Martin J Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Already much discussed but having last week done some touring in Germany & their roads are stunning. No pot holes, no awful undulations that cause the caterham to shake, thump & rattle & none of that awful top dressing where chippings are laid & the traffic is expected to roll it in. I have been running daughters here & there this weekend as the Mrs is away with the tintop & it's the same old, same old......crash bang wallop as I drive along. PS I was earlier following a brand new face lifted Mini, what have they done to it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgrigsby Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Some of the roads in Germany are good but not all, some of the motorways are hopeless with terrible surfaces and bit drops where the road has broken up. A lot are also dual carriageways instead of 3 lanes as well. I haven't spent much time on the more local roads but they generally did seem to be better than in the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TobyCoulson Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Pothole fund allocated. It's a start I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Kay Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Yes: but as long as "austerity" works and local government is progressively weakened it seems to be what voters want. I had the same feeling in France last month. Does anyone know how much of the "Pothole Fund" is new money and how much reannouncement? This isn't the previous pothole thread, but discusses the disproportionate damage from heavy vehicles and some issues about freight by rail. Freight rail (billions of tonne-kilometers/ year): Germany 105.9 UK 21.2 Jonathan Edited by - Jonathan Kay on 29 Jun 2014 11:12:45 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Kay Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Quoting Martin Jeffrey: PS I was earlier following a brand new face lifted Mini, what have they done to it?Was that the third-generation Hatch or one of the inflated or cut-down MINIs? Jonathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger King Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 I'm sure I'm just being cynical, but a bunch of bicyclists are coming through town next week (something to do with a race in France apparently) and they've completely resurfaced the route. The road wasn't too bad anyway, but there are some very serious potholes elsewhere in town that have been completely ignored So - Council tax and road tax payers have had literally decades of being screwed and getting very poor road maintenance. A bunch of cyclists come through for half an hour at most, contributing nothing whatsoever to maintenance costs and they get the road resurfaced. Am I right to be annoyed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Kay Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 *arrowup*I once drove through a bit of the Republic of Ireland the day before the Tour de France and it was immaculate. But there they were proud to point out the EU contribution: was there anything similar where you saw it in England? I think it's more about local pride than giving the cyclists a good surface. Cyclists do pay towards road maintenance: it isn't hypothecated. Jonathan Edited by - Jonathan Kay on 29 Jun 2014 11:27:35 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TobyCoulson Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 The same happened around here for the Olympic road race. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myles Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 bunch of cyclists come through for half an hour at most, contributing nothing whatsoever to maintenance costs and they get the road resurfaced Mebbe they don't contribute directly, but I'm sure you'll grudgingly appreciate that the Tour will generate a huge amount of temporary income for the areas it touches and mebbe something of a lasting tourist legacy too. ...and maybe *that* will help give focus to the state of the rest of your roads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger King Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Jonathan, I've no idea if there was an EU subsidy, but even assuming there was, we have some seriously deteriorated roads in town. There's one junction that has been is such poor condition for months that motorists literally have to pick a route through to avoid damage to their vehicles. How spending an EU subsidy on resurfacing a road that was already in reasonable condition rather than fixing real and dangerous problems defeats me unless we live under a corrupt system that prioritises funding to suit itself rather than spending on what is needed. I cycle myself, and certainly contribute through my Council Tax to local road maintenance, but I'm quite certain that the Tour de France haven't put in a bean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin J Posted June 29, 2014 Author Share Posted June 29, 2014 Round my way there has in recent weeks been a lot of top dressing being done which is horrid. The caterham has yet more stone chips & as I cycle a fair bit the road surface is awful on a road bike. It just seems a stop gap to protect the crumbling road surface underneath. Jonathan, the mini was a standard shape cooper. The rear lights have grown in size yet again & the the whole car seems a bit bigger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadership Team SLR No.77 Posted June 29, 2014 Leadership Team Share Posted June 29, 2014 Roger, would you rather they didn't bother? To balance the argument .... the roads in our general area have improved markedly in the last 12 months. We've had a particularly mild winter plus no flooding or storm damage like some other areas, whether this has made more cash available who can say, but things are definitely getting better. Plus the repairs that are being done are being done well, whole sections being scratched off and resurfaced properly rather than just throwing a few buckets of tarmac at a few pot-holes. The speed that they seem to do it has also improved, credit where credit's due Stu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Titanium7 Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Talking about subsidies, we are currently in North Spain and the roads are sublime but can't help noticing the EU funding billboards at every new road scheme or development. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger King Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Stu, I would not rather they didn't bother, but as I stated, there are many areas in town that are in a much worse state of repair; to the point of being dangerous in fact, because drivers are going on the wrong side of the road at junctions to avoid the holes. How can I put this? If I went to hospital with a broken leg and a cut finger, I'd rather they didn't put all of their efforts into the finger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bricol Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Same here. I've never seen a council team weeding the cobblestones on roundabout islands, the dual carriage way off it has had all the litter picked up and the verges and central reservation trimmed very neatly. All the road markings on the route of this group of cyclists little jaunt have been repainted. Gets others on the same junction that they don't cross haven't. Loose manhole covers fixed. Sunken repairs re-repaired. So why not do it before if it needs it for a bike run? ( don't get me started on road closures. Were shut in for most of the weekend. As part of the now locally known Grand Debacle the local council has managed to put road closed warning signs out for the major roads - with the wrong day on!) Bri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Kay Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Quoting Roger King: I cycle myself, and certainly contribute through my Council Tax to local road maintenance, but I'm quite certain that the Tour de France haven't put in a bean.The vast majority of local authority income comes from central government. The organisers, sponsors, supporters, visitors and competitors are all paying taxes to central government. (Although it might not be much by some of the multinational sponsors.) Are the two areas (the route the Tour is taking and the urban roads) managed by the same authority? Jonathan PS: I'm in favour of higher taxation, spending more money on roads and rail and cycling and stronger local government with less control by central government. How about others? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Kay Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Quoting Martin Jeffrey: ... the mini was a standard shape cooper. The rear lights have grown in size yet again & the the whole car seems a bit bigger.Yes, it's bigger in all dimensions. I didn't think the looks had changed much. But I really don't like the Countryman, Coupé, Roadster or Paceman. Jonathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Area Representative Sumo Posted June 29, 2014 Area Representative Share Posted June 29, 2014 PS: I'm in favour of higher taxation, spending more money on roads and rail and cycling and stronger local government with less control by central government. How about others? Agree, as long as it's for the whole of UK including English regions, not just micks, jocks & taffs ❗ 😳 😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 I travel roughly 17 miles each way to work in Surrey through a mixture of narrow country lanes and A roads. The standard of the repairs are very mixed: top end - strip and complete resurface, bottom end - either don't fill the potholes or when they do the quality of workmanship or materials is so bad that they need to be reworked within weeks. Curiously enough the section of road completely resurfaced was only moderately bad, but the section just beyond it has literally dozens of potholes and cracks most of which have just been patched, badly. I don't understand why they did not continue the full strip and replace. One other comment - we have taken a week's holiday in Cornwall each year for the last six years and all the roads are markedly better than those in Surrey/Sussex/Kent - why????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Kay Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Quoting Anton: One other comment - we have taken a week's holiday in Cornwall each year for the last six years and all the roads are markedly better than those in Surrey/Sussex/Kent - why?????Don't know: less frost, EU Structural Funds (Convergence objective), fewer heavy vehicles? Jonathan Edited by - Jonathan Kay on 29 Jun 2014 22:13:06 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Jonathan - it's probably all of these, but what struck me is that this applied to all the tarmac - from narrow 'white' roads to main As. We'll be over there again in a few weeks - so I won't complain! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger King Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Jonathan, The two roads (the newly resurfaced one and the one in terrible condition) are most definitely managed by the same authority because they are the SAME road. The Tour turns off half way along it and only the Tour part has had any work done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Kay Posted July 4, 2014 Share Posted July 4, 2014 From what I can tell it looks as if local authorities prioritised repairs to the Tour routes from the existing budget (rather than additional allocation from their own, national or EU funds). As it's a single authority could you face writing to your Councillor and asking how the decision was made? Jonathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stationary M25 Traveller Posted July 4, 2014 Share Posted July 4, 2014 Survey over last two weeks ....... German roads ... even the smallest ..... normally first class . Ditto for Austria. Belgium's country road surfaces in the south are shocking ... even by UK standards ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger King Posted July 4, 2014 Share Posted July 4, 2014 Jonathan, What I actually did was to write to the local paper. They published it as their star letter of the week and I find I've won some cinema tickets. Good old potholes - they're fine by me now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now