Sticky Tar Day

[Zedder]

Sure was some sticky tar around yesterday, 27 degrees at 10pm last night. The country needs to win lotto to get good roads. Money is the only thing that is going to fix our roads and shitloads of it, but unless we all want to pay a hell of a lot more taxes or something, it aint gonna happen. We are just too small a country to spend the money that needs to be spent.

For the money, bitumin hotmix and chipseal road pavements do a very good job. The challenges of providing road paving that works in all environments including seismic zones are many. However, there are advances in roading methods being trialled here regularