whats with the wastage of money on roads these days?

[old mate]

g'day,

i have recently noticed that some roads where i live are being 're-sealed' and new lines painted. now this is all good and fine, but what really frustrates me is when the roads are some of the best finished roads in town. aka smooth, no wheel tracks, no breaks in the surface, nothing.

what they seem to do is just put some tar on and throw heaps of stones on them, making a huge mess and getting a really poor finished product. theres one part of a road that was done like this less than a week ago and it now has corrugations not unlike what you would see on a gravel road. i really should have taken some before and after shots to show the difference. i might do this on thursday when i have time.

now im not sure if i'm missing something, but i dont understand why this happens. i could tolerate it if the road was stuffed and they just did something like this for a quick fix, but when the road was in such good condition, it is just an appalling waste of $$.

roads are managed by local councils aren't they, has anybody seen this sort of thing happen in their area.

its as if they get some money from state government etc to fix up some roads, and just do the quickest and easiest job they can to get rid of the money.

i now go out of my way to not drive on these roads, as they are rough and slippery and cars get heaps of stone chips.

[Dayvo]

Is there a council election coming up ?

[old mate]

we just got a new mayor because the old guy got out and nobody else put their hand up, but no idea about an election.

[HamaTime™]

yeah and there are other roads that need fixing badly....stupid council.

[VYMAD]

Here in Qld, Councils control most smaller roads and Main Roads control major state roads and Highways, but a few of these are contracted to councils also. Roads are supposed to be re-sealed every ten years, but up here it seems that many are left for much longer than that. If the council has some cash to throw around, or "get rid of" in order to spend the allocated amount for this years budget, they will perhaps "waste" some by spending it on roads that seem ok. It doesn't surprise me, however to hear that some other roads are left to "fall apart" in the meantime. It could be that they are waiting for next years budget to stabilize that particular road and don't want to waste money on re-seals in the meantime.
Were these sections that are stripping re-sealed during hot weather, or was the weather particularly warm soon after the seal? As this can cause new seals to "bleed", and strip quite badly.

[dirt drifter]

dont get me started on bodgy roads. in northern nsw where im from they patch up all the potholes around town with a jet patcher (sprays tar and stones on the road) then whenever it rains the jetpatcher mix gets washed out of the potholes and they're back where they started! meanwhile there's rocks over the road the whole time making a mess of everyones paint.
we had a rough as guts section of road the best part of 200metres long a year or so ago, they were fixing it for months, finally got it finished and no joke within a month it was EXACTLY the way it was before they started! same bumps same spots WTF?
and yet the other resurfacing job they did a few blocks over is still holding up fine and it gets more traffic. dunno how that works

[PaulSV6]

You guys should come to Sydney, then!

[minux]

Old mate, your talking about spray seal yeh? Tip crushed rock onto the road, spray some seal over it and they are done?

They did the entire Geelong ring road this way and it is a massive fail. It seems to be the cheapest way to build a road.

As I have said int he past, Aus governments make me laugh, they want people to be safe on our roads, yet they are built by the cheapest bidder. Makes sense.

[nemesis_adrasteia]

i agree the roads around here are horrible, cant imagine what itd cost to fix them all though

[Tom_1569]

Are you talking about my road?
If you are then I couldnt agree more, it was perfect, now its ****ing horrible to drive along. They need to spend the money on the Princess Highway Sale to Traralgon, there is sections the only way to avoid mass pot holes is to drive on the wrong side of the road, yet they reseal my road they had no cracking potholes or surface issues.

[Maxxiz]

Come to Canberra, roads are perfect

[edals]

Come to Canberra, roads are perfect

I wonder why that is lol, would have nothing to do with all the power down in that area lol.

Wanna come around byron bay, all our roads are termites holding hands lol. Its just patch after patch after patch. I Bulged a Tyre and bent one of my rims in a massive pot hole one night, just a quick look in the rear view then BANG!!, I new straight away it was money, lucky the rim could still be balanced and not have to be rolled. and that nothing else broke. Was really not happy and council don't care. They said the roads were not in good order due to flooding, that happened 2 weeks before!

[satos]

Over my way they are fixing roads that don't need fixing,and in the same area there is a road with a descent dip in the middle(the road has partially caved in underneath).It has been like this for about a year now and you really have to go less than 20ks to stop your front end from bottoming out and scraping the front of the car.
The council doesn't seem to care.