Scott Hayes | [email protected]
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
It is always a case of the grass growing greener on the other side.
As far as the municipality is concerned, however, the lack of grass in its “green alley” does not take away from the success of the test project.
"We learned a lot on that one," said Laurent Bolduc, operations service manager with the municipality.
In fall 2022, he and his team installed cement paving blocks over a 100-metre stretch in the alley between the 400 block of Patricia and Geikie streets.
The goal of the effort was to improve stormwater drainage, reducing chemical usage and even bring a little more green into people's lives. After the blocks were installed, grass seed was spread over them.
Two out of three, ain't bad, Bolduc said. While the grass didn't take hold, everything else worked nicely. The problem of dust, potholes and puddles is gone in the green alley.
A side benefit is that the alley also requires less maintenance in the form of additional gravel being spread over to help level out potholes.
The municipality did spend up to $15,000 on the cement blocks and doing the work themselves meant a savings of up to $75,000.
That being said, there were some lessons learned.
"We did the work in house, and we're by all means no experts in that sort of installation," Bolduc said.
He said that there were some technical challenges in terms of using the right amount of sand at the right time during installation.
Also, the cement stones weren't exactly the best either.
"They're so fragile,” Bolduc said. “They can't really be removed and reinstalled realistically. They break, and they're just as expensive. Plastic is the way to go."
There's no timeline on when or where the next green alley will be attempted. Everything is a matter of staffing and budgeting.
"We haven't really had much time to dedicate to trying to see how we can grow green out of it, and that's why I jokingly call it the 'brown alley'. Right now, it’s basically just a glorified gravel alley, but at least it seems to be a bit easier to maintain. It's a success as far as dust control and pothole control."
The municipality intends to monitor this test project for a few more years first.
"If there is public interest, then that might speed up that process of figuring out what we'll do going forward with more of it. At this point, it was just an idea."
