For once I find myself sharing a rant with Mr. X
Not so long ago, a work crew resurfaced a very shoddy stretch of road between my house and the M3. The resulting surface was a transformation compared to what had been endured before. Smooth tarmac, legible road markings, and even these clever cats eyes which stay illuminated for a few seconds after a car has passed.
A month later, and I kid you not, one of the utility companies was digging it up. They did a crude patchwork repair, and wrecked the surface completely. The repair surface has since sunk below the level of the original tarmac, and has holes in it.
I'm sure I read somewhere that in Germany, any utility company wishing to dig up a road or pavement must pay to have the entire width of the road or pavement resurfaced afterwards. Coincidentally, the utility firms talk to the road maintenance organisations, and works tend to coincide. If work is done outside this schedule, the road is properly repaired afterwards rather than bodged.
Edited by DP on 29/05/2009 at 13:09
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A Similar thing Happened in Middlesbrough
A collegue of mine told me about this road, near where he lived
There was/is this really long stretch of road (off the top of my head I can remeber which) that was a mess, the council came dug it up and resurfaced it, he said it was like a billiard table lovely and smooth.
3 weeks later a gas/water company came, and dug the whole lot up again and laid/repaired the gas/water pipes, and litrially just shoveled the lot back onto the road, it was back to its "dirt track" status again, and has been ever since.
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Another thing about the utilities and road-menders, is that they seem to be able to put traffic lights anywhere they fancy on the road and completely mess up the traffic.
There are two roads near to where I live providing alternative routes into the town from the south.
Some weeks ago they were both being dug up and both had lights on them. People tried to cut across from one to another only to be blocked, with the result that the whole place snarled up for miles.
Does no-one plan or co-ordinate?
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I reported a deep pothole via fixmystreet and received an immediate email confirmation from Oxfordshire CC ten days ago. Since then someone has been along, marked the edge with a white spray can, and put a cone in it.
The cone lasted about two hours, which is not surprising, as it blocks a driveway....
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A water utility company has been trenching along the A619 out of Chesterfield for the past few weeks. They got stuck at a minor road junction for a few days. Now that they have moved along I can see that the trench has crossed to the other side of the road to avoid an earlier trench coming the other way which is full of HT cable.
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Does anyone remember the Heineken advert, where a group of workmen (with cockney accents) where working in a hole, and a whole host of utility companies would turn up, and ask if they could use the same hole before it was filled in.
?that makes a refreshing change? was the quote from the original workman
How ironic that the state of our road system, and they way its dug up for a little bit of cable is used as a joke for a German (or whoever) beer company.
I thought it was funny :-)
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How ironic that the state of our road system and they way its dug up for a little bit of cable is used as a joke for a German (or whoever) beer company.
Think you'll find Heineken is dutch!
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Potholes are a nightmare in Surrey, thanks to an outsourcing deal our useless and greedy council has signed-up to.
Only holes of a certain size and depth are filled (they have to be quite big)
You report a 8 inch pothole and a 7 inch one next to it, so the outsourcer comes around and fills the 8 inch one (very poorly with no sealing around the edge, so it breaks up again after a couple of months) but doesn't fill the 7 inch one because it isn't big enough.
So a few weeks later the 7 inch pothole has grown and it's eligible to be repaired, ad infinitum ad nauseaum.
How about a couple of blokes with a pickup truck and some tarmac driving around and filling in holes? Much too cheap and effective to be viable for our council, who have never heard that a stitch in time saves nine
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I'm sure I read somewhere that in Germany any utility company wishing to dig up a road or pavement must pay to have the entire width of the road or pavement resurfaced afterwards.
I don't know whether that is true, but the road repairs here are generally far better quality than in the UK and potholes are properly repaired, flattened and the edges sealed.
It might be because the roads have to be kept in reasonable shape to have half a chance of surviving the winters. We had temperatures around -20C for almost 3 months at the start of the year.
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Another problem is the lack of coordination between contractors and the council.
Where I used to live the council spent a lot of money on renewing the pavement along my road and replacing the broken paving slab surface with smooth tarmac. They did an excellent job which lasted approximately a week before a cable company came along and dug it up to lay cables. They then filled in their trench with tarmac in their usual sloppy fashion, ruining the hard work the council had done.
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We had a section of road near us re-surfaced. Weeks later the water co. dug it up for a 6" main, and the covering slowly subsided until there was a 3-4" depression across the road. HGVs would take it at 40-50 mph (NSL) and crash/bang over it. It took four years to get it fixed.
I can't understand why highway engineers don't insist on a proper re-instatement, and penalties for a subsequent failure/breakdown of the repair. It's not hard to keep a log of who does what on/under the road surface with modern GIS.
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In Leatherhead recently a road was 'dressed' the week before the Water Co. were due to dig it up ...
For bad potholes, try Moorfield Road, in the Slyfield Road Industrial Estate, Guildford. That is shockingly bad and has been for months.
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And in other news, Mr X was heard saying something positive. Go on, tell us something happy for once.
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. "Go on, tell us something happy for once."
Can`t blame Mr x for his `angle` on posts.
I`ve put hours of work into `happy` - uplifting the human condition type threads - with photos, music - quiz angles.
The last one like that over the bank holiday were quite unpopular - and the last little quiz = zero...
The forum SEEMS to have changed - with argumentative, (seemingly virtually paranoid at times) - gripes - running at the head of the forum nightly.
You have to look at the topic to notice it`s changed.
So IMHO can`t blame Mr X for that. On the contrary - he seems to be right on the button for generating interest.
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A road I use a lot, Nell Lane in Chorlton has had pothole problems for many years. Locals know where they are and you can always tell a local car by the swerving about it is doing on this straight road.
Recently, they've spent tens of thousands altering the junction traffic lights, removing the pedestrian refuges and installing dropped kerbs and knobbly paving for the scores of blind folk who cross there....what blind folk ?...and if there were, they now have no refuges in the middle...
The potholed bit runs between two parts of the cemetery....I wonder how long it will be before I come across a vicar and mourners standing round one !
That brings up another gripe. Generally, special days, Mother's day, Father's day ,etc fall on a Sunday. All through the week you can drive in and park...not Sunday, they close the gates to cars. This means absolute chaos in the lane and many people park on the grass that runs along one side with the result that some have to be towed off the mud and the grass is left churned up until the next time...crazy.
Ted
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