Roads

Other roads

Other road jurisdictions in Wainfleet include the Ministry of Transportation (Highway 3) and the Regional Municipality of Niagara.

Winter control

The Township of Wainfleet is committed to ensuring safe passage for residents, visitors and businesses and ensuring roadways are passable for emergency response vehicles.

Please monitor local weather forecasts and remove all vehicles from Township roads in order to allow for proper snow clearing and removal operations during storm events. Both the Ontario Highway Traffic Act and the Wainfleet Parking By-law include provisions prohibiting vehicles from interfering with snow clearing and removal operations.

When clearing your driveway, please refrain from depositing snow and other debris on any roads, road allowances or in ditches. This will help keep the view of intersections clear and prevent drifting, damage to small vehicles and blockages that may later cause flooding.

We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our roads safe.

Studies and reports

• Road Needs
• Roadside Safety

Parking

Potholes

Potholes are a perpetual challenge for municipalities across the country. The Township identifies potholes through regular patrols of all of its roads as well as reports made by the public.

On asphalt roads, most potholes are caused by water which seeps into existing small cracks in the surface of the road caused by the wear and tear of traffic and deterioration over time. Cold weather then causes this water to freeze (and expand) and when this water melts and evaporates in the warmer weather, it creates gaps which then get broken down by the motor vehicle traffic. Potholes are fixed temporarily using a cold patch mix of asphalt – until a more permanent fix can be completed after the winter road maintenance season is concluded and the frost has left the ground.

As a rural municipality, however, 97 kilometers of our roadways are gravel. Unpaved road surfaces are more susceptible to developing potholes and water is the biggest contributor to the deterioration of these roads. Whether it seeps in from above or below, water simply destroys roads. In addition to rutting and eroding away an unsealed road surfaces, water causes the development of potholes.

During the freeze-thaw cycle, water that has infiltrated into the road material will freeze and expand during sub-freezing temperatures. When temperatures warm back up, the frozen material will thaw and contract. This will leave voids in the road material that will collect more water and experience more sub-surface deterioration following additional freeze-thaw cycles. It is these voids in the road material that can be broken through and further damaged by traffic, causing potholes to form.

We use a grader to repair these surfaces but continuous wet conditions, combined with freeze-thaw cycles, exacerbate the problem.

Drainage

The Township Drainage Department administers municipal drains.