UK roads - why?!

nevman

I watched two men repair holes at the side of a narrow country road above Matlock y,day-it involved tarmac and a spade.That was all,fill and bash it with the back of the spade.Since the road is narrow,passing vehicles have to use the edges where the surface is so shallow it quickly breaks away.This is where cyclists ride.Broken Britain.
Worst stretch of road I know is the Worksop to Mansfield road after Ollerton-the surface is so broken it is almost unrideable.

capt_slog

Re: road repair.

I used to ride a motorbike, and took a couple of trips to Italy. One day outside Bologne I saw a vehicle repairing the motorway which was a huge machine, perhaps made up of more than one unit. Basically it cut the road up at the front, it appeared to re-melt and mix this with some fresh tarmac, and then re-lay it at the back, rolled and ready to drive on.

This was about 1982. When I got back I mentioned what I'd seen to a friend who did roadworks, asking why we didn't have them here. He said it was something to do with the 'road standard' (?), and the machine I saw only put down a wear-layer up to a certain thickness, and this wasn't enough for UK standard.

For me, I'd rather have 7.5cm of nice smooth asphalt put down rather than 1.5cm of sprinkled stone.

Pross

Capt Slog wrote:

Re: road repair.

I used to ride a motorbike, and took a couple of trips to Italy. One day outside Bologne I saw a vehicle repairing the motorway which was a huge machine, perhaps made up of more than one unit. Basically it cut the road up at the front, it appeared to re-melt and mix this with some fresh tarmac, and then re-lay it at the back, rolled and ready to drive on.

This was about 1982. When I got back I mentioned what I'd seen to a friend who did roadworks, asking why we didn't have them here. He said it was something to do with the 'road standard' (?), and the machine I saw only put down a wear-layer up to a certain thickness, and this wasn't enough for UK standard.

For me, I'd rather have 7.5cm of nice smooth asphalt put down rather than 1.5cm of sprinkled stone.

Sounds like road re-cycling which is used (but not frequently) in this country.

Unfortunately the cost of laying a whole new surface is hugely more than surface dressing the existing road (surface dressing is about £2.50 m2 compare to about £18 m2 to plane out and re-surface the road). It is also a lot quicker and therefore less disruptive. If Councils went down that route then they would only have money to do about 15% of the road that they currently maintain and the rest would deteriorate even further.

We'd all love a lovely, smooth newly surfaced road every 10 years but how many of us would be prepared to pay extra council tax to fund it? The countries quoted as having nice roads are often those that get the most grants from the EU to spend on this (anyone who drove / rode in the Republic of Ireland 20 odd years back will realise how much they have benefitted!).

The work I do is generally for private developers who need to carry out work on the highway. Councils will milk them for every penny and insist on full gold plated re-surfacing as they get their road network upgraded at no cost to themselves so it is frustrating when they then use the cheapest options possible when doing their own works but in the real world budgets have to be stretched and the most economically viable solutions used.

Mike67

Pross wrote:

The countries quoted as having nice roads are often those that get the most grants from the EU to spend on this (anyone who drove / rode in the Republic of Ireland 20 odd years back will realise how much they have benefitted!).

Very true...I regularly drove over there pre-Euro road grants. Some horrendous surfaces and monster potholes that would easily swallow a bike.

I'm sure it's the only reason they've reduced the time period for MOTs as the cars no longer fall apart before they need one

On the down side the nice smooth surfaces now mean people can actually exceed the speed limit through smalll towns and villages whereas before they'd lose their teeth.

The Psycholist

I've worked for a major highways contractor on a Highways Agency contract and now a small highways contractor on local authority contract so i've got a bit of background on roads.

The UK suffers from having the most changable weather of nearly anywhere in the world. Easy to see -10 in the winter and over 30 degrees in the summer. With sleet, rain and snow all in between. Hotter countries are more stable and the roads are designed to suit this. Colder countries are the same, they are designed to cope with the constant low temperatures.

It's the constant freeze thaw process (rain gets in the cracks, freezes, expands and makes bigger cracks) that really breaks up the roads and creates potholes and cracks. Plus using salt to de-ice the roads is massively corrosive but there is no real alternative.

Motorways are given priority in terms of repairs due the safety needed at higher speeds. But in reality there is less stress on them as it's the turning - particularly from lorries at tight junctions etc that really churn and break up the road. Motorways suffer more from rutting, particularly in the inside lane due to lorries.

