After just six years, the roundabout at County Rd. 31 and Conc. 3 in Leamington needs full rehabilitation.
The gravel under the asphalt is failing, so county council has voted to replace the road surface with concrete. That will cost $477,000. Construction could start after Labour Day resulting in intermittent closures.
The county is also spending $393,000 on road repairs on County Rd. 31.
It was the county's first roundabout, and County Engineer Tom Bateman believes the design didn't take into account the force of so many heavy trucks turning.
"It's been a bit of a struggle in trying to understand what's been transpiring and kind of what the root causes were and ultimately then, what the true fix is," he says.
Leamington Mayor John Patterson is not impressed.
"I don't understand how they could not see how much it was being used at the time, and have some foresight as to seeing how much it was about to be used," says Patterson.
Bateman says there's been a learning curve building the roundabouts, but another one constructed at the same time at County Rd. 8 and County Rd. 23 is performing well.
He says the failure won't discourage the county from building more roundabouts.
"We're still very, very adamant that is a tool in our toolbox," he says. "We have two projects right now in design and will look to move those to construction in 2017."
-With files from Ricardo Veneza.
