I'm curious why the quality of the road surfaces in the GTA is so poor. On Dundas St E heading out to Mississauga they don't have just holes but craters. I wonder how many times the Ontario govt gets sued for this.

Is it just the winters killing the roads or do they use very cheap material? I thought the road surfaces in Belgium were bad but they're nothing compared to the GTA. I see many a driver dodging holes and drains every day. It's like driving in the developing world...

What about the rest of Canada?

They suck everywhere that gets the "real canadian winter". Repeated Freeze Thaw cycles, Ground heaving due to the temperature extremes and dirty great ploughs all take a toll, along with the fact that there is not the longest construction season to fix them in either.

Weather Network said they'd had 15 freeze-thaws already this winter and it plays havoc with the road surfaces.

Generally in Victoria, BC the roads are pretty good... but I did notice that a lot of potholes appeared after we had some snow (gasp!) and some below freezing temperatures (double gasp!) in December. The potholes on my usual routes have all been fixed and filled in for a few weeks now.

Generally it's fallen trees and branches after a windstorm that are the nuisance.

It always made me laugh up north when great craters would appear in the roads during the winter, with no loose stones or debris at the edges - almost like someone had come along in the night and scooped a big chunk out, tidied up and then ran away!

I'm always amused when we drive across the border from Alberta; the road goes from OK in Alberta to Saskatchewan potholes in a few feet .

Its like moon craters when you get to MB.

Its a common problem for cars to get seriously damaged by pot holes in the spring, especially when they hide under a puddle of melting snow.

Many tortuous roads in and around Guelph but it's perfectly understandable with the climate ranging between -20C something in Winter to +30C in Summer.

My gripe is the time it seems to take to repair a road. It seems to go on for the whole Summer for a fairly short stretch of roadway.

Last time I was in toronto I was amazed at the good quality roads (in comprison to MB!)

Still at least they improve when covered in packed snow!

Just curious if there are any clever engineer types on here, When I was in BATUS in Alberta with the Army the camp had basically concrete squares (large long rectangles) and these made sections of road. This is very similar to the German Auto bahns.
These seem to be less likely to potholes
I would assume that these are exspensive but in the long run would this not be better?
Or am I just completely barking

Iaink is right...it is the freeze/thaw cycles in the winter that play havoc....it can be -30 c one morning and a couple of days later +5 c and then back below freezing. As well, many potholes are fixed through a quick fix patch that usually breaks and then another pothole appears again.

We can send men to the moon, spy on people 24/7, get satellite images beamed around the world in nanoseconds but the human race seems unable to come up with an asphalt mixture than can withstand the temperature extremes we get here.

The summer heat doesn't help either with heaving.

No not barking.

Stretches of the Trans-Canada Highway in the western provinces are made of concrete slabs. Most have been covered with a layer or two of asphalt now.

I think the problems arose when the slabs would shift up or down just a bit each winter at the joints making for a very noisy and uncomfortable ride in the cars and trucks.

Also salt doesn't do concrete any good either.

Or ploughs And concrete is a lot more expensive to lay and far far harder to fix.

A dumb question for you mainlanders, do you have cats eyes in your roads? Presumably if you do they are sprung loaded to cope with plows. Road markings here last until the first snowfall when all the paint is scraped away by the plows. I was contemplating this the other evening driving along the TCH in rain, fog and dark and really having no ****ing clue as to where the road was.

It seems an annual ritual here to paint the lines. No cats eyes that I've ever seen. The markings generally are pretty abysmal, hard to see and don't last more than a couple of months before fading to 'guesswork'.