Rushed asphalt paving, water logged dirt, potential potholes; complaints are being raised by a local resident about the town’s paving of his alley behind Patricia and Geikie Streets.

Residents there pooled their money and signatures together to petition the municipality to help organize the paving of the alley last year. The municipality organized an outside contractor, Border Paving out of Hinton, and the money from the residents paid for the paving.

Some are less than happy with the final result however.

“When they’re spending my money, that’s when I get a little excited,” said a resident who wished not to be named to council at their August 3 general meeting. “I thought that I had it made when we got this all organized, but I guess I’ve learned, well, be careful what exactly you ask for.”

The resident was the senior organizer of the petition that brought the paving job to the alley in the first place. 

The complainants’ main problem seemed to be that asphalt had been set down before recently dug up ground had settled. He said that it was likely that the asphalt would buckle, bend and break away, resulting in a less than smooth drive. He talked about recent rains, some of the strongest rains he’d ever seen in Jasper, being sucked right into the ground around the asphalt. He also complained that rain water appeared not to be draining from the alley properly and that it was pooling in certain parts (stopping this from happening was part of the reason why they petitioned to have the paving done in the first place, he said). All of that water, above and below ground, likely will result in a lot of asphalt breaking down, said the man.

“It’s not just going to need to be re-patched. I think it needs to be completely redone,” said the man.

Director of Environmental Services for Jasper Ken Quackenbush, the paving projects lead, said that he was happy so far with the work that Border Paving had done on the alley.

He explained that much of the actual digging on the alleyway was done in the autumn so the alley had time over the winter to settle. It has been through several rounds of intense precipitation, so it should be well settled now.

“I think there was some digging and patching to bring up one covered valve, but that’s fairly normal to have happen,” said Quackenbush. “We had good compaction overall there.”

Quackenbush said he had not yet talked to the complainant, but he was planning on doing so. He said that he hoped he would be able to do so soon and on the afternoon of August 16, he was heading out to find the man to talk.

“I’ve talked with him before about issues and things usually go reasonably,” said Quackenbush.

Overall, he said this is the third alleyway that the town has paved (one more was done this year and another was done last) and as far as he knows, people have been satisfied with the end results.

However, some other complaints have arisen on a different alleyway between Turret and Geikie, also paved this year.

The several-feet-long stretch of driveway leading from the alleyway into some people’s garages has been turned into a much steeper incline for some residents. That’s because the grade of the alleyway was lowered by several inches. One man is now unable to take his mini-van into his garage because the lead up has now been made too steep.

“If I had known that this was going to happen after the paving, I wouldn’t have signed on,” said the man.

Quackenbush said the alley had to be lowered to the lowest driveway along that section of alleyway; if the alley road was higher than their driveway, then water would drain into lots and cause all sorts of problems. However, that means that some residents now have a different problem to contend with.

Quackenbush also told the man that compensation for fixing his unusable driveway could be problematic; if that man wants his driveway fixed, what if someone else wants the same thing? The town doesn’t want to get into a situation where they have to fix access points for every person that asks for one, said Quackenbush.

The owner of the access believes that his case is special. The town made it so he can’t access his garage, a problem few other people have to deal with. He’s hoping to convince the town to at least pay for the change of grading. Ideally, he’d like to convince the town to buy some bigger wheels for his van so he can just bowl over the too-steep grade, but he’s not holding his breath, he said.