Highway robbery

Honest John Back Room » The Back Room Archive
View Threaded
Fri 17 Aug 2001 21:59
Highway robbery - Alvin Booth
About three years ago the long awaited A50 between Derby and the Potteries was finally completed. This serves as the link between the M1 amd M6.
This updated road had been on the backburner for over twenty years with ever increasing traffic finally making it an essential project.
Good news???? Fraid not..The design has been found to be fraught with easily avoided mistakes which any average road user could recognise. For instance passing Uttoxeter two existing islands were used and of course these provide a bottleneck. HGV and through traffic has risen to amazingly high density as drivers spot the new route.
The Highways Agency who were in charge of design and proudly proclaim from billboards along the route that they are in charge of maintenance of this road, and are working to make us all happier on the roads
Alongside and in some cases in between are grass verges. These obviously need cutting so matey and his lads cone off a lane for safety (who can blame them) and get to work with their strimmers.
You can guess the rest.... traffic immediately begins to back up with only one lane to use and will stretch back up to 10 miles simply due to density.
I was stuck in this and knowing what it was that was holding us up because we had suffered the same a day or two before and to amuse ourselves (cause wer'e not very bright) my buddy got out his calculator and we attempted to calculate what it was costing to cut this bit of grass.
We calculated HGVs at so much per hour and reps another figure, extra fuel used and so on.
The guesstimate we arrived at was several thousand pounds.
The next question which I am sure one of you will know is who are the Highways Agency???? private????? Government?? and was it a clever move on their part to have a contract for cutting grass built into their plans when it was on the drawing board. Call me cynical but surely it could have been maintenance free using either concrete or ground hugging vegetation.

regards
Alvin
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 17 Aug 2001 22:54
Re: Highway robbery - Kev
Dont forget how much harder grass is to keep litter free. With concrete its easy. You also ended up with shreaded pop cans [from grasscutters] which are highly dangerous to everyone.
But i guess it looked nice for about a week, whilst important people had their photographs took.
Kev
Reply | Report as offensive | Link

From which small car to buy at which price point to the best UK-built cars, our Top 10s have the lot. Click now for your shortlist.

Unsure of what to buy? Our Top 10s are here to help you....