The Unlucky 13: Rotella contest unearths worst roads

TORONTO – – The corner of Front and Sherbourne in downtown Toronto is one of the 13 worst pieces of road in Canada.

            That’s the word from the Shell-Rotella Road-Tested Challenge, in which the Rotella people asked commercial drivers from across North America to describe the most horrible piece of pavement they’ve had to drive on.

            Contest entries flowed in like fresh 10W30.

            Some of the entries said the horrible roads were bad because of traffic; some were lousy because of bad-maintenance; and others, well, they just stank.

            One of the contestants, Judy Graschuk, was lucky enough to have her name drawn and won a trip to a NASCAR race in Charlotte, N.C., as well a year’s supply of Rotella  to help her vehicle fend off the slings and arrows of outrageous tarmac.

            Joining the badly maintained intersection of Front-and-Sherbourne on the bottom 13 list are:

* Traffic conditions on Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway west of Jameson;

* Traffic on the Don Valley Parkway, Toronto (known locally as the Don Valley Parking Lot);

* The lousy traffic AND road quality along Rue Beaubien Est, Montreal. (This one should get a prize for irony, considering Google translates Beau Bien as “Beautiful Property”);

* The wretched traffic conditions along Autoroute 40, Montreal;

* The poor road quality of St. Martin’s Road, Saint John, N.B.;

* The dangerous conditions of Highway 2 from Calgary to Red Deer;

* The infernal and eternal construction tie-ups around Canada Way/Kensington Ave., in Burnaby, B.C.