road surfaces after the winter

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tatanab
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by tatanab »

foxyrider wrote:Apparently it's the constant freeze/thaw cycle that does the damage rather than the salt. Once the surface is damaged the melt water then washes out the debris and hey presto a pothole appears, literally in hours.
Greatly assisted by hydraulic pressure caused by the weight of motor vehicles crossing the damaged area. This is how the filling gets blasted a couple of feet away from the emerging hole.
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The utility cyclist
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by The utility cyclist »

Same here in North Herts, newly laid road round the estate less than 3 years ago and it's cracked across the whole carriageway in the same segments the original 70s concrete(?) slabs would have lain. A large hole appeared in this new surface around August, it was filled in about November, lo and behold it's spewed its unsealed contents and even more of the substrate.

I went over two lane width depressions on the road to the town, one on a camber of the turn off the roundabout.

The short-sightedness beggars belief, saving a lot more money longer term is never something government from any party seem to consider, you only have to look at PFI deals, private care home costs, energy production, road safety as prime examoles.
eileithyia
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by eileithyia »

Roads are in a terrible and featured on local NW tonight news programme, problem is; it is not just one off pothole that is easily bypassed... in many areas there are multiple potholes in one area leaving you virtually nowhere to go to avoid.
And I fully believe one of the biggest culprits is the anti-skid surfaces that are being put down, many stretches of this stuff, once it starts lifting, takes a considerable amount of the tarmac with it.
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awavey
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by awavey »

but it does seem to be particular worse this year IMO, the road I live on is near enough like a slalom course to drive on to avoid the holes that have formed not much fun on a bike either, the council did fill in some of the worst examples about a month ago, but theyve already started breaking up again and all those holes appeared this year. Then theres a section on a cycle lane on my way to work where the carriageway has completed disintegrated down to the sub layer, and you do have to think well how did that happen then as its not like bicycles would wear it out , but you have to take prime on the road to avoid it and the debris. And theres another bit of road again was patch repaired by the council just after Christmas, but has broken through again and is actually metres in length and I feel is dangerous enough to avoid using that bit of road completely now, as in the dark the cars arent seeing the holes, or seeing them too late and going in all directions when they hit it.which was anti skid surfaced, so maybe theres something in that stuff breaking up more easily, and finally theres a nasty sinkhole style dip forming on the road to my parents, which Im convinced one of these days is just going to become a big hole when the tarmac finally breaks away.

I dont know, part of me thinks the councils no longer do preventative road maintenance, theres an element of they wait till a member of the public reports a hole, then they think about fixing it, rather than perhaps it used to be where teams as part of their daily job would spot and identify problem areas forming, so could fix them before they got out of hand, and Im sure loads of people just assume someone else is dealing with it.
UpWrong
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by UpWrong »

Yes, been thinking the same. It's been a wet rather than frosty winter down here near the south coast and yet I've never seen this quantity of holes open up before. I reported one hole on "FillThatHhole" because I have to negotiate it every day but noticed many more on a ride out on Sunday.

I do wonder if the increase in car weight and power is contributing to the damage. All these 4x4s being driven by heavy right feet might be traumatising the road surfaces.
thirdcrank
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by thirdcrank »

Apart from trunk roads - which are the responsibility of Highways England and the equivalent organisations - road maintenance is the responsibility of local highway authorities which are part of the relevant local authority. Decent road maintenance is a long-term matter competing for money with immediate matters like social care. It's an example of how our system allows the different levels of government to blame the others.
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squeaker
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by squeaker »

See West Sussex CC Highways repair budget (from a recent presentation to parish councils). Remember all the Tory gloating about not putting up taxes (despite an aging population that's getting more overweight)?
HighwaysBudget.jpg
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mig
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by mig »

many of the broken surfaces local to me are the result of the drainage not working which allows large pools of water to form.

the worst case is from two years ago where the local council decided to shut and completely resurface a part of my homeward commute through a small river valley. the contractor contrived to place grids at high spots in the surface resulting in a slalom of puddles (with floods kerb to kerb this winter) and inevitable decline in the surface. parts of it need resurfacing already! so now it is a narrow road with puddles, potholes and a steep climb at either side of the valley up which traffic goes in the middle of the road to avoid the broken gutters. much fun on the bike it isn't.

completely incompetent.
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foxyrider
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by foxyrider »

eileithyia wrote:Roads are in a terrible and featured on local NW tonight news programme, problem is; it is not just one off pothole that is easily bypassed... in many areas there are multiple potholes in one area leaving you virtually nowhere to go to avoid.
And I fully believe one of the biggest culprits is the anti-skid surfaces that are being put down, many stretches of this stuff, once it starts lifting, takes a considerable amount of the tarmac with it.

