why are roads such a mess?

[to v or not to v]

the amount of roads with potholes and large stretches of top coating missing is shocking these days.
why arent local authorities maintaining them adequately any more?
a short cold spell last December and roads all over Southampton started crumbling over night.
its like driving around in a 2nd world country.
fecking disgraceful
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current bike Yamaha Thunderace.
its old and fat, but its a damned good ride. the bikes not bad either.

[Easy-X]

It seems to be endemic to local council roads Going back and forth to Cornwall plus my work in the city the Highway's Agency and TFL tarmac is mostly fine, "the last mile" not so much.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[to v or not to v]

maybe they could glue extinction rebellion protesters to the pot holes to save a few quid.
probably last longer than the cheap crap they put down here.
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current bike Yamaha Thunderace.
its old and fat, but its a damned good ride. the bikes not bad either.

[MCN]

[UncleFester]

It's because they are worn out. The underlying substrate has / is started to deteriorate and the only way to properly repair it is to remove it and replace the entire road.

40 years of glue and chippings is not proper maintenance.

I don't think there is enough money in the kitty to properly sort this now, even if they had nothing else to spend it on.

Every bugger driving around in 2 Ton MPV / Electric cars won't help either. We need less traffic and lighter vehicles if they want to stand any chance of slowing the decline.
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Module 1 and 2 passed - October 2014. Happy owner of a 2017 Z1000SX, ex owner of a YBR125 / CB500 / VFR800.

[Nute]

A lot of the failures occur where the road has been previously dug up or repaired.

No one seems to check the quality of any works which is undertaken by third party contractors, for example to make repairs after digging up the road and consequently they fail and need further repairs in the short term.

I cannot understand why services are put under the roads in new developments, put them under the pavement. That’s a lot easier to dig up and repair when needed, although it would be slightly more expensive to install having T’s to the other side of the street every so often, or fitting conduit to pull new services through to avoid digging the damn road up.

I travel regularly to the Nordic countries and thier weather is far worse than ours, much better roads tho…

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

Another aspect in this country is the frequent freeze/thaw cycle and lots of rain. Maybe concrete roads would be better than asphalt in this respect.

[blurredman]

I also wonder if people are just more in tune with the quality of road surface due to the trend of low profiles tyres and large aluminium wheels... ?

One of my cars actually had this and I bought smaller wheels (with taller tyres, same overall circumfrance as the old wheels/tyre combination) and I am actually extremely surprised at how much more comfortable it is driving in general, a plus side effect also is that the car no longer dangerously tramlines.


But, yes- potholes are always a problem, and they come back time and time again in certain places where only quick fixes are instigated. Only last year one bent my front wheel and displaced the anti-rollbar.
More wasted time for me rectifying the bar. Still haven't replaced the wheel though- put it on the back instead.
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CBT: 12/06/10, Theory: 22/09/10, Module 1: 09/11/10, Module 2: 19/01/11
Past: 1991 Honda CG125BR-J, 1992 (1980) Honda XL125S, 1996 Kawasaki GPZ500S.
Current: 1973 MZ ES250/2 - 17k. , 1979 Suzuki TS185ER - 9k, 1981 Honda CX500B - 91k, 1987 MZ ETZ250 (295cc) - 38k, 1989 MZ ETZ251 - 49k

[yen_powell]

There is a fairly large tunnel running under the A13 from Aldgate running eastward for a fair distance. It is Victorian built and contains two huge gas pipes, two quite large water pipes and a shit load of cables. It was built purely to stop the road being dug up when services needed to run along the road. The walkway in the centre is comprised of single paving slabs end to end sitting straight on the dirt and with rat holes each side of the slabs. I tucked my trousers into my socks when I saw those.

There are side tunnels off of it that run under the side streets. The side tunnels have the street name on them, sometimes a different name as the street on top has been renamed in the last hundred years or so. To get to the side tunnels you have to squeeze between the large gas pipe and the water pipe above, a bit like going through a mangle. I was told I could squeeze through if I wanted. I gave up halfway through and slid back out, I was worried I would get stuck the other side, my pot belly fought the idea.

There is a similar tunnel under Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane Market). This one passes into the City of London. You can walk it as far as a locked door that has their large sign and coat of arms on it. City of London staff can walk it from the other direction as far as the door with our sign on it. The tunnel is opened up to allow stats companies to fix or run new pipes/cables along it. Another Victorian or Edwardian tunnel built just for that.

It was a good idea then, it should be a a good idea now. But super expensive to add to an existing road, especially as they are full of stuff that would need to be diverted, so will probably never happen again.
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Blackmail is a nasty word........but not as nasty as phlegm!
XT1200Z and a DR350 in bits

[MCN]

[DaddyStu]

[UncleFester]

[MCN]

[slowasyoulike]

[Easy-X]

One of the old boys at the bar said the problem is they just fill in the holes. "In my day..." ...they used to cut out the hole* - ostensibly to cut out the damp - and then fill it in.

Anyhoo, why even bother resurfacing roads at this point:

Surrey County Council spent £20k on 'emergency' road resurfacing work only to be dug up days later

ffs

*Turn a 3" round hole into a 6" square hole.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[BRUN]

I drove, luckily in my car, about 2-3 weeks ago on the M56 to have a browse at Superbike Factory, jesus that motorway is a serious hazard, I think if I had been on my bike I might have been thrown off a few times, the whole thing is full of potholes or a patchwork quilt of joined up repairs, I drive a big Kodiaq and even in that it felt bad

most local councils will have an online pothole reporting service, I have reported about 10 where i live recently and most/all have been repaired now, usually takes about a week for them to fix it

if nobody reports them, they wont get fixed, get online and report every one that you see

[xX-Alex-Xx]

Not sure what's gone on around here, but I've noticed a shedload more potholes appear in the last few weeks than at any other time. Couple of roads I go down on a semi-regular basis have gone from being quite smooth to looking like the surface of the moon within the last month.

Doesn't help UK roads are built paper thin compared to some other countries, but at least we don't use tar snakes as much as places like North America. That shit is deadly in the cold/wet.
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DILLIGAF

[dave001]

because the uk and run by a corupt few that dont give a fuck about anything but there offshaw bank accounts

simple really

[grr666]

Let the roads deteriorate to such a state that only large soft roaders and large SUV's are the only way one can successfully
travel by road without losing a filling, and then tax the crap out of those. It's genius.
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Currently enjoying products from Ford, Mazda and Yamaha
Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[ThunderGuts]

There are several issues unfortunately all compounding each other;

1) back in the late 80s and 90s, there was a bit of a surge in public finance available for roads; lots got resurfaced and a lot of bypasses got built. This equates to lots of roads all effectively "built" at the same time, which means 20 years down the line, they are all simultaneously expiring.

2) Linked to 1), maintenance budgets over the last 20 years or so are more closely linked to "demand" (cue the mad activity just before the financial year end so they get the same budget again next year), but for quite a while the roads were in good condition so the maintenance pot shrank. Now everything is falling apart, there isn't the money to deal with it and both central and local govt coffers don't have the breathing room to expand thanks to pressures on social care and other now overstretched departments

3) Both size and number of vehicles has massively increased, so wear is greater

4) Forget "workmanship" as the default blame for surfacing failures these days, yes there are some examples of bad workmanship, but the like-for-like quality of materials has dropped (a combination of the "best" materials are now scarcer, plus an increasing drive to use recycled materials which ultimately tend to not perform as well)

5) "Claim culture"; local authorities are paranoid (with good reason) that everyone and their dog will claim for every pothole they trip over/fall into etc.., so their priorities shift to making the roads safe in the here and now, rather than spending the money more strategically. Yes, it shouldn't get like that in the first place, but see the previous points

The net effect of all this is we have a network that has a significant proportion at end of life, but no money to fix it. The situation was temporarily slowed in the last decade by techniques intended to prolong the life of the roads, e.g. surface dressing (which if applied at the right time can actually be quite effective, but it's hopeless if applied to surface that's too far gone), but all that did was slow the deterioration temporarily, allowing other previously good roads to also now deteriorate. It's actually compounded the issue.

The problem now faced is actually two-fold; the budget needed to properly repair the entire network is immense and essentially unaffordable given the demands on public finances, but even if it could be found, we're setting ourselves up for another road of "simultaneous failure" in 15 years or so . . . rinse and repeat.
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TG.

[BRUN]

our local council must be getting a bit overwhelmed with pothole reports, the first few I reported were all fixed within the week, the last 3 or so I have sent through have not even been looked at yet in over a week

[xX-Alex-Xx]

Just need more folks with this attitude and cans of paint...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tees-48068866

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/DE26/production/_106607865_65893a7f-c27f-4be9-96cd-56f709475d40.jpg.webp
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DILLIGAF