While the poll goosing machine may have tried to convince the good burghers of Labrador West that they would be seeing pavement before the snow flew, the wise people of the community likely knew far better.
At least this past week, they had the pleasure of listening to transportation minister Trevor Taylor explain why about a month an a half after he and cabinet colleague John “The Shoveller” Hickey - left, doing his takogo kak puddin’ routine - promised the whole paving thing would be “accelerated”, they would like not be seeing much pavement this year on the Trans-Labrador Highway.
Seems that the contractor on the current tender ran into some problems shipping the equipment up from Sept Isles; something about too big for the tunnels, so they had to unscrew some bits and dismantle some others.
And if all that wasn’t bad enough, it seems that there was a problem finding enough aggregate – crushed stone to you and moi – to go with the asphalt.
But that didn’t just shag up the schedule for this year.
Hoooo, no.
As Trevor told the whole of Labrador via Labrador Morning [mp3 link] that lack of aggregate meant the “accelerated” tender was actually not even out yet.
Trevor insisted though that the direction to the contractor was to do everything possible to get some pavement on the ground this season, even though the daily temperatures in Labrador this time of year hover around the “no go” temp for laying asphalt successfully.
Between the shag-ups with the road and the on-again, off-again hospital it will take a lot more than a teaspoon of hardened tar to convince some people that what they just saw the past couple of months from Hickey and Taylor wasn’t open mike night at Yuk-Yuks.
As it turns out though, the road work will not be accelerated, as anyone with half a clue could have told you. It was always planned for next year, planned that is by the people who do the work and know what they are talking about.
-srbp-