An open letter to Transport Québec:

I do not recall electing the lobotomized goat that instituted your joke of a Ministry but such is the occasional inadequacy of the democratic system.  The majority rule cannot work if the majority is composed entirely of assholes.  (Aside: Know that last provincial elections, I fixated the ballot for what could have been an eternity.  I had to implement the old multiple choice rule, "Which answer is the least likely to be wrong?" - but what do I have to complain?  I mean, back in 2003 Californians had their pick between The Terminator, porn star Mary Carey and pervert extraordinaire Larry Flynt (alongside some more or less important randoms) as governor.  How screwed were they, right?)

But taking aside for a moment your incompetent patriarch, I must inform you that the drooling gorillas who do your bidding should be more adequately trained in their functions.

I don't know what first tuned me in on their ineptitude.

Perhaps it was the countless "May through September"s with orange road cones scattered nonsensically on highways, service roads, boulevards, avenues and streets.  Maybe yet, it is the rarer occasion where one drives by an actually active construction site and sees half a dozen morons looped around a lone twit with a jackhammer, watching him.  Yes.  Just.  Watching.

It's a toss-up really, but what really ticked me off was that in the past three days, 30% of my Facebook Newsfeed has been cluttered with people denouncing the absolute crisis Montreal is having with potholes.  The astounding thing is I knew exactly what they were talking about! (This fact is far more staggering if one takes into consideration the extreme distance I have with the community and the irregularity of my visits to the outdoors.)  And "potholes" is a bit of a simplification of the matter.  They're more like Transcendental Portals to the Center of the Earth.

Local radio stations were actually warning drivers in their traffic updates to be wary around the St-Charles on-ramp to the Trans-Canada since several cars had sustained flat tires. 

But I digress.  You, Transport Québec, you did attempt to correct the issue.  Hence your primitive lackeys (hired or subcontracted, I don't care) with their shovels of shit.  I saw them.  I had hope.  Until I drove down the same service road again two days later.
 

Generally, the point of filling a hole is to fill it so it is flush with the rest of the pavement.  You know ... so the drive is smoother.  So your tires don't blow out on a harsh impact.  So the shocks on your vehicle aren't manhandled by the abusive spouse that is the road.  Again I reiterate: flush,even with the rest of the pavement.

Why is it that your apes created miniature anthills of asphalt rooted into the craters?  Like, literally, mounds ... mounds of hardened asphalt.  Like moguls on a Black Diamond ski trail.  I was like, "What the frack?" as I tried swerving to and fro and slowing down to avoid driving into them.  Incidentally, this is the same reaction I have to potholes.  

Some other drivers may have had delayed reactions similar to mine.  They may have very well driven over them, cursing the engineering (or lack there of) of these band-aid "solutions", and - and this is really the cherry of it all - the mounds chipped, gravel and tar sprinkling itself everywhere.  Gravel that now, being spurted out from underneath the tires of the car ahead of me, drizzled on my windshield like autumn rain.  Only autumn rain doesn't generally leave cracks in my windows.

Why, Transport Québec, why?

How is it that a catastrophe-stricken Japan can find viable repair solutions in a timely manner and you, Transport Québec, start and re-start road work every spring that lasts all of summer, impedes on the fall and can't even sustain through the winter?

Much obliged,

-NuméroHuit