Is there a reason that British roads are so awful compared to Europe? I’m just back from Italy where they were smooth as silk and not a pothole in sight. Being back in Britain highlights just how ridiculously bad or roads are. Is there any good reason for this?

Depends where you want to spend the money.
We were recently riding into Verona and there were massive potholes everywhere.

Austerity.

British weather + lack of investment

Our climate, volume of traffic and insistence on putting all utilities under the road don’t help.

Lots of people in a small space and they all want to use cars to get about and stuff delivered by trucks.

That said roads in other countires are often dreadful. I got an old 1 series stuck in a pothole in Greece.

Yep, weather and chronic infrastructure under-investment but also high density of traffic and always choosing the cheap option, which proves very expensive, very quickly.

I think this can be applied to a lot of things in this country, which is basically a huge bodge compared to many countries in Europe.

They resurfaced our road a couple of years back. Its now absolutely full of pot-holes. Weather innit? Not a problem they face in the Canary Islands.

That and doing everything on the cheap, so as to skim off as much profit as possible. The other British disease

Its even provoked Wanksy. One of the pictures there is outside our house 😀 Just look at the quality of the ‘repairs’. Think any of that is going to last more than 5 minutes?

Add in the policy of patching up or surface dressing roads rather than a proper resurface. Combined with the piecemeal nature of work and contractors used so roads are continually dug up and patched by each utility instead of organising them together. Road near me was closed for months and was a wreck at the end as they didn’t resurface it all after all the numerous bits of work by different contractors. Just patched it up as they went, then the weather hits it and it falls apart.

But also, many toll roads in Europe which pay for rather nice roads. M6 Toll after all is usually pretty good condition (though partly probably because far less traffic).

Fear not.
Our local tories promised to fix them if they won the election.
Seeing as this area has been tory since the dinosaurs I’m amazed they haven’t thought to mend them before now.

just for balance, I was driving in Puglia, Italy and the roads where pretty bloody awful in most places, had a car in front of us have a massive blow due to a huge pothole on one of the roads from Monopoli to Alberobello. The Autostrada were even worse !!

Not austerity. They’ve always been bad. Just down to the fact we’ve a similar population to France but the country is about 5 times smaller so traffic is far more concentrated on the road network. Also maintaining the roads is hard as closing roads and lanes causes a lot of congestion so councils wait until the roads are desperate for repairs or verging on dangerous before fixing them.

I’m riding in Denmark at the moment, even minor country roads are smooth. They’re summers are similar to ours with slightly colder winters s you can’t blame the weather.
Lack of investment and traffic density is why ours are so bad. The traffic density is also why there are so many road rage incidents. The cycle paths here are generally as good as roads and drivers are aware of having to give way to cycle paths at junction but when you have to use the road there is a high percentage of close passes.just less traffic and generally much slower.

Decades of under investment and penny pinching. The roads have always been bad, but the last few years they seem to be getting worse.

Roads in Umbria are pretty bad too, Matt ch worse than here. Huge potholes even on motorways.

To make you realise how bloody awesome our trails are…

Not austerity.

I was being cynical. The need for austerity is politicians’ excuse for lack of spending on infrastructure. The reality is low taxes to attract voters and a huge imbalance in the destination of income from GDP in favour of those with already huge bank balances to the detriment of public services.

Because cyclists don’t pay Road tax

English roads, not British.

Welsh roads are lovely. I’d just like to thank the English tax payers for providing the money to pay for them.

Thanks.

I’ve ridden in so called 3rd world countries that have better roads than the UK…. and in the UK there are off road trails with better surfaces as well

Our weather is a problem because of the freeze/thaw cycles which places with cold winters and hot summers don’t get. Water gets into a hole and freezes, expanding it then thaws allowing the hole to wear then freezes again making the hole bigger etc. If it gets cold and stays cold then you don’t get as many cycles so not as much damage. Similar thing happens with hydraulic pressure when water gets forced into a hole by the action of passing traffic.

But really it’s mainly down to cheap repairs done badly – we had a load of patching and top dressing done around here and now there are massive areas where the top dressing has broken down. If the job is done properly there aren’t places for water to get into the surface so the wear doesn’t get started.

roads are pretty bad everywhere
UK tend to use coarser tarmac
My street in Germany is tarmac over cobblestones. In this country renowned for its engineering skills, 2 guys come round in a van once a week with a bucket of tarmac and a tamper to fill the potholes.
Italy is pretty bad
Those areas with cold winters might not have the same amount of freeze-thaw and may have a more continuous cold/snow, but then the road gets shredded by regular snowplough use. The pedestrian zone is shredded because of that, being paving slabs and bricks.
Holland and Germany are the world champions for having washboard tarmac at traffic lights. More braking bumps than an MTB red run.
Belgium has the worst motorway in EU now that the East German cobbled autobahns have been upgraded (cobbled is not a joke).
UK roads are bad but they’re not the worst.

