Sunken utility chamber a surprise for drivers
A utility chamber on Manse Rd. is every bit as bad as a big pothole.
A sunken utility chamber is not what it seems, but can be as jarring for drivers as the deepest of potholes.
And when it can’t be seen until vehicles are right on top of it, the surprise is particularly nasty and may result in an unplanned trip to an auto repair shop to check for damage.
That’s the story we got from a driver who’s fed up with steering around a sunken utility chamber in the northbound lane of Manse Rd., just north of Coronation Dr., which has ambushed her more than once.
The woman said it’s on a route she often drives, turning left from eastbound Coronation onto northbound Manse, where the sunken chamber is directly in her path and hard to avoid.
She first ran into it more than a year ago, saying she didn’t see it and wondered what happened because the thud of her car hitting it was so intense.
It worried her enough that she took her car to her mechanic the same day, to check for damage, she said, but luckily it didn’t need any repairs.
Her guard was up the next time she made the turn onto Manse, she said, adding she noticed it was a utility chamber that seemed to have sunk well below the surface of the pavement around it.
But she has since driven into it on two other occasions, saying that even though she knows it’s there, her right front car wheel seems to find it if she happens to let her guard down.
We went there and saw what looks to be a chamber that connects to a water or storm sewer line. It’s every bit as bad as a big pothole, but in fact, it has not sunk at all, as a transportation services official once explained to us.
He described it as an optical illusion. In winter, moisture seeps into the asphalt around the cover and expands in cold weather, similar to the process that creates potholes.
With help from ground frost below the road, the moisture in the asphalt causes it to puff up around the cover. It looks as though the chamber has sunk, he said, adding that most, but not all of them settle back into place after spring arrives.
Clearly, this one hasn’t heard that it’s supposed to settle down. Status: We’ve asked Toronto Water, which is responsible for a lot of the utility chambers on city streets, to check it out and see if it can be repaired, and the sooner the better.