By Joel van der Veen
DILKE — Highway 354 near Dilke was the winner of a dubious honour last week.
The weather-beaten road took first place in CAA Saskatchewan’s annual list of the Top Ten Worst Roads in the province, as selected by online voters.
Pictures submitted to CAA’s website show a deteriorating road with multiple patches of bulging, crumbling pavement, some of them marked with small red diamond signs.
The provincial highway runs east of Dilke and then south towards Bethune, ending at its intersection with Highway 11.
Colleen Duesing, who serves as village administrator, confirmed that the road is in “seriously bad” shape, blaming its current condition on the heavy rain from last summer.
Duesing said that two “seriously heavy rain events” — one at the end of June, and the other on August 16 — last year took their toll on the road.
“Both times we received over six inches of rain,” she said. “It was flooded in about three or four areas.”
Detours were put in place until the water could be pumped away, but the ground remained heavily saturated, and when the ground froze during the winter, the water pushed upwards, resulting in cracked surfaces.
“It’s all weather-related,” said Duesing, adding that the highway sees heavy daily use from commuters and is also used by travellers heading to resort areas.
The village also has had to cope with severe watermain breaks this year. Excavators had to dig through nine feet of frozen ground to uncover the damaged mains.
Christine Niemczyk, CAA Saskatchewan’s director of corporate communications and public relations, said the Worst Roads campaign attracted interest and nominations from across the province.
More than 260 roads and highways, including residential streets, were nominated this year.
The criteria for a “worst road” include a state of general disrepair with potholes or cracks, poor signage or congestion, or if the road is too narrow for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists to share safely.
Asked whether the campaign had resulted in roads getting repaired or improved, Niemczyk said CAA doesn’t track that information, but noted that some roads — like Highway 155 near La Loche — have made the top 10 multiple years in a row.
“We’re offering a resource, a tool, a mechanism,” she said, explaining that the campaign helps to put a spotlight on road conditions in the province that are troublesome or even dangerous.
At the campaign’s end, she added, the survey results are made available to the appropriate government bodies.
All of the Top 10 roads from this year’s poll were provincial highways, including roads near Val Marie, Silton, Coronach, Bulyea, Gravelbourg, Springside, Vonda, Fife Lake and La Loche.
The campaign ran between March 25 and April 17 and attracted a total of 4,556 votes. CAA Saskatchewan has held the campaign annually since 2012.