Local Innovation Delays Expensive Infrastructure Upgrade

Public Works team to the rescue...again

Public Works transforms a worn and moss-caked ditch into a functioning culvert. Photos by Douglas Miller.

Story by Douglas Miller

It's the time of year when we get almost daily reminders that we live on the “wet coast”.

The westerly flow of air off the Pacific Ocean drops most of its moisture as it rises to cross the mountains of Vancouver Island and then the Coast Range behind us. There are innumerable creeks and rivers on our coast taking all that rainwater back to the ocean where it will begin the water cycle once again.

Collecting and diverting all that rain water would have been one of the early challenges facing the developers of Lions Bay. Roadside ditches were the obvious solution and have served us well for many years.

The downhill portion of the ditches along Upper Bayview Road between Mountain Drive and Stewart Road were constructed using corrugated metal troughs. However, those familiar with Neil Young’s song catalogue know the phrase “rust never sleeps”.

About a decade ago, the erosion of those troughs reached the point that the Village had to act. If the troughs were allowed to deteriorate further, the integrity of the adjacent roadway could have become compromised.

Initial plans were to replace those drainage ditches with underground pipes. This would allow the road to be widened, providing safer conditions for drivers as well as all the out-of-town hikers heading up to the trails. Unfortunately, the costs associated with such a project wouldn’t fit into our extremely limited infrastructure budget. Fortunately, the senior member of our Public Works crew, Garth Begley, came to the rescue.

Garth determined that there was enough metal left in the troughs to provide a skeleton upon which to lay a liner of concrete. This was deemed to be a perfect temporary solution that would work until the Village could devise a way to afford a more permanent one.

On a single summer day, when there was very little water flowing in the ditch, a cement truck slowly poured out a batch of quick-setting concrete into the ditch. As the truck inched its way down the hill, Garth laboured furiously behind it, spreading the concrete mixture up the sides of what remained of the metal ditching. The work had to be completed quickly before the concrete hardened.

This year, ten years after the earlier “fix”, it was apparent that the section of that ditch located between 231 and 241 Bayview had similarly deteriorated and was in need of immediate repair. Once again, Garth came to the rescue with his innovation.

This time around, it become more than a one-person job. After a layer of road-bed material was laid down, Garth managed the flow of concrete from the truck into the ditch and other works crew members spread the mixture.

Thanks to Garth’s innovation and the great work of the crew, water is flowing in the ditches, the roadway is secure and the present-day taxpayers have avoided what could have been a costly repair. 

However, as noted earlier, rust never sleeps. The cost of a truly permanent solution has been literally “kicked down the road” for future taxpayers.  It is an important lesson to remember, any time there is a suggestion to defer infrastructure improvements in the quest for the holy grail of lower property taxes.

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