Residents fed up with wet, mucky back lane told paving is possible if they pay

Some people in North Kildonan want something done about their swampy, rutty, mucky back lane they say is damaging their cars and dampening their spirits.

Rebecca Elias and her family have lived on Leighton Avenue in North Kildonan for five years. She believes many people in Winnipeg have issues with their gravel back lanes, but she thinks hers — between Leighton Avenue and Fearn Avenue — is in a league of its own.

"It's worse than any back road, gravel road, you've ever been down," said Elias. "It's horrible…it's a mess. All the time, it's constantly wet. The last two years it hasn't been dry at all."

The lane is full of ruts and potholes full of water. In some of the puddles, the water is a foot deep. Elias has found dead animals in the watery expanse behind her garage. She struggles to keep her kids from playing in it and her dogs from drinking it.

"It's always wet, it's always dirty, it's just…damaging. I don't even know what else to say about it, it's just gross," she said.

In winter, the water turns into jagged ice which destroys her car and in summer, it's a mucky breeding ground for mosquitoes, she said.

"Fogging does nothing... And it stinks. It's a swamp."

Elias often calls the city's 311 line over the issue, as do her neighbours.

"I've watched the graders come by once a year, once every two years and...it doesn't do much," she said.

She says the grading lasts until the garbage trucks roll down the lane, taking the work — usually a muddy substance used to fill the holes — with them.

Safety concern

Other neighbours living along the lane told the CBC the problem is only getting worse.

"I don't want to drown, taking out my garbage," said Linda Floren, who lives across the lane from Elias. A puddle the size of a small swimming pool lies a few feet from her garbage bins.

Floren built gravel up around her back fence to block the lane water from flooding her yard. She recently contacted City Coun. Jeff Browaty to address the problem.

"It's atrocious right now, I've seen the pictures," said Browaty.

"The reality is, this is how it's always been. This particular lane is on public works' radar, but most lanes in the city are pretty bad right now," he said, adding the issue with unpaved lanes is that there's nowhere for the water to drain.

In the past three years, the city has received 1,923 requests for service from residents with gravel lanes. The number of complaints has been increasing each year:

- 2013 - 565.

- 2014 - 649.

- 2015 - 709.

A city spokesperson says there are 102 kilometres of gravel lanes in the city and the aim is that each is graded once per year.

Browaty recommends those unhappy with their lane opt for the local improvement program to get it paved with asphalt or concrete. But that requires more than 60 per cent of people whose properties touch the lane to agree to the extra cost on their taxes.

But no one wants to pay extra money when the petition goes around her block, said Elias.

"Just because we don't have a lot of back-lane access homes here. Nobody wants to pay to have it paved," said Elias. "Not everybody wants or needs it. So I think just regular, proper maintenance and proper materials put down would make a huge difference."

She believes city maintenance on the lane should last longer than a week.

"Just put proper limestone, not mud that turns into mush, that cakes onto your vehicles and your shoes and everything else, it splashes onto …everything. If they actually put rock down and not mud I think it would make a huge difference," she said.

Browaty agrees limestone would be an improvement, but an unlikely one because of the cost. He says city's public works department is waiting for the weather to dry up before they grade this particular lane again. Because of its especially bad condition, crews will likely add gravel. But that won't alleviate the drainage woes, he added.

"People want to upgrade it? They can do so through the local petition," he said.

'Constant Pain'

Elias is getting tired of spending thousands of dollars on vehicle repairs and near daily washing of the family vehicles.

"My front bumper gets smashed up on a regular basis, my fog lights are just about falling out, it's been cracked for a few years because having to fix it every year," she said.

She dreads the winter and snow clearing, when she'll be forced to use the lane every day to park her car. Her husband does that already because he needs to access the garage with his work truck.

"It's constant pain, just from the constant back and forth and the lumps and bumps and the divets and all that. It's painful on him. It's wearing on our vehicles, it's wearing on our bodies… it's stressful," she said.

"We pay taxes. Where is it going? What are you doing with the money we work so hard for?"

Despite her dampened spirits, there is a silver lining to the mucky mess.

"We don't get a lot of theft back here because nobody wants to walk down here," she said.