Probably been done to death already so apologies in advance if that's the case, but the potholes in the roads around Sussex (where I live) are the worst I've ever seen. It's not just isolated areas either, the roads are in a bad way seemingly everywhere.
I know it always gets blamed on the winter weather and I know the reasons for this, but is it just a case of we're incapable of building roads properly or just don't look after them? I've spent plenty of time in the alps over the years and never seen roads there anything like as bad as we currently have.
They get hammered in bad weather and councils just don't have the budget to fix them. Revenue budgets are at an all time low, if Councils fix every road they are responsible for they won't be able to spend the money elsewhere.
Council don't want crap roads but it requires significant money.
That's sort of my point though, it's almost like a build it cheap build it twice approach. Which ends up costing more in the long run.
Which ends up costing more in the long run.
Yeah but your budget KPI's don't have a long term box so it's a win win as you can run for reelection on a fixing potholes platform
In sussex too and the last pot hole we hit has broken the brake dust shield off and it's now rubbing and banging against the disc over every bump 🙁
It's the same problem all over. Poor quality running repairs fix the problem very temporarily (until the next bout of cold weather) - clearly costs more in the long run. This was the local main A road after the Best from the East!
Time to move to a "pay-per-mile" (with pollution multiplier) system rather than VED? Make heavy commercial vehicles pay more?
The B roads around me are very bad - never seem them like this. There a numerous issues but large agricultural machinery is making a mess as they have to drive partly on the verge so they can fit up the road - this breaks down the edges which become lethal.
Sat navs are also enabling lorries to take roads that they prob would never have taken. B Roads are simply not built the same as A roads as they're not meant to take such heavy traffic.
I was forcing into a big pothole (edge of the road collapsed) by an oncoming truck a couple of weeks ago. I dodn't know if it's related, but shortly afterwards the car developed a 'shimmy' that the dealer has diagnosed as a screwed transfer case with a replacement cost of £4500 - thankfully I've got an extended warranty that covers it!
I’ve spent plenty of time in the alps over the years and never seen roads there anything like as bad as we currently have.
I'm guessing they maybe don't get the freeze and thaw cycles the UK gets?
It comes down to money.
What we need is a mahoosive royal family, the roads around Windsor are immaculate (well, any on the procession route anyway), if they could all get married in a different town the roads wold be sorted.
And nobody wants the disruption caused by carrying out proper road repairs.Where we are they did some major resurfacing works, all was carried out at night to reduce disruption and loads of people complained. They'd have complained even more if it'd taken a week and closed the road completely rather than 5 nights.
We're all getting 'micro-resurfacing' on my housing estate this week - oh joy. My particular road is absolutely fine as and they fixed a bodged patch only last week - no holes or broken surfaces. The roads upto our particular road need doing though, but they aren't particularly bad. The ruddy motorway has some massive holes that need sorting.
I like a good pot hole. Keeps the riff raff in their lowered cars confined to towns and cities.
Time to move to a “pay-per-mile” (with pollution multiplier) system rather than VED? Make heavy commercial vehicles pay more?
The UK has a pay by polluting tax system, the more fuel you use the more tax you pay. If you want to get freight off the roads get the rail systems sorted. Raising taxes and not providing an alternative is just unpopular and counter productive
It's cyclists who're to blame, what with the whole not paying any road tax thing.
Surely the tarmac in the alps has a tougher time? Frozen during the winter & baked during the summer?
Maybe it's the water? & the amount of cars per mile. Or just we keep surface dressing roads rather than re tarmacing them.
Partly it's down to us running utilities under streets + high volume of traffic. If you look at the pot holes they often start at a repair (i.e. when someone dug up the road to fix / install something). The repairs are sometimes substandard and normally compromise the integrity of the road surface - that coupled with high traffic volumes probably explains it more than the 'freeze thaw' (I can't believe we get any more than the alps).
coincidentally I noticed a set of what appear to be sample core sites along a mile stretch of our lane. Six in total.
A marker, number and a patch where a penetration has been filled.