All this puts extra strain and cost on the system which many other countries don't suffer from and unfortunately there's only so much money to go round as with everything else. Repairs have to be made and prioritised as best as they can be.

Frank the tank

Too much traffic on them, wearing them out. If more people rode bikes/mopeds/scooters/motorbikes instead of driving cars the surfaces would last a lot longer. More goods should be transported by rail or invest in re-establishing a viable canal network. Also there's a lack of investment and low priority given to roads.

Pross

Frank the tank wrote:

Too much traffic on them, wearing them out. If more people rode bikes/mopeds/scooters/motorbikes instead of driving cars the surfaces would last a lot longer. More goods should be transported by rail or invest in re-establishing a viable canal network. Also there's a lack of investment and low priority given to roads.

Road surfaces are designed based on the number of 'million standard axles' (a standard axle is a load of 80kn over an axle) they are expected to take over their life span(for trunk roads this is 40 years or 20 on more lightly trafficked routes with a surface treatment at between 10 and 20 years). Due to the relative mass of a car the damage they do is negligible. It is heavy goods vehicles that create almost all of the wear on roads. If a motorway with a properly constructed surface was used entirely by cars would last for hundreds of millions of journeys. The damage factor for cars is so low that it is considered as negligible in the design process.

nevman

Explains why Staffs roads are so much better than Derbys roads-less quarry vehicles and cross country traffic.Recommend Staffordshire Highlands, as they like to call themselves, as a good ride venue if you can get up this way.

daviesee

The Psycholist wrote:

The UK suffers from having the most changable weather of nearly anywhere in the world. Easy to see -10 in the winter and over 30 degrees in the summer. With sleet, rain and snow all in between. Hotter countries are more stable and the roads are designed to suit this. Colder countries are the same, they are designed to cope with the constant low temperatures.

I have to call you on that one. British Columbia, Canada has a very similar weather pattern to here but the roads are much better. I am sure that there are other examples.

The Psycholist

daviesee wrote:

The Psycholist wrote:

The UK suffers from having the most changable weather of nearly anywhere in the world. Easy to see -10 in the winter and over 30 degrees in the summer. With sleet, rain and snow all in between. Hotter countries are more stable and the roads are designed to suit this. Colder countries are the same, they are designed to cope with the constant low temperatures.

I have to call you on that one. British Columbia, Canada has a very similar weather pattern to here but the roads are much better. I am sure that there are other examples.

Yes but then you have to remember about poulation density and road usage. British columbia alone is nearly 4 times the size in square kms of all of the UK. And yet has nearly 15 times less people. Not exact road usage figures but clearly quite a difference. Lot more cars in a lot smaller space churns the roads. We must create a lot more vehicle tax though in fairness.

daviesee

The Psycholist wrote:

Yes but then you have to remember about poulation density and road usage. British columbia alone is nearly 4 times the size in square kms of all of the UK. And yet has nearly 15 times less people. Not exact road usage figures but clearly quite a difference. Lot more cars in a lot smaller space churns the roads. We must create a lot more vehicle tax though in fairness.

Ha! Knew that one was coming.
Explain Scotland then. Similar population spread to BC.

y33stu

daviesee wrote:

The Psycholist wrote:

The UK suffers from having the most changable weather of nearly anywhere in the world. Easy to see -10 in the winter and over 30 degrees in the summer. With sleet, rain and snow all in between. Hotter countries are more stable and the roads are designed to suit this. Colder countries are the same, they are designed to cope with the constant low temperatures.

I have to call you on that one. British Columbia, Canada has a very similar weather pattern to here but the roads are much better. I am sure that there are other examples.

Totally agree with British Colombia, some amazing rural road surfaces out there. Smooth as you like, even in the mountains.

The Psycholist

daviesee wrote:

The Psycholist wrote:

Yes but then you have to remember about poulation density and road usage. British columbia alone is nearly 4 times the size in square kms of all of the UK. And yet has nearly 15 times less people. Not exact road usage figures but clearly quite a difference. Lot more cars in a lot smaller space churns the roads. We must create a lot more vehicle tax though in fairness.

Ha! Knew that one was coming.
Explain Scotland then. Similar population spread to BC.

I don't really know enought about Canada and Scotlands roads to be honest. Could be to do with the age of the existing infrastructure.

Overall I'd say it works in the following way in most cases (it has where i've worked):

Councils break their roads into a number of areas. An inspector is responsible for that area. They are given a budget for the year to keep that area as safe and usable as possible. It is enough to keep it safe for the year but that's about it.

Another pot of money keeps an emergency team running 24/7 who will run through the day picking up dangerous potholes. They jump out of their van and throw a bag of bitumen down and whack it down. Not pretty, but keeps it safe until it can be patched permenantly, usually within 6 weeks.

More busy roads and roads in desperate need of resurfacing will be done throughout the year where possible.

The inspectors would love to blitz their whole area but they just don't have the money. They have to do the bare essentials to keep everything safe.

schweiz

robbo2011 wrote:

Just to make you guys even more pissed off, I have been riding here in Switzerland for the last year and I honestly don't remember seeing a pothole. Bliss!

They're very few and far between and I know a couple of 'bad' roads but that's about it! The only problem is that stop looking out for pot holes, and when there is one it takes you that much by surprise it's usally a big hit! I've seen roads in Switzerland be ripped up and completely replaced that are in a much better state than most UK suburban roads.

I've been to Cambrils in Spain for training camps this year and last. As well as the sunshine and courteous drivers, their roads are good too. When I venture across the border to Austria or especially Italy, I see a few more damaged roads but nothing like as bad as the UK.

I used to cycle commute from Royton (Oldham) to Deansgate between 1993 and 1996 and whilst there were a couple of areas that were bad, usually areas that would get flooded aftera good downpour, but on the whole my journey was event free.

A couple of years back, I drove with my dad from Oldham to Gainsborough over the Pennines through Holmfirth and Penistone . I was thinking how nice it would be to cycle around there again and started taking notice of the state of roads rather than the scenery. By the time we got to Lincolnshire, I had decided it wasn't worth bringing my bike across!

daviesee

The Psycholist wrote:

I don't really know enought about Canada and Scotlands roads to be honest. Could be to do with the age of the existing infrastructure.

Overall I'd say it works in the following way in most cases (it has where i've worked):
.........
The inspectors would love to blitz their whole area but they just don't have the money. They have to do the bare essentials to keep everything safe.

Again, that is more about potholes rather than the road suface as a whole.
Your last point covers it though. This Country is skint and can't afford the infrastructure that we would like.

Pross

daviesee wrote:

The Psycholist wrote:

I don't really know enought about Canada and Scotlands roads to be honest. Could be to do with the age of the existing infrastructure.

Overall I'd say it works in the following way in most cases (it has where i've worked):
.........
The inspectors would love to blitz their whole area but they just don't have the money. They have to do the bare essentials to keep everything safe.

Again, that is more about potholes rather than the road suface as a whole.
Your last point covers it though. This Country is skint and can't afford the infrastructure that we would like.

That's public services in a nutshell. The public want government at all levels to provide the best in everything (health, education, social care, police, roads etc.) but if you same to them "OK, you can have it all but we need to up the standard rate of income tax to 30% and add 50% to your Council Tax" or "OK, you can have great roads but we have to take the extra money from the health budget" you won't get much support. Most people's response is to either tax someone else more (let's make the top 10% of earners pay 80%) or make cuts in areas that they don't benefit from.

schweiz

or in Switzerland people pay between 5% and 20% income tax based on where you live (Tax is levied by the Gemeinde (Parish/Town), the Kanton (County) and the Bund (Central Government) and you marital/family situation. If you live in Kanton Zug, are married and have 3 or 4 kids then you're laughing! I even get CHF 700 of my salary tax free per year for commuting by bike! It's not just about how much tax revenue you raise, it's the efficiency with which it is spent!

Pross

schweiz wrote:

or in Switzerland people pay between 5% and 20% income tax based on where you live (Tax is levied by the Gemeinde (Parish/Town), the Kanton (County) and the Bund (Central Government) and you marital/family situation. If you live in Kanton Zug, are married and have 3 or 4 kids then you're laughing! I even get CHF 700 of my salary tax free per year for commuting by bike! It's not just about how much tax revenue you raise, it's the efficiency with which it is spent!

Is that the total income tax? Presumably Switzerland doesn't have free access to as much social security or health care benefits? I agree on the efficiency side though. Wonder if there's any jobs going for highway engineers who can only speak English over there

capt_slog

daviesee wrote:

Again, that is more about potholes rather than the road suface as a whole.
Your last point covers it though. This Country is skint and can't afford the infrastructure that we would like.

I have a feeling that some of the problem is due to the way the councils are allowed to spend money.

Anyone who has worked for any large institution knows about "year end". Each dept is allocated a certain amount of cash/funds and they have to spend just up to that by the end of the company's financial year. Go over and you are in trouble, go under and you don't get as much to spend next year.

Although it works most of the time, it's a silly system because it doesn't allow money to carry over. I reckon this is why we sometimes see a spate of crap road repairs spread out across a wide area (and more often totally unnecessary), when it would be more beneficial to save the cash and do a good job where it's really needed.

schweiz

Pross wrote:

schweiz wrote:

or in Switzerland people pay between 5% and 20% income tax based on where you live (Tax is levied by the Gemeinde (Parish/Town), the Kanton (County) and the Bund (Central Government) and you marital/family situation. If you live in Kanton Zug, are married and have 3 or 4 kids then you're laughing! I even get CHF 700 of my salary tax free per year for commuting by bike! It's not just about how much tax revenue you raise, it's the efficiency with which it is spent!

Is that the total income tax? Presumably Switzerland doesn't have free access to as much social security or health care benefits? I agree on the efficiency side though. Wonder if there's any jobs going for highway engineers who can only speak English over there

That's total. I paid just under 10% total for myself and my wife together last year. The full tax rate for us is somewhere around 15% (IIRC about 4.6% to central goverment and the rest to the county and my village) but by the time we've claimed tax back for fuel we use for commuting to work, cycling to work, private pension and whatever else we can find on the tax form to avoid it's much less.

There's no NHS, but I pay CHF 130 a month (about 90 quid) for private healthcare where I can get to see a doctor on the same day I make an appointment, get a MRI scan in 3 days and see a sports injury specialist and physio within a week of that. My wife pays about CHF 250 but has much more cover and has history of a fused/slipped disc in her spine. Again health insurance is based not only on sex, age and previous medical history, but where you live!

Unemployment benefit is paid after you've worked a year and is up to 80% of what your last salary was. i.e. a company director earning 20,000 a month wouldn't get 80% but an Engineer like me would. Much better than 100 quid a week!

If you are 'poor' then health insurance is subsidised. When my wife was at uni, we got most of her health insurance premiums refunded through the tax system as she only worked a few months a year.

A social system does exist to help with paying for housing etc.

Unemployment is 3.1%. Minimum wage is about CHF 3300/month (£2200) and is normally paid 13 months (usually a double salary in November or December)

I believe a full State Pension for a married couple is over CHF 2000 a month but like most countries, there's lots of discussion about how that can be sustained and raising pensionable age (which for women has already happened to match the men's pensionable age).

If you want to lay roads in Switzerland then speaking any one of the languages spoken the the former Yugoslavian countries would get you further than German, Italian or French!

[edit]

VAT is 8% but it is still an expensive country when compared to the rest of Europe. Lots of people are buying outside of Europe (I buy 95% of cycling related purchases VAT free in the UK or Germany) and prices are coming down especially in supermarkets. Imported items such as Pataks curry sauce is 4 quid a jar and Heinz Baked Beans were almost a couple of quid a can last time I looked. Relative to wages though, prices are no more expensive than the UK.

sancho_panza

robbo2011 wrote:

Just to make you guys even more pissed off, I have been riding here in Switzerland for the last year and I honestly don't remember seeing a pothole. Bliss!

two years for me and there's one pothole opened up this spring in Mont-sur-Rolle! Apart from that, almost nothing.

Grit and salt's not really used here (as far as I know). The main roads are ploughed and others are white - all cars have winter rubber. Surely that saves the surfaces?

And yes, the OP mentioned something about noise. We're cyclists and our needs/wants are quite specialised but the noise issue affects many more people. I live horrifyingly close to a major motorway but hardly notice it: it's smoothly surfaced and banked with earth mounds. I suppose good surfaces reduce fuel consumption too, as they do on a bicycle.

Road surfaces in Blighty - horrific! I lived in Chile for a few years too and they were damn good there (although not many of them)

mallorcajeff

Here in mallorca the roads are ace but you only have to go off track a little to find there bot all great and some very very poor. Here they use cheap tarmac too so once it rains every roundabout is like an ice rink in a car. On the whole good roads and a bankrupt country cant have it all i guess. When i last visited uk i was shocked at uk roads far worse than mainland spain

socrates

Where I live in N.I. the main roads are falling to pieces. So our council get the police to check their records of a minor street in Bangor and find that there has been 1 minor collision in 7 years and no-one has ever been caught breaking the speed limit. So what do they do? Spend thousands building 4 speed ramps and a few extra on even more minor streets which run off it.

DesB3rd

As another person who's done a stint in highways I can't really see that the construction of highways per se is a problem; the standard A-road is a 450 sub-base (compacted limestone) & 360 of tarmac, obviously more on motorways, less on laybys etc. Driving past works in Europe (France, Austria, Sw., Italy) I haven't seen anything that diverges greatly from this standard and there as here the contractor is constantly under the cosh to provide every manner of test result & proof of quality. My antipodean colleagues, who also had experience of similar work in the US & Canada, found European road construction unusually heavy. Road in "big countries" are indeed rather under challenged, low traffic density but also no complications with drainage (no gullies or manholes to initiation cracking) and a very low density of junctions & sharp corners (which HGV esp. place extreme loads upon.)

Tarmac itself isn't the issue (ever see a pothole in the middle of a seamless piece of tarmac?) the real enemy seems to be jointing, be that where the tarmac meets a gully, a cold joint (old meets new tarmac - reheat doesn't really work) or where a utility company digs up a road to form an access. The last seems a real dog; the utilities companies have very limited liability r.e. their civils activities, hence when they cut an access they're not inclined to rebuild the tarmac to a spec that matches the road around it or ensure there's a good bond/seal. I've seen trenches limestone filled to ~150 of the surface, given a perfunctory tamping then haphazardly tarmacked over; bring such mal-practice to their attention & the response is typically "go read the '91 Utilities Act" - AKA "How powerless you are in 230 legalistic pages."

Novelty fact: Axel load drives up damage to the power of 4 i.e. twice the axel load equals x16 the damage!

pottssteve

As some people have mentioned, Belgian roads rival the UK for their shoddiness. The road between Eupen and Monschau is a case in point; the German section is as smooth as silk, the Belgian section is made up of concrete slabs that are horribly worn where the car tyres generally roll. The resulting holes have been filled with lumps of tar that are now rutted and very unpleasant to ride.
If you type "5 Kasteelstraat, Voeren" into Google Maps and look at the street view of the bend it's an absolute shocker. A big hole on the inside of the bend has been filled with lumpy concrete. In actual fact it's now worse than when the photo was taken as the rest of the tar on the outside of the bend is now almost worn and rutted through. It's bloody dangerous to come down on a bike.

When we have visitors we play the game, "Guess when we're in Belgium". On the road from Maastricht to Liege the passengers must close their eyes and then then yell out when they think the car is in Belgium. It's not difficult as the road's like a ploughed field as soon as you cross the border.

mr_goo

Apparently we need to spend £100bn + to get them all up to scratch (including new roads/mways) and the current budget is about £6-8bn. That's why they are bad.

finchy

The Psycholist wrote:

The UK suffers from having the most changable weather of nearly anywhere in the world. Easy to see -10 in the winter and over 30 degrees in the summer. With sleet, rain and snow all in between. Hotter countries are more stable and the roads are designed to suit this. Colder countries are the same, they are designed to cope with the constant low temperatures.

I may have misunderstood your post, but continental climates see -20 in most winters and +35-40 most summers. Changeable the British weather may be, extreme it certainly isn't.

il_principe

vitesse169 wrote:

e went to Mallorca in April and cycled the smaller country roads which were fine and well repaired.
I also go to Cyprus at least once a year and the roads there are in better shape than here - granted they don't get the freezing temperatures in the winter, but still get snow on the mountains.

+1 on the roads in Cyprus - they are (for the most part) brilliant, even tiny little roads up in the mountains. I asked why and was told that it's all EU money...

I have the misfortune to cycle down Fleet st twice a day. Honestly, given the road is within one of the richest few square miles on earth, you'd expect it to be half decent, but it's in a shit old state and has been for years.

DesB3rd

I may have misunderstood your post, but continental climates see -20 in most winters and +35-40 most summers. Changeable the British weather may be, extreme it certainly isn't.

Extremes aren't really the issue; it's the freeze-thaw transition where the damage occurs, especially if the ground is lying wet. A more continental clime might see a few freeze-thaw cycles but the temperative will then settle below zero for months and experience a similar scenario as it emerges from winter. The problem in the UK is that a "cold winter" isn't very cold, but cold enough to cause a night freeze, thus we end up with a daily freeze-thaw cycle for weeks on end...

Pross

The roads on the Tour de Suisse prologue on Saturday didn't look in as good condition as I would have expected from comments on here. The riders were really getting bounced about.