11–20 of 78 posts
That’s good news, but why are the roads in the UK so bad to start with? Is it correct to say that roads are funded from a tax on fuel sales?
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.
That’s good news, but why are the roads in the UK so bad to start with? Is it correct to say that roads are funded from a tax on fuel sales?
Lots of rain and its erosion effects. Nevertheless UK roads are some of the least potholed I have come across. I believe that potholes are the responsibility of councils - so neither (income) tax nor fuel sales are linked to the funding.
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.
That’s good news, but why are the roads in the UK so bad to start with? Is it correct to say that roads are funded from a tax on fuel sales?
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.
That’s good news, but why are the roads in the UK so bad to start with? Is it correct to say that roads are funded from a tax on fuel sales?
I used to live in Edinburgh and the roads were like an uneven tar patchwork.
That’s good news, but why are the roads in the UK so bad to start with? Is it correct to say that roads are funded from a tax on fuel sales?
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…
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.
> The material could be scaled up for use on British roads in a couple of years, the researchers believe. 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.