The Winter Respite Provides Opportunities

The warming trend and break in the winter weather provided an opportunity for us all to get a little sun and for maintenance.

Patching was done on Lakecliffe, although doing this in the winter is a temporary measure. The larger patches will not sustain the pounding of heavy vehicles, which includes delivery trucks, moving vans and so on.

With the completion of patching, some residents will be inclined to speed up as they drive through the property. That will hasten the disintegration of the patches. I'm sure we'll be bouncing in potholes after the next snow.

Lakecliffe is on it's last legs
Some people wondered why, in 2008, I pushed for urgency to formulate a plan to redo this street because of signs of imminent failure. Back then, everyone said "The street was designed to last until 2022." No, it wasn't; nor was it installed in such a manner as to provide maintenance free service for a projected 15 to 20 years. Others wondered why I grew impatient in 2012. Well, now you know why. However, in 2008 the argument was "We want to keep fees as low as possible." The strategy was "Spend the money on mulch and daffodils and spruce the place up." After all, any dollar spent must be collected as fees and so "If we don't spend it, we don't need to collect it or save it." Besides, anyone who lives on Salisbury, Thames, Gloucester, Plymouth, Dover or the other end of Lakecliffe can drive out the other entrance, and most do. So they can avoid the problem entirely. Of course, this puts more traffic on the other section of Lakecliffe. These streets are supposedly designed for a specific number of vehicle passes per day which multiplied by months and years determines the lifetime ability of the street to carry traffic. So we may be hastening the demise of the other end of Lakecliffe by inadvertently directing twice the normal traffic on that section of road.

Here's typical patching installed this week on the northern section.