Exactly the issue in the north Notts area.
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thirdcrank
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by thirdcrank »

squeaker wrote:See West Sussex CC Highways repair budget (from a recent presentation to parish councils). Remember all the Tory gloating about not putting up taxes (despite an aging population that's getting more overweight)? (My emphasis)


Higher up, somebody implicated 4x4's. Are you saying it's all down to us pensioners? :wink:

mig wrote:many of the broken surfaces local to me are the result of the drainage not working which allows large pools of water to form.

the worst case is from two years ago where the local council decided to shut and completely resurface a part of my homeward commute through a small river valley. the contractor contrived to place grids at high spots in the surface resulting in a slalom of puddles (with floods kerb to kerb this winter) and inevitable decline in the surface. parts of it need resurfacing already! so now it is a narrow road with puddles, potholes and a steep climb at either side of the valley up which traffic goes in the middle of the road to avoid the broken gutters. much fun on the bike it isn't.

completely incompetent.


I think this is at the heart of a lot of it, although I think the answer would be that budget cuts eg see squeaker's chart, restrict what they can do. On the matter of gulley grates higher than the lowest part of the road, this streetview is of a permanent puddle between two higher grates, near where I live, generally much worse than when the google car passed by. Considerate drivers cross the double white lines to avoid soaking pedestrians

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.75310 ... 312!8i6656

I've remarked to highwaymen before that I remember two bits of info from my primary school education in Leeds, the relevant one being that the Romans understood the importance of road drainage - hence the camber on their roads - but that ancient knowledge has been lost in Leeds City Council's Department of Highways and Transportation. (The other, less important thing, was how the Egyptians used to extract irrigation water from the Nile. :wink: )
Mr Evil
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by Mr Evil »

I haven't noticed anything different this year, but we've hardly even had any frost here.

UpWrong wrote:...I do wonder if the increase in car weight and power is contributing to the damage. All these 4x4s being driven by heavy right feet might be traumatising the road surfaces.

I was curious about this, so I tried to find some statistics. The best I could find on historical vehicle weight trends was a table of the "specific weight of end-of-life vehicles". This shows an upward trend across many EU countries, but the figures from the UK are suspicously identical for every year, leading me to think they aren't being reported correctly. Other than that, there are fewer but heavier HGVs.
julianm
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by julianm »

It`s a very old study but lorries cause a far greater damage than cars:
p36, 37 here: http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf
( Can`t easily copy the graph & text for here I`m afraid)
The yanks call a road surface pavement ( & a pavement a sidewalk...)
"The amount of pavement damage varies depending on the number of heavy trucks in the total traffic volume and the related axle weights. Assuming pavement damage caused by a 2,000-pound automobile axle is one unit, then the pavement damage by 100 such automobile axles would be 100 pavement damage units.
Damage caused by a single 18,000-pound and a 20,000-pound truck axle would equate to 5,000 and 7,550 pavement damage units, respectively."

Locally farmers are happily driving their huge John Deeres etc (designed for Canadian prairies) with equally huge trailers on the little lanes & destroying the road surface, kerbs & verges. I`ll post a pic when I get back out for a post-flu ride.
Vorpal
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by Vorpal »

julianm wrote:The yanks call a road surface pavement ( & a pavement a sidewalk...)

Actually pavement is the treatment. It's any surface, including (perhaps) a sidewalk with asphalt, cement, etc. If it's stones or slate, they are likely to be called paving stones, even on a sidewalk. The exceptions will be things like cobbles or bricks which are the same on both sides of the pond.
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Carpediem
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by Carpediem »

Same here in east lancs,more potholes(or should that be sinkholes) this winter than I've ever known.
Council says it's due to the very wet Autumn and then weeks of near to zero temps..they say they're one of the highest spenders in the country on repairing them..maybe if the repairs were done properly in the first place they might save some money.
I've now resorted to keeping to familiar routes,you soon get to remember where the worst potholes are.
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anniesboy
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Re: road surfaces after the winter

Post by anniesboy »

Maybe we could begin to draw more attention to the problem,there must be many ways of doing so.

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/16040 ... en_up_town
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