What are they looking for? Confirmation of the construction method?
This lane is actually in pretty good nick. No potholes to speak of. In fact Worcestershire has very good roads generally I find. Ive driven in Wiltshire, and damned if Im doing that again without the landrover.
councils just don’t have the budget to fix them. Revenue budgets are at an all time low, if Councils fix every road they are responsible for they won’t be able to spend the money elsewhere.
If they stopped piling money into failed pensions pots and also simply asked the government for more money for resurface road works that’d certainly help.
As is its a plan for the councils (probably driven by this crock of shite government) to simply not resurface the road network which will slow down vehicles, the broken ones will be fixed (or not) by the owners leaving them with even less money for essentials like food and school time childcare.
I had a phone call with the council about an A road. Their answer was simply it's Amey who look after it.
So profit before usability. As you have no alternative it's win win for them.
Those who voted for this crock of shit government have no right to complain.
I hope Surrey Council's budget bleeds after what their lack of maintenance did to my clubmate. That settlement alone will be more than their pothole fixing budget for a number of years. I can't tell you how angry it makes me. Needless waste.
Other countries seem to manage public utilities and infrastructure better than we do.
True, obviously none of this is ring-fenced for road repairs though, nor does it account for continental lorry drivers who don't fill up whilst over here!The UK has a pay by polluting tax system, the more fuel you use the more tax you pay.
We do build good roads, but good roads require ongoing maintenance which is expensive and nobody wants to pay for it. We could build roads which last longer with less maintenance but they wouldn't be nearly as nice when new and people would complain about the standard of them.
I'd take Amey over our local County Council road mending team any day.
As said above, in the UK we allow our roads to be dug up for services - it's always going to be a problem.
We've also not really invested that much in the non-Motorway network for at least a generation (historically we spent around 6% of GDP on infrastructure; this has been 2 - 3% for the last 15 years for example - not enough)
Move road freight to rail - the rail network is at capacity at key points. Network rail does bits and pieces where it can, to join the dots but there is dire under-investment. HS2 (which is initially about capacity, not journey-times) should help eventually, despite the nimbys.
We need a higher level of spending, rebuild more roads rather than just patch them up.
I noticed that at some point they stopped using that tar-like sealant on the edges of pothole repairs and cracks.
Result seems to be that the repair lasts a few weeks then the edges start getting chipped away again.
Not sure if this is a local thing or nationwide though.
True, obviously none of this is ring-fenced for road repairs though, nor does it account for continental lorry drivers who don’t fill up whilst over here!
Nothing is ring fenced at all, it's a political tool used to make the Mail readers feel better about paying tax.
Surely the tarmac in the alps has a tougher time? Frozen during the winter & baked during the summer?
When water freezes it expands, forcing whatever crack its pooled in to widen.
If a road freezes once a year (the Alps where they're under snow) its not a problem, in the UK it might freeze and thaw every night for a couple of months.
Also, the back roads in the alps are pretty bad, remember that the scenic ones get repaired for the TDF, and there's always one that slips through the net and some battered and bloodied crasher gets put in front of the cameras to say how the organisers are trying to kill them.
Road Tax ..what a misnomer ..
If only it was used for that we would have the best roads in Europe
My point about roads in the alps, they actually suffer from freeze/thaw on an almost daily basis during winter months. Yet I never seem to see them in a state like we're having to put up with. Granted they have more money than us but even so, our roads are pretty shocking.
I just don't buy the UK conditions thing - we get milder winters and summers than many, many other countries yet our roads are far and away amongst the worst I've ever seen.
Example A) New Zealand (they get hot summers, snowy winters, loads of rainfall and looks *EXACTLY* like Scotland)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9JGutzJ9AyadZXsa2
All of their roads looked like this.
Example B) local B-road on the outskirts of Dumfries (back way from Dalbeattie Road to Mabie)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/d7JpMgNNcd1hgNsV8
Almost all of of our back roads and many of our A roads look like this.
