Road maintenance

[rev]

Is it me or have most minor/major roads deteriorated over recent times. I know that some would feel blessed with any sort of bitumen but with local councils, state governments and even the feds being broke things have gotten much worse imo. I always seem to be dodging pot holes/man holes etc. I know it's a first world problem but it used to be a lot better.

[joolz]

Its not just you thats noticed that the roads are getting worse. So many patch up jobs especially on the Western Hwy (Melbourne - Stawell) Just recently i was driving from Melbourne to Tatura and around 50k's out of Tatura there was this sign "POLICE TARGETING SPEED" whilst i was looking at the sign I almost didnt see the half patched up potholes in the road that may have done damage or even worse. They have the money but spending it the wrong places just like that sign....

[borough]

Back in August I was traveling between Melbourne and Ballarat daily and the state of the Western Freeway between Ballan and Gordon was disgraceful. In parts I would just sit in the right hand lane as the left hand lane was completely broken up.

[Jim Goose]

Come to north QLD... where loose bitumen has been the flavour of the year.. er.. decade... um centuary...

[Uncle Tone]

I went over a train line last month and blew 2 tyres on the one side!!

Huge depression right next to the track. $1200 worth of tyres stuffed.

[Jim Goose]

Originally Posted by Uncle Tone

I went over a train line last month and blew 2 tyres on the one side!!

Huge depression right next to the track. $1200 worth of tyres stuffed.

That part of the road would belong to the state rail authority.... id be harrassing them for damages.

[zilo]

In the Geelong area some bright spark had decided that they can build roads for half price including the geelong by-pass.

It's because they do them in spray seal rather than hot mix asphalt now...it's about half the price in spray seal.

But spray seal stuffs up as soon as it rains and a big truck goes over it.

Spray seal is just throw some gravel down, roll it and spray tar over it, but only the top half of the stone gets covered in tar...the rest is just pressed down.

Asphalt on the other hand gets the whole pebble wrapped in tar and sticks for a whole lot longer....they lay it with a machine like a carpet.

Another problem with spray seal is it kicks up stone chips for years damaging paintwork, almost every ford I have seen in Geelong is stone chipped in some way or another.

As well as that the road noise is aweful...as soon as you get back on to hot mix asphalt (such as commonwealth funded roads) the cabin goes super quiet again.

Shame on you Vic Roads for suckering the public.

[Kryton]

I was looking at a report not so long ago about roads and how the budget for maintenance has been slashed over previous years.
The Government used to fund for 10% of Victoria's roads to be repaved/resurfaced EVERY year, so a road would have a major overhaul once in 10 years on average.
Now, the budget for roads is just 2% at present, meaning major maintenance/repaving/resurfacing for a road can only be afforded on average once every 50 years.
As we all know, roads have a life span of 10 years if they were built properly to start with, not 50 years as the current budget allows.
So, yes, roads are crumbling away and that is the reason why.
How about asking your local member where all the Fuel excise is going along with all the other taxes we pay.

[vanman_75]

I got more tar and rocks stuck to the side of the 2 year old prado than my 30 year old falcon ...roads are being built to a price and are in a bad way up north Queensland.fewer tunnels and dodgy bypasses and a bit more on quality roads would go a long way .spray seal is fine if done properly ...but it isn't . I have seen new roads been repaired within weeks of laying ..pathetic and a waste of tax dollars

[mik]

feds cut funding to the states so they can look less like douchebags, states are broke cutting back on everything that can be cut back on to survive, and roads are noticeably falling to bits(among other things), even line marking is sub par or non existent on some roads.

[Mickxr8]

This has been going on for years ( WA at least ) , The ol man had a contract to do roadside cleaning,bins etc , Gave him a hand for a year or so , The realighment of Gt nth hwy and even Gt eastern hwy was just poor, failed within weeks of it being finished, patch up, patch up . fail again.

Purely a Govco cost cutting ******** imo

[graham7773]

I wonder how many of us remember what the original purpose of the RTA in NSW was? The revenue from registrations, licenses, Third Party Personal insurance, tolls on government roads etc was supposed to go to road maintenance. Then big business got their heads in and the GIO was sold to private business, road construction was sold to private business and tolls went the same way. The same thing happened to NSW Lotteries. They were supposed to support public hospitals and build new ones with the revenue from lottery sales. Big business saw the colossal profits and got their govco mates to let them run the lotteries. Now our hospitals are running down, there are not enough staff on hand to do the job needed and former members of govco are being investigated and charged for their wrongdoing in government. Plus the heads of some companies are getting massive bonuses for non-performance. Where are we going?

[aussie muscle]

i've noticed the roads around here are not getting patch up anymore, after spending the last two years getting them all up to spec, they are now on their way back to what they were like 10 years ago. biggest problem is where the trucks mush the bitumen up into a mount everest of tar and they can get high enough to hit the bottom of a normal car.

Originally Posted by vanman_75

I have seen new roads been repaired within weeks of laying ..pathetic and a waste of tax dollars

new road being built down near Dalmeny (south coast) had pot holes before they finished it. closing the road isn't such a bad idea, if there are alternative routes available.

[Jim Goose]

Sadly here in townsville it seems that the road base material is rubbish and doesnt have enough cement mixed through it and appears to be dry as a bone when its laid down.

Years ago the road base was always nice and moist and would dry rock hard.

Have seen newly laid bitumen sink within 6months and usually 9 times out of ten i see them dig up the road base which is still dry rocks/ gravel. It doesnt appear to go hard at all.

About 10yrs ago the council here use a company called "stabilised pavements" to redo the road where i live. The machine dug up the bitumen and road base, mixed it and relaid it as road base.

This road is 10yrs old now and has 2 pothole repairs in 10yrs. At worse the bitumen is cracking and tar was poured into the cracks. But its still smooth and hasnt sunk at all.

Most council are in massive debt these days so they only look at the short term. Get the road fixed as cheaply as possible. So it lasts 12months....

Instead if they spent a bit more the road would last a decade.

[Bossxr8]

The fuel excise tax was supposed to go towards road maintenance and building new roads. But now the greedy government takes most of it for revenue and allocates stuff all to roads.

[CAMS290]

Vic Roads have cut their road maintenance budget by 50% this financial year, I was doing some asphalt patching out at Whittlesea a few weeks ago and I was talking to one of the supervisors, he told me that the western suburbs are the worst affected because they are Labor voters and Ballieu is sticking it up them.