By Elizabeth Huber
Saskatchewan

When the sun is shinning, the promising days of spring are just around the corner.

The warmer temperatures also mean a number of seasonal headaches for the City Crews. The first already making “craters” in the downtown streets.

“Tis’ the season,” said Mac Forster, City of Swift Current director of engineering.

“As the freeze-thaw time of the year has arrived, potholes begin to show up on streets as night time freezing combined with daytime traffic and thawing cause pavement failures,” he explained.

The City anticipates to have hot-mix asphalt available by late April or the beginning of May, “at which time we will undertake a fairly comprehensive city-wide pothole patching program,” he noted.

In the meantime, a cold-mix program will be carried out, although “it is not as effective,” because the material does not bind well into the potholes.

“Crews have been out on the streets beginning to try and deal with the worst ones,” said Forster.

As the 2010 Ford Women’s World Curling is just over a week away, some City residents are getting anxious about the presentation and upkeep of the City. Numerous comments have been made about City hall, residents and businesses needing to put their “best foot forward,” prior to the event.

“I think all departments are certainly going to be doing their best to ensure our City is in a very nice state of presentation at that time of year,” said Forster.

As the spring thaw comes, question of the potential return of the rodents to Swift Current are emerging as well.
“We are continuing to monitor the situation,” said Forster. “We are being very vigilant and proactive.”

The landfill and City facilities continued to be monitored throughout the winter months and now warmer weather is on the way, the City will continue to monitor them.

“We have already been doing inspections this spring in areas that were particularly impacted last year. That included the area in and around the i-plex, the North East quadrant of the City,” Forster responded when asked if any special attention would be given to the i-plex facilities as final preparations are made for the world curling event.

With spring, the City is also anticipating the completion of the Highway 1 and 4 interchange.
Similar to pothole work, the hot mix asphalt should be available around the beginning of May.

“We anticipate the contractor will be moving into place probably in late April to commence work on that project,” said Forster.