I think the way we've been surfacing roads round here plays a part - that horrible, gunk & gravel method where they roll tonnes of loose stone onto tar and let the traffic bed it in. It's lethal for anything on two-wheels and by all accounts doesn't last either.
Road Tax ..what a misnomer ..
If only it was used for that we would have the best roads in Europe
Does it even collect enough to cover current transport spending? Most new cars are heading towards lower and lower charges as it reflects pollution, modern hybrids are efficient and not buying much fuel so where is the funding going to come from? Good infrastructure is needed for the whole country so should be part of general taxation, for every £1 tesco makes it part o that goes to the roads and rail that let them do it.
Granted they have more money than us
You can have Brexit or anything else. The country is screwed the government at all levels simply can't do both. It isn't going to get better in the near future and probably not in the longer term either. Better get used to it.
You can raise taxes but they won't be paying for repairs, plenty of other things need fixing, resourcing etc.
I stopped road racing a few years ago because of the state of the roads - broken verges and potholes, trashing carbon rims in 2 successive races. Also consider that the vast majority of private cars have gone from Escort-sized to hulking 4x4 in the last 20 years, plus the huge growth in white van traffic.
that horrible, gunk & gravel method where they roll tonnes of loose stone onto tar and let the traffic bed it in. It’s lethal for anything on two-wheels and by all accounts doesn’t last either.
This has been going on on some of my local roads again. Same approach as a kid at primary school chucking glitter on glue to make something look nice.
I'm surprised that a County Council - say Shropshire - hasn't proposed demetalling all non A roads, Much as has been happening in the US for about 10 years or so. There's a lot of studies that show that gravel roads have significantly lower maintenance costs in the long term although they do require a regular regrading.
I'm tempted to look at buying into the specialist equipment and beginning the process...
There’s a lot of studies that show that gravel roads have significantly lower maintenance costs in the long term although they do require a regular regrading.
And dust abatement in summer, the shocking impact on your car, lower speeds, are accident stats similar? Certainly were some nasty ones in Oz and it just meant unless it was a shortcut or only option most people stayed on the main road.
Road Tax ..what a misnomer ..
If only it was used for that we would have the best roads in Europe
Correct. It's not called road tax. Local roads are maintained by councils, who have had their budgets slashed in recent years.
proposed demetalling all non A roads, Much as has been happening in the US for about 10 years or so.
I had never heard of such a phenomenon before. Thanks aP - schoolday!
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/7/26/the-un-paving-of-american-roads
https://www.wired.com/2016/07/cash-strapped-towns-un-paving-roads-cant-afford-fix/
It's a pretty accurate barometer of a County Council's finances. Out on the road bike I can tell to within 5 yards when I pass the Herefordshire/Glos/Worcs borders. Herefordshire absolutely shocking, not surprising given their large geography and small population. W Glos not bad generally and Stoner's affluent Worcestershire surfaces, almost at French standards.
cornwall county council have taken a new approach to potholes.
where its really bad, they've just put a sign saying 'temporary surface'.
that's it, they aren't even attempting to fix them.
Dreckly. Meanwhile - gravel, I mean fat bikes 😎
W Glos not bad generally and Stoner’s affluent Worcestershire surfaces, almost at French standards.
we're in your lanez, stealin your tarmac.
South Staffordshire’s roads are the worst locally (Shropshire, Worcestershire, Gloucs, Dudley, Wolverhampton etc roads are like snooker tables in comparison)
It's fairly simple
Hammond has reduced the deficit, 🎉🎉 by taking money away from (among other things) local councils (biggest ever cuts to their funding)
So there's no money to fix the roads.
They call it austerity & it's the will of the people
Just for balance, the roads around Windsor are just as dreadful as everywhere else!
I think the way we’ve been surfacing roads round here plays a part – that horrible, gunk & gravel
Drip'n'chip 🙁 They do it round our way too, more and more. Bloody awful to cycle on. I think it'll probably drive many cyclists onto the bigger roads where they'll slow down the precious traffic (especially when they get hit & killed now & then)
