Farewell potholes? UK team invents self-healing road surface
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
But what I noticed that if the asphalt has higer mixture of stones (usually they use basalt here) then there are virtually almost no potholes. It’s more loud as the surface is more rough but by my layman experience it’s much more durable. Pure asphalt roads with very little stone content always become pothole minefields quickly.
So I just generally don’t know why higher stone content is not a standard. Probably more expensive and maybe because of the sound too. I don’t think it’s more slippery in wet conditions.
My guess is they also cause more rolling tire wear and slightly more fuel consuption.
I'd be curious to learn whether it's a lack of maintenance (Hungary generally seemed well maintained except for the roads though) or something else.
My theory that construction companies here work as a cartel. For them making good roads is not a business > less projects later. So keeping up the status quo with low quality is a better business, there is always something to fix and repair and also more opportunity to steal public money.
Welcome to EU. Is there any EU country where this is not a fact ?
With our previous (and how it's looking, next) government there was a scandal around masks in Covid times, and a few others I think.
But nothing to the point of causing major disrepair of infrastructure. Our rail infrastructure is famously in need of maintenance, but from all I know that's more a matter of stupidity than malice (Hanlon's Razor and all that).
While some might just denounce it as bureaucracy, we do have a lot of regulation, oversight and checks and balances. Which causes it's own issues (like having to pick the cheapest suppliers from an extended process).
But I believe there are some EU countries where corruption in itself is a problem.
The asphalt becomes so smooth and quiet. No potholes.
Until it rains. Then the rain seems to stay on top of it. Meaning a lot more fine water mist being produced by cars driving over it.
The higher aggregate mix generally doesn't make for a more durable road though, but there's far more to a good road than just the materials its made from.
As per usual these optimistic solutions are inhibited by cost. All municipalities that I’ve lived in have ignored potholes until the complainants become a choir. It is always cheaper this way.
Nothing got done until I distributed flyers and went knocking on every single home along my route to my parents on that shitty road and got everyone to call him whenever they could.
The road got fixed and has stayed that way. The grand irony is that the hill is so steep that the only way I managed to get up it was with those potholes. Now I have to take the long 5km route around every time because my car can't make it up this smooth dirt road in the winter now as my car is sub-1000 kilos. I think the gas and lost-parts cost has now evened out at least!
If you see black lines in an asphalt road (which are not straight) the odds are good you have a municipality which does maintenance.
Are we really buying this?
No. I'd figure that most HNer's know The Guardian has a strong "optimistic fluff" bias, and some of us feel like venting our spleens about potholes and poorly-maintained roads.
The place where it won't has to do with settlement, where the soil beneath the rose sinks unevenly. This is a major initiator of pothole formation. Road construction is tightly cost constrained, so this will come down to exact price.
In my (mostly uninformed) opinion, a lot of road maintenance was outsourced to the private sector on long (like 20+ years) contracts in the 2000s (2004 for 25 years in my town). Predictable result is predictable.
Pothole fixing and road resurfacing are such an easy choice to cut from budgets because the effect is indirect and isn't immediately seen.
People would notice very quickly if their bins weren't being collected.
This was a constant problem at my London council. They collected our rubbish bin reliably, but never our council-supplied recycling bin. Eventually we found out that the rules had changed and recycling had to be put in specially marked clear plastic bags, but the bags were almost impossible to get. You literally had to go to the local library on a specific day of the week to get told “no sorry, the bags didn’t come in this week, try again next week”. They couldn’t make it any more difficult or kafkaesque! Eventually we just learned to take our recycling down the street to an estate building and dump it in their bins.
And at the same time this was going on, the same council was spending money on billboards and bus stop advertising encouraging people to recycle!
Tower Hamlets, you are the absolute worst!
I think they suggested a couple of recycling centres it could be taken to, but who really is doing that, especially without a car.
But the county of Gloucestershire fixed the issue by ceasing all pothole inspections. If they don't know about them, they aren't liable.
On this basis, they reject 97% of all claims.
But you're right, politically it's a disaster! During one of the general elections a few years back there was a local referendum held on the same night about how the mayoral governance was going to work in the borough. Rahman (who's now the mayor) actually had his thugs posted at the doors accosting voters as they arrived and urging them to vote for his preferred option. Police were there keeping an eye on them but didn't seem to be intervening. Guess this sort of electoral interference is okay in Tower Hamlets!
I believe that potholes are the responsibility of councils - so neither (income) tax nor fuel sales are linked to the funding.
I live in England and commute to Wales, you can hear when you cross the border.
Since ~2010, the UK started cutting costs everywhere. Current costs were harder to cut, broadly speaking investments were cut more. Things like fixing roads was on the list - because a slightly broken road is still mostly usable. But of course that cascades quickly into an unmanageable mess of potholes. It's also one of those things where small frequent repairs are presumably cheaper in the long run than leaving things until you can't ignore them anymore, then having a major repair job to do.
So the water keeps filling any small cracks, freezing and expanding, then defrosting and refilling the now bigger cracks. There's many days in the winter where this process might happen several times over a single 24 hour cycle.
It's basically the worst possible scenario for road longevity, or any kind of buildings.
However, while this sounds plausible, I don't know if it's actually true. I haven't heard it confirmed by a civil engineer.
I used to live in Edinburgh and the roads were like an uneven tar patchwork.
The damage that gas company did to it and the state they left it in after putting the gas in though was atrocious.
Local councils who are responsible for fixing the roads have been underfunded for years and is normally the area that gets squeezed the most. The British weather doesn’t help too with constant rain and freezing winters…
For example, if I say I will create a tax to protect the children, exclusively used to fund orphanages, you go oh man that sounds great. But you already have a huge budget and you already have existing taxes you could've raised for that. So the only reason you do it like this is optics and so that later you can repurpose the tax. Reading a bit about historical reasons for some taxes is a good way to learn this.
Specific taxes like this can and do modulate demand and can adjust the costs to the actual users, but very rarely for funding isn't it only a sleight of hand.
Council income is from a property tax, “council tax” and “business rates”.
Councils have many spending commitments, my local council about 80% of income goes on “Adult Social Care”, which is basically paying for carers to go to wealthy old people and look after them because while they own a million pound house it would be unfair to expect them to pay for their own care.
That leave very little in the pot to pay for local services like bin collections, parks, libraries, and road maintenence.
That's BS. Adult social care is comically underfunded, needs-assessed, and not to a standard or timeliness that you would choose if you could afford private.
(I can't accept retained business rates being part of central government funding, but you may see it differently).
This will ofc not eliminate resurfacing need, but the impact of excessive load is a very substantial part of road wear.
And it's also a net positive for mechanics and parts manufacturers. Basically a win-win for society (except for drivers, ofc).
(partly /s and partly not, as I surprised myself realising how bad roads might actually have positives)
Roads and sidewalks have to be properly maintained, otherwise do not charge me taxes for my license's plate.