Streets turned muddy by heavy trucks
We don’t let much stand in the way of progress in the city that never stops growing, but there are limits to what should be tolerated.
With the thermometer creeping above freezing for a few days after weeks of Siberian temperatures, a lot of snow-covered frozen ground is transforming into a muddy bog.
As trucks traverse that soft, wet ground, they eventually end up on the road, where the mud caked to their wheels is deposited on city streets and ends up on cars.
That’s a no-no. A city bylaw prohibits fouling of the road allowance by trucks exiting construction sites and other places where their wheels would track mud onto the street.
The bylaw seemed to be overlooked at a Toronto Redi-Mix concrete plant on Horner Ave., near Kipling Ave. in Etobicoke, where big trucks and cement mixers exiting the facility were dropping copious amounts of mud on the road. We were driving on Horner Ave. just before Christmas when we suddenly found ourselves traversing several hundred metres of mudcovered road, courtesy of trucks pulling out of the concrete plant. We could hear chunks of mud crackling off the bottom of our car, so went back to take a look. Clearly, not much is being done at the plant to keep the mess to a minimum.
The city suggests construction sites and similar facilities spread heavygauge gravel at exits, allowing at least some of the mud to be wiped from the wheels before they hit the street.
Some sites station a worker with a hose at an exit to wash down the wheels on their way out. But that level of diligence is a rare exception.
Status: Luigi Nicolucci, who’s in charge of right-of-way management in that area, emailed to say “my staff advised me that they spoke to Toronto Redi-Mix representatives last week about the mud tracking and they agreed to clean up the road. We will monitor the area to determine compliance.” We went back Wednesday, when the temperature was well above freezing, and saw only a small amount of mud on the road.
Stephanie Moore, marketing manager for Toronto Redi-Mix, said the plant also includes aggregate and soil operations, which adds to the truck traffic. “Unfortunately, the freezing weather has made it difficult to control the mud,” she said in an email. “We have a sweeper attachment on one of our machines and sweep the road regularly in milder temperatures (two to three times per week). We also use a contracted sweeping company to maintain the yard and surrounding roadway.” The sweeper is scheduled to take another pass at mud on the road Thursday, and will be used more often as temperatures rise above freezing, said Moore.
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