Resurfacing Roads

Nuggs

Why is it that local authorities can't realise that while it costs a lot to resurface a road, it's a much better longer-term measure than just putting a dressing over the cracked, pot-holed surface beneath?

A huge stretch of my favourite local cycling roads have just been dressed. That means grit and lots of it. It scratches paintwork, hurts when cars go past, makes cornering and braking interesting and worst of all (as I discovered earlier) causes p*nctures.

No doubt after a few heavy downpours, the pot holes will return and it will need doing again in just a few years time.

A resurfaced road would be safer and a much better longer term prospect. Sadly, sense flies out the window when budgets are involved.

Grrrrr......

Siechotic

My local council have the same mentality, there is very little car traffic through the village but there are Double Decker Buses that pass through 8 times a day. These buses have caused quite a bit of damage to the road to which the council thinks that by patching up the holes and cracked suface with a thin top dressing has helped.

Unfortunately it hasn't, the weight of the buses immediately rips the dressing apart the very next day after the dressing has been done.

So along come the council spray mark the cracks and missing tarmac, dissapear and then reappear several weeks later to top coat it again. This is repeated several times a year.

Always make me wonder if the councils have any intelligence whatsoever.

nwallace

reminds me of the reason given for not replacing wood tiles which expanded and split every winter in the damp with carpet at school.

refitting the wood tiles is maintainance budget, carpeting would be refurbishment. :shock:
bloody joke.

Jez mon

Personally I like when the council suddenly runs out of money half way through resurfacing and just finishes the rest of the road with a dressing. Gives a bit of variety to the ride :twisted:

I'm not sure why they bother top coating at all, even when driving it doesn't make the road any better. One stretch of road near me had TERRIBLE pot holes, it was then top coated, with loose small gravel. The potholes remained however, they could no longer be seen easily and this was bad for car drivers as well as cyclists.

Two years later and the road is slightly better, namely because the topcoat has all been lost and we are back to some smooth-ish, if heavily pot holed, tarmac.

Nigel-YZ1

Rotherham council camouflaged the holes... sorry - Dressed a main road near me. The whole lot didn't take and began stripping off.

When the press put it on the front page the council stated they we're 'looking into the cause'.

Guess what's been done? Nothing. Just hoovered up the mess every so often and left it.

Johnny G

Presumably the cheap option, dressing, is within the local authority's annual budget, whereas proper resurfacing would exceed the budget.

So although the road will need to be redone in a couple of years, that's OK because the local authority has kept within its annual budget. :roll:

Great long-term planning eh?

karl j

Nigel-YZ1 wrote:

Rotherham council camouflaged the holes...
... what's been done? Nothing. Just hoovered up the mess every so often and left it.

think yourself lucky, they don't even do that round here. I think the theory goes that the weight of cars will flatten it down for them and any left-over will just go down the drain (or just disappear .... somewhere, anywhere, who cares)

Stewie Griffin

Johnny G wrote:

Presumably the cheap option, dressing, is within the local authority's annual budget, whereas proper resurfacing would exceed the budget.

So although the road will need to be redone in a couple of years, that's OK because the local authority has kept within its annual budget. :roll:

Great long-term planning eh?

If enough Local Authority departments exceed their budgets and the money cannot be siphoned from enough profit making departments, then your CTax goes up to cover any shortfall. If your CTax didnt go up then your services would suffer. The party in control of your LA obviously doesnt not want to increase costs to the electorate nor decrease services to it as it creates problems for them during elections .

Thats what I call planning ahead :evil:

1892

There's a road near where I live, it's badly needs resurfacing, what do the council do?
Re-paint the white lines?????

There wasn't anything wrong with the lines, you could still see them clearly

1892

Just incase you want to know which road, it's the Sandon Road in Stafford.
We should name and shame councils

CarlosFerreiro

Surface dressing is like painting your windows, resurfacing is like replacing them, both in terms of costs and the amount of hassles involved.

Roads maintenance budgets have been falling in numeric, never mind real terms for a long time now..... roads are fairly resilient, but it does take it's toll in the end.

nwallace

Aesthetically I like settes, there was a good load of them in Whitehall crescent in Dundee until a couple of years back when it gained a good quality tar surface on top of them (common around Dundee) totally changed the visual character of the road.
The settes were quite good as well, not all that old.

Jez mon

They've just done the road I live on!

Sent a letter through friday, which on the back had all sorts of information as to why it's a good thing to do.

Basically, it said good things; its cheap, non slip surface (once the loose top layer of stones has been taken away buy the cars) and it enhances the road's length of life.

HOWEVER, it clearly stated that it was no good for roads which were in seriously bad condition.

Well guess what, anyone with half a brain could see that the road has patches where the surface has subsided, and needs actual work done to it.

So what have I got, a mile either way of sh** before i can actually get on a proper road. The road outside my house was OK in most places before the surface dressing, but is now un-ridable.

It's a complete disgrace, other less popular roads nearby have been properly resurfaced recently, yet the road i lived on, which has not been resurfaced in my lifetime (18 years) has just had a bit of tar and some loose stones dumped on it.

:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

Update; went out to take a look, and there is a HUGE pile of gravel outside of my gate, I can pick up handfuls of the stuff. There is also a widening line where the gravel is getting pushed away by car tyres!

will3

Worse still are single track roads that get this treatment.
The centre never gets rolled in/swept by cars resulting in a permanent gravel centre and two two foot wide usable bits.

Get it slightly wrong on a downhill corner and instant road rash.

Nuggs

will3 wrote:

Worse still are single track roads that get this treatment.
The centre never gets rolled in/swept by cars resulting in a permanent gravel centre and two two foot wide usable bits.

Get it slightly wrong on a downhill corner and instant road rash.

Absolutely - it's a case of riding in the hedge or have some brown saddle moments while the wheels randomly skip across the surface :shock: