Road Redressing the Whole of Warwickshire?!

chris_bass
Posts: 4,913
Seems like Warwickshire county council are ruining, sorry, redressing, all of the roads near me, on my cycle last night about 6 different roads were being done or had just been done.
They make such a bad job of it why do they bother?! i'm sure it is soley to annoy me!!
They make such a bad job of it why do they bother?! i'm sure it is soley to annoy me!!
www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes
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Don't get me started!! WTF is it all about anyway
What annoys me most is there are some really bad road surfaces round my way that haven't been touched, but some perfectly good ones they've thrown loose chippings all over.
At best the new surfaces are generally rubbish and at worst they're positively dangerous for cyclists especially when descending.0 -
PeteMadoc wrote:Don't get me started!! WTF is it all about anyway
What annoys me most is there are some really bad road surfaces round my way that haven't been touched, but some perfectly good ones they've thrown loose chippings all over.
At best the new surfaces are generally rubbish and at worst they're positively dangerous for cyclists especially when descending.
its exactly the same here, I cant work out how they chose which roads to do. What is more baffling is how they decide where to stop? they seem to stop and the road either side of the bit they have re done is just as bad so why stop there?!
they also just chuck the new stuff down over the old tarmac so all the holes bumps and cracks are all still there and come winter will be twice as bad!www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
Those loose chippings are so annoying. A few miles of the Stratford Tempest Sportive were covered in them.
A few months ago, Leicester council decided they were going to put those chippings across half the county, great stretches a mile long or two long, then nothing for 500 yards, then another mile of it. I was so glad I had just swapped to Gatorskins, my old tyres would have been ripped to shreds! Apparently there was a road race taking place about a week after they did this, using the roads that had been covered, and despite the race having been ok'd by the council, no one was given any warning it was going to take place.0 -
Been bad in Worcestershire too. Agree with the comments above, especially annoying when they re-surface a perfectly good section of tarmac and make it 10X worse. I really don't understand what they think it achieves. Far better if they just make a decent attempt at fixing all the pot holes properly.0
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Hedgecutters are out in force as wellI'm sorry you don't believe in miracles0
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Yep + 1. Noticed this AM they were prepping the road heading out of Warwick towards Solihull/Balsall Common which I'll be avoiding till they at least clear the loose chippings. Coming from an mtb you really do notice every bump in the road on a road bike.0
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Once again, surface dressing is nothing to do with fixing potholes or repairing a visibly knackered surface. It is all about prolonging the life of a road by basically refreshing skidding resistance and sealing the road from water ingress. Once you have potholes you are beyond surface dressing and need patching / resurfacing which is hugely more expensive so it makes sense to spend on surface dressing and hopefully prevent deterioration of even more road surfaces. It has been happening every summer in my lifetime and whilst not great for cyclists (especially when sweeping protocols aren't adhered to) it is actually a very sensible and cost effective form of highway maintenance.
That said I have a profound professional dislike of some highway officers at WCC so carry on with the rant (even though they don't work in the maintenance side)
Edit this bloke explains it well http://www.highwaysmaintenance.com/sdtext.htm0 -
Whereabouts? By chance I've headed towards Northamptonshire on my past few rides but Warwickshire is my usual stomping ground. Planning on going out tomorrow so would be good to know where to avoid.0
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I was at Warwick Castle last week, great part of the country, great roads, didn't see much in the way of redressing gotta say.0
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gpreeves wrote:Whereabouts? By chance I've headed towards Northamptonshire on my past few rides but Warwickshire is my usual stomping ground. Planning on going out tomorrow so would be good to know where to avoid.
seem to be springing up everywhere, ones recently are
A4177 after balsall common
and again towards hatton
A4189 from henley in arden out
A4300 after the turning for snitterfield towards stratford
they are just the ones i've noticed in the last few days!www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
Chris Bass wrote:gpreeves wrote:Whereabouts? By chance I've headed towards Northamptonshire on my past few rides but Warwickshire is my usual stomping ground. Planning on going out tomorrow so would be good to know where to avoid.
seem to be springing up everywhere, ones recently are
A4177 after balsall common
and again towards hatton
A4189 from henley in arden out
A4300 after the turning for snitterfield towards stratford
they are just the ones i've noticed in the last few days!
I quite often head out in that direction, so will make sure to avoid those roads for a couple of weeks. Cheers for letting me know.0 -
they are usually really nice roads to ride on, especially the ones out of henley in arden.
Once the loose chippings have gone a bit more they should be better, they are still passable at the moment, just not all too pleasant! the main problem is when cars still travel down them at normal speeds and it flicks hundreds of tiny bits of gravel up at you!www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
It's an abosolute nightmare around Stratford at present. That along with closed roads and diversions that are also closed! luckily most of the workmen are pretty good and let you cycle or walk through while they're working, but this last 2 weeks have been a right pain.0
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It is all about spending public money and keeping people in jobs
A complete waste of time
Do it once correctly,not repeated BODGE UPS0 -
It's happening here in Sussex too, I'm practically boxed in with all the roads covered with loose chippings. I wouldn't mind so much if they actually chose the roads that really need doing, but they haven't.
It's even worse whilst out on my motorbike :shock:0 -
A few lanes in n wakes have been surfaced like this now. How long does it take for it to become a normal road again?0
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sbbefc wrote:A few lanes in n wakes have been surfaced like this now. How long does it take for it to become a normal road again?
I'd say roughly 8 weeks if it's a medium use road? Most of the roads out of Lincoln have been done lately and the early ones are just getting back to normal. There's one in particular which must see thousands and thousands of cars every day and it got flattened quite quickly, I rode it one day and it was literally unrideable I had to use the path and then about a week later the road was fine and the path was unrideable because of all the loose stones flicked there!
Edit: It's a designated cycle path but avoided by all because there's tons of tree roots sticking up everywhere and generally terrible surface.0 -
ad_snow wrote:sbbefc wrote:A few lanes in n wakes have been surfaced like this now. How long does it take for it to become a normal road again?
I'd say roughly 8 weeks if it's a medium use road? Most of the roads out of Lincoln have been done lately and the early ones are just getting back to normal. There's one in particular which must see thousands and thousands of cars every day and it got flattened quite quickly, I rode it one day and it was literally unrideable I had to use the path and then about a week later the road was fine and the path was unrideable because of all the loose stones flicked there!
Edit: It's a designated cycle path but avoided by all because there's tons of tree roots sticking up everywhere and generally terrible surface.
Quite a lot less than medium id imagine! Some of the roads I cycle on you could go for hours and only see a hand full of cars. A good storm should wash them away I hope.0 -
speedo wrote:It is all about spending public money and keeping people in jobs
A complete waste of time
Do it once correctly,not repeated BODGE UPS
No it's not, why do people make such absurd assertions? The reason for doing this technique is explained in my post above. It's about maintaining roads to try to limit longer term major maintenance. Maybe you'd rather pay higher council tax and wait until the road falls apart then completely resurface the road which will cost probably 10 - 20 times more?0 -
Pross wrote:speedo wrote:It is all about spending public money and keeping people in jobs
A complete waste of time
Do it once correctly,not repeated BODGE UPS
No it's not, why do people make such absurd assertions? The reason for doing this technique is explained in my post above. It's about maintaining roads to try to limit longer term major maintenance. Maybe you'd rather pay higher council tax and wait until the road falls apart then completely resurface the road which will cost probably 10 - 20 times more?
I can see what you are saying but cant they fill the holes in first so then at least, although rough and a pain in the ar5e to cycle on, it would be flat? once water gets in the holes and cracks and freezes it'll just break up and make the roads much worse again. There's one road I go on and they have actually put the tarmac down over a plastic bottle, the top is sticking out! They dont seem to end it properly either, so the water will get in the gaps and, again, make it break up.
I'd also be interested in seeing the effect on fuel consumption, the extra drag these type of surfaces produce is quite significant.www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
Yes, they should be pre-patching potholes before dressing a road. However, the OP on this thread was moaning that the roads being dressed appeared in good condition and didn't need doing - those are exactly the roads that you would expect to have surface dressed as there's no point in doing roads that have already deteriorated (that's not to say some Councils don't though!).
EDIT sorry, it was the second post that made this point.0 -
I wouldn't care how or why they're redressing roads, if they would just leave them in a reasonable state afterwards. They never, ever do this. They leave masses of loose gravel all over the place, stick 20mph speed limit and "loose chippings" warning signs up every 50m and say "job done". I'm struggling to think of any other situation where you'd see speed limit signs like that where a road is not being actively worked on. They know the surface is not safe, but instead of doing the extra work to make it safe they stick these signs up so they can say "Well we warned you" if someone crashes as a result. It's ridiculous. From the link Pross posted above, it says:The excess of chippings is usually programmed to be swept on the second day after the dressing was laid, with a second sweeping usually taking place after about a month0
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adr82 wrote:Has anyone ever seen one of these sweepings happen? I haven't. The stuff just lies there for weeks until a combination of traffic and rain eventually gets rid of it. A dry summer like this one has been just prolongs the whole process.
Never - they rely on cars dispersing the excess and usually all over me as they speed pass at about 5mph slower than they would normally. they wait about two weeks, paint the lines on and then hope for the best.www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
It does happen or at least it used to 20 years ago when I spent a couple of summers out measuring on dressing schemes. Three sweeps were carried out but you always get some residue especially if it is too warm for the bitumen to harden. Who knows now, corners get cut on most maintenance and there seem to be a lack of proper, old fashioned inspectors ensuring things are done properly.0