What to do about narrow local roads and ever-wider farm equipment?

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Both farmers and municipalities are preoccupied with the uneasy coexistence between modern farm equipment and often inadequate municipal roads. And, given the lack of provincial standards, they say direction and funding are needed to remedy the problem

by MARY BAXTER

When Richard Welker assesses the conditions of his local roads, he gives them, at best, a 50/50 grade.

Essex County-owned Road 4 (County Road 18) in Kingsville "is nice and wide," with a broad shoulder. But Kingsville-owned Road 5, where he lives, "is just terrible." During a recent refurbishment project "they put so much fill on this road, it's ridiculous," he says.   

The project was intended to reduce the road's "crossfall" grade – the slope from its centre to outer edge – to three per cent from 10 to 12 per cent to meet provincial road design guidelines. While one shoulder remained the same width as previously – about two feet – the other shoulder had to be reduced because of a municipal drain that ran tight against the road allowance. On that side, the shoulder of loose stone "slopes down fast," Welker says, into a municipal ditch, a total drop of about three feet. He estimates about two feet of shoulder and road width in total have been lost. Road 2, also recently refurbished, is not much better, he says.  

Like most farmers, Welker is a connoisseur of local road conditions by necessity. The roads connect him not only to neighbours and the community at large, but also to his 1,000 acres of corn, wheat and soybeans – his farm operation's bread and butter. He's on these roads regularly, either in his own vehicle or driving increasingly larger farm equipment.

Since the most recent work on Road 5, though, Welker has had to consider factors he's never had to face before, like keeping track of when the school bus travels his road so he can avoid being out there at the same time with wider equipment, or plotting out what do if he meets other farm equipment or if he ever has to stop to make adjustments. "If I take my plow down the road and if the front wheel of my pull-type plow goes off that shoulder, the front bottom will plow the road."  

Welker decided to contact Andy Coghill, Kingsville's manager of public works, to complain. They sorted out adjusting the grade on the access to his grain-drying facility so it wouldn't be so steep, but he also wanted answers to larger questions – such as how the municipality could have been allowed to build the road like that in the first place, why it was adding so much expensive fill and how it would be able to address the expansion of the road's shoulder if it ever became compulsory to do so in the future?

That's when he discovered some unsettling information. The municipality didn't have to follow any cut-and-dry mandatory standards. The voluntary one it followed left farm equipment completely out of the equation. "It seems like no one's at the wheel and no one's accountable," he says.

James Smith, acting manager, member and technical services for the Ontario Good Roads Association, confirms there is "no one clear, defined standard" for the construction of any municipal roads in Ontario. There had been in the early 1990s, before provincial downloading (a massive shift in municipal and provincial responsibilities and how they were funded). Back then, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) had promoted standards by attaching qualifying conditions to road construction grants.

But, ever since, municipalities have been left to their own devices, Smith says. Among the 16 members of the Ontario Benchmark Initiative road expert panel, for example, there are four different evaluation methodologies used to assess paving. "If you look at that in terms of the entire province, there are a lot more who are doing their own little thing based on what consultant they're using."

Most municipalities, however, still use the MTO's road design standards. But they're recommended, not mandatory – even for provincial roads. Recommendations offer flexibility and that's important, according to Mario Gaspic. "There are different circumstances in which a specification or a standard may not apply totally," the head of Ontario provincial standards administration explains.  

For municipalities, these provincial standards have the added bonus of having already worked out many of the measurements needed to conform to the six different road classifications outlined in the minimum maintenance standards for municipal highways under the 2001 Municipal Act. (See Table 1.)

Municipalities do have an obligation to maintain roads to the standards set out in the Municipal Act regulations, as described under the different classifications. (See Table 2.) If they don't, municipalities can be held legally liable in an accident where road conditions are implicated, explains Barry Card, a municipal lawyer based in London.

The MTO design standards also draw upon rules in the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, which specifies details such as the maximum size for different vehicle types. The Traffic Act, however, exempts farm vehicles from many of its requirements, such as maximum weight and length. No presence on paper means there's no need for MTO to take farm equipment into account in its design standards for the different road classes, even though equipment has become significantly wider than in the past and is wider than the other vehicles mentioned in the Act.