Because the regulation standards that utility companies have to meet, after digging up the road and then laying patchwork repairs, is incredibly low.

5thElefant – Member 
English roads, not British.
Welsh roads are lovely. I’d just like to thank the English tax payers for providing the money to pay for them.
Thanks.

Was probably EU money 😉

(stupid idiots voted leave etc etc 😛 … though actually it would be our money we gave to the EU which they handed back, but without the EU specifically funding rural and declined areas it would be wasted at the next Tory piss up instead of funding regionals).

nickfrog – Member
Yep, weather and chronic infrastructure under-investment but also high density of traffic and always choosing the cheap option, which proves very expensive, very quickly.

I think this can be applied to a lot of things in this country, which is basically a huge bodge compared to many countries in Europe.

And..

The government’s (all of them) insistence of providing vanity projects instead of providing a cohesive interactive transport infrastructure.

All governments in this country are shortermist, in outlook and intelligence.

wobbliscott – Member

Not austerity. They’ve always been bad. Just down to the fact we’ve a similar population to France but the country is about 5 times smaller so traffic is far more concentrated on the road network. Also maintaining the roads is hard as closing roads and lanes causes a lot of congestion so councils wait until the roads are desperate for repairs or verging on dangerous before fixing them.

Way out I would say UK is about 1/2 the land mass of France not 5 times, and many French roads are very rough

As said,short-termism.

Not just on roads.

Mental health**, NHS, social housing, infrastructure, the list is endless.

Hell, in my view Brexit is the ultimate short-term solution to a perceived problem.

The last one I know is very much open to opinion!

** I have a personal stake in that one having recently helped a friend who’s lad had a psychotic episode. There IS no mental health service left in reality and the Police are effectively now an early intervention team.

It disgusts me how little worth is placed on people with mental illness and it’s yet another time bomb for the future.

Sorry for rant.. 🙁

The roads are so bad because the agencies that let the contracts to the maintenance contractors let them away with it. They don’t even have the staff or resources anyway to do enough inspections if they didn’t let them away with it.

You should come over to Ireland. I need a mtb just to cycle on the roads they are so $hit.

Swiss roads were great until you you had to drive on the motorways.

Winters bordering on freezing, day-in, day-out = lots of potholes.

We probably have the worst climate for it.

Junction by us was getting very chewed up resurfaced <3 months ago, it’s now as bad as it was before!

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/10/councils-budget-cuts-social-care-bills

https://www.ft.com/content/5fcbd0c4-2948-11e5-8db8-c033edba8a6e

English roads, not British.

Edinburgh centre has some of the most poorly maintained city centre roads I’ve ridden on.

Just drive on roads near where local councilors live, they always seem to be pretty good..

It disgusts me how little worth is placed on people with mental illness and it’s yet another time bomb for the future.

Short term targets. Or, how long til’ the next election?

My Dad pushed and pushed for help for an old acquaintance of his. After weeks of BS he ended up driving this poor chap to the nearest psychiatric ward and demanding to have him put into treatment there and then for his own safety. They refused as there was no GP referral.. Two weeks later he got stabbed after being how he was in front of the wrong people.

There are so many procedures barriers to overcome that anyone of sound mind struggles to get anywhere with it let alone a solitary sort with the very problems that they’re asking for help for.

Sorry for rant..

Don’t be. A thread about road maintenance on a cycling forum may not be the ideal place but let loose man. It’s a fupping travesty in a country that makes such a big deal of its human rights, equality etc.

I assume you are talking about England; and the answer is the highest population density this side of Bangladesh?

Poor design, which is then not maintained
Make repairs on the cheap and ignore complaints from the public until major (very expensive) work is needed

Joe – Member
I assume you are talking about England; and the answer is the highest population density this side of Bangladesh?

I think what you really mean is =31st in the world with the Netherlands for population density. Don’t let facts get in the way of your own agenda 😉

Isnt that the UK as a whole?
We tend to live in one corner.

I don’t get the “high population density” argument for poor roads, surely densly populated would mean more tax revenue per mile of road?

It’s more down to political will and balancing investment in roads/education/social care/every other public service and promising to keep tax low enough so that people will vote you.