Campground Roads

Riverbend Campground


This year we provided opportunities for our campers to give us more feedback. Roads are often mentioned. Here is a small sample of the comments from campers’ surveys.

  • Roads can get very dusty at times
  • better roads
  • I would pay an extra $50 a month, for paved roads, in the main roads.
  • when it rains the road into and in front of our lot is left with a big puddle (lake) this needs to be filled up
  • Road improvements (pothole repairs)
  • We’d love the road on the ISLAND to be serviced with gravel. Its a mud pit in the spring, and when it rains

Dust

Keeping speeds down is the first step in reducing dust. Oil on roads is very effective at keeping dust under control. However, this is very bad for the natural habitat that draws wildlife to our campground. Riverbend uses recycled asphalt for most road surfaces. We apply calcium chloride to keep dust to a minimum.

Potholes

Keeping up with potholes is a challenge. The main contributing factor in the formation of a pothole is water. This can be water from below as well as above the road surface. Our property has a very high water table. This means water come up from below. And of course, when it rains, we have water sitting on top of the road. This water acts to loosen the soil and gravel and traffic causes a breakdown of the road surface.

During construction municipal roads are crowned. This allows water to drain off the roadway into a ditch. This is not practical in a campground. We want to avoid having water drain from the road into campsites. If we were to add a ditch for drainage access to our sites is more difficult. In many areas our campsites are higher than the roadway Our roadways actually act as a drainage system. This is especially true of the roads that runs east and west parallel to the river.

Paving

It might surprise you to know that driving from the far west end parallel  to the river and continuing along Riverbend Drive to the far east end is just under a kilometer.  Have a look at our campground map to see the amount of roadway involved. Clicking on this link:
https://riverbendcampground.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Map-_11x17_FINAL_2021.png
Paving this amount of road would be very expensive and would not solve the problem of the deterioration of roads and formation of potholes caused by the high water table.  

Conclusion

We don’t take the condition of our roads lightly. We work on them every year, but here are somethings to keep in mind. The better the road conditions, the more speeding becomes a factor. Potholes can slow traffic. This is not our intention. Speed bumps serve as speed reduction. When you see a pothole, until we have a chance to repair it, hope that it caused a driver to slow down.