'Big bogs of mud' on northern Manitoba road leave drivers stranded

People in the Split Lake, Man., area say a gravel highway nearby communitiesrely on is in such rough shape, it's leaving people stranded and damaging vehicles.

Due to high vehicle and semi-trailer traffic, as well aswet conditions this spring, Provincial Road 280 is so treacherous that it's almost not drivable, Patricia Komadowski said. The highway servicescommunities such asYork Landing, Split Lake, Gillam and others in the area.

Komadowski, who is a teacher in Gillam, said snow late last week melted and made the road even worse. Abus full of students got stuck in the mucky road Friday and was stranded for hours, Komadowski added.

She and other teachers drove into Winnipeg last week for a conference. After hearing a few stories from locals about vehicles getting sucked into the quicksand-like road, Komadowski and a few colleagues decided to stay in the city for the weekend rather than take the risk of getting stuck.

"Semis, school buses, teaching staff [are] all getting stuck and trying to get themselves out," Komadowski said. "Most people said a regular car wouldn't make it through that mud."

The current state of the road doesn't necessarily come as a surprise. Highway 280 was voted Manitoba's worst road by CAA in 2015.

• Hwy 280, St. James Street top CAA Manitoba's worst roads so far

Komadowski knows first hand why the road earned that infamous title. She says she has had to pay $5,000 to repair her own personal vehicle due to damages from driving on the road in recent years.

Last Friday, when the forecast was for snow in parts of northern Manitoba, Komadowski said Manitoba Highways was alerting people that the roads might be covered in snow.

"The worst part was the highways department, every time you checked on the road conditions, said 'Gravel covered in snow.' There was no snow it was a foot deep in mud," she said.

'Drive at your own risk'

When she contacted Gillam RCMP, Komadowski said she was told to "drive at your own risk," which she didn't consider particularly helpful information at the time.

The road quality has added hours to commuting times for some drivers, who are forced to navigate the mounds and hillocks at a snails pace right now, she said.

"It's typically an hour and a half to Split Lake [from Gillam], and it was taking peoplethree to four hours to get to Split Lake, and most people were having a struggle just getting out of the big bogs of mud," she said. "Some of them are called soft spots, and they were like quicksand, where your truck will go in [but won't come out]."

Komadowski says the road has fallen into a state of disrepair and locals are becoming increasingly frustrated.

"No maintenance repair has been done on the road this spring, other than one or two graders from hydro," she said.

Normally by May a fresh layer of gravel has been applied to the surface of the road, Komadowski says, but that apparentlyhasn't happened yet this year.

Ultimately people in Split Lakewould like a paved road connecting the community to Thompson. That project is in the works, but things are still in the beginning stages according to Komadowski.

Split Lake is 711 kilometres north of Winnipeg.