children.
I learned that the road was being treated with washed sand and that the mud was not the result of snow removal efforts.
During the next week, I watched to see if I could find the source of the lime.
Cement trucks have garden hoses for cleaning up the cement shoot located at the back of the truck.
In the winter, the operators would leave the hose taps open a little, to keep the hose from freezing, allowing water to drop continuously on the highway. This dripping water contained relatively large amounts of cement residual.
Soon after bringing this to the attention of Alberta Transportation, as part of my responsibility as a school bus driver, the cement trucks started keeping their garden hoses from dripping onto the highway. The following winter the highway was clean and without lime.
We, as commuters, need to report people who pollute our highways.
By reporting lime from the cement trucks or gravel from the gravel trucks, we are keeping Alberta Transportation informed about where the debris are accumulating thus enabling their stretched resources to more effectively keep our highways safe.
Rodney Lewis
Red Deer