Consequently, even if municipalities are using the design standards, they won't find guidelines for designing roads to accommodate wider equipment. Moreover, as Smith points out, even though "you could probably make an argument that you'd like to see that width actually be a little bit larger," wider roads are more expensive.

If the needs of farm vehicles were taken into account on Kingsville's Road 5, for instance, Coghill estimates it would have added hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of construction. "We could spend our whole budget right on that one road, easily," he says. The municipality budgets $1 million annually – the amount it receives from the federal gas tax fund – for road refurbishments.

It would also have meant having to move the adjacent municipal drain to gain room for the widening. Because the municipality operates these drains on a user-pay system, as they are operated in many Ontario municipalities, adjacent landowners would have had to share the cost, Coghill notes.

Minimizing the safety hazards associated with larger farm equipment travelling narrow roads beside big municipal ditches is a growing preoccupation for the municipality. There are grain wagons now that are "14 feet plus" wide and can take up a whole road. To make matters worse, "the general public doesn't seem to be aware of how wide the equipment is," he says.

Kingsville recently introduced "share the road" tractor signs to warn drivers about farm equipment, but it's too soon to determine their impact, Coghill says.

The issue is a concern countywide, too. Tom Bain, warden of Essex County, says that when roadwork is proposed, the county's farm safety committee contributes recommendations regarding the movement of farm equipment. In Lakeshore, where he is mayor, there are two councillors who are also farmers. Their contributions have resulted in design adjustments on recent bridgework to accommodate farm equipment.

Facilitating the feedback from the farm community on roadwork in Lakeshore and Essex might not be formalized, but "it is working," says Bain. "I'm not saying it couldn't be improved; it certainly could be."

What to do about narrow roads and wide farm equipment is a question Smith is hearing a lot more about province-wide, as well. From a municipal perspective, the equipment can cause damage. For example, in spring when ice comes out of roads during thaws, "on some of our other roads we have spring load restrictions." Provincial legislation, however, exempts farm equipment and even milk trucks. "And even though there are possibly only one or two passes in a day, the damage that comes from that builds up substantially."

John Maheu, executive director of the Association of Ontario Road Supervisors, says some of the association's 1,000-plus members have raised safety issues, such as heavily loaded equipment travelling down roads at very slow speeds or, in some cases, too quickly. Debris is also being left behind. There are plans to survey the membership to see how widespread the problem is.

Back in Kingsville, Coghill muses that maybe restrictions on the size of farm vehicles are needed. Or maybe the solution is more government funding to help municipalities widen the roads. What he does know for sure is that the problem won't be going away anytime soon. The day of the small family farm is gone and big equipment is needed to work large acreages.

"We need direction from higher up and actual funds to help us build the roads the way the farmers want them, if that's the direction we're going to go in. Because I know our budgets would not be able to handle what the farmer needs for a road platform." BF

More roundabouts coming to Ontario
The use of roundabouts to control traffic at intersections is becoming a popular alternative to traffic lights or stop signs in Ontario communities. Roundabouts allow a steady flow of vehicles to cross an intersection by requiring them to travel in the same direction around a circular centre.

Peter Jeffery, a senior researcher with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says roundabouts have been deployed mostly in urban areas, but are proposed for some provincial highway locations in more rural areas. It's not clear whether the design standards employed sufficiently accommodate farm equipment, he says.

Sheri Graham, transportation manager of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation traffic office in St. Catharines, says the ministry uses a U.S. Department of Transportation guide to inform its planning and geometric design of roundabouts. The report does not mention farm equipment, she notes in an email. However, "roundabouts on provincial highways are designed to accommodate large tractor semi-trailers, and truck aprons are provided adjacent to the inside edge of the roundabout to accommodate large vehicles, including farm equipment."

As well, ministry provincial transportation projects require environmental assessments, which involve gathering public feedback. Farm equipment concerns, therefore "would be considered and evaluated during the assessment process before completion of the roundabout design," she writes.
Graham says the ministry completed its first roundabout in 2009. It is located at Highway 33 and County Road 1 west of Picton. BF