In a sparsely populated stretch north of Bruce Mines, there’s a secondary gravel highway one resident calls “10 kilometres of pure hell.”
Spanning 9.3 kilometres east to west between Dunns Valley and Ophir, potholes and bumpy road conditions along Highway 670 have also led resident Tom Lang to call the stretch the “worst road in Ontario.”
“We live out here, and we take it every day. My wife works in Bruce Mines,” Lang said. “She drives this road every day, and right now we're parking the car on the other side . . . because we can't put the car through that.”
“There's no way the car would get through that.”
Along large swaths of the road, Lang said conditions force him to slow his truck to a virtual crawl.
“We crawl. It's just like six or seven kilometres an hour . . . for 10 kilometres,” he said. “It's pure hell, and this year is the worst.”
As a resident in the area for the past 33 years, Lang said “when you live in the country, you kind of get used to stuff like this,” but he said the road has deteriorated significantly over the past two years.
He’s reached out “to everyone possible” in the government about the road, including the Ministry of Transportation, but he has yet to see any meaningful improvements made.
“I kind of blame the Ministry and . . . the contractors who are supposed to be taking care of this road. They seem to be able to spend more time making excuses up to not do something rather than just do it, and we get so tired of it,” he said.
Beyond standard daily travel, Lang – a veteran volunteer firefighter in the area – also has concerns about safety for emergency vehicles. He estimates around 50-60 other residents call the area home.
“It is so far below the standard that I think it should be closed because it's that dangerous,” he said.
“We're afraid to bring our firetruck over this road because if we go through that and break something, our firetruck is down, and that means four townships that have no protection at all.”
Lang recently had success communicating the issue with Algoma–Manitoulin’s new MPP, Bill Rosenberg, and he said an official came out to speak with him and see the road’s condition for themselves.
“He was appalled at the way this road was,” he said.
When contacted by SooToday, Rosenberg’s office confirmed they had visited with Lang, and have reached out to the Ministry on the issue.
A spokesperson from Ministry of Transportation said work is underway to improve conditions along Highway 670.
"We regularly review the condition of the highway to ensure it remains safe and reliable for the travelling public," the spokesperson said in an email. "The ministry is actively repairing damaged areas along Highway 670 in addition to patching potholes and grading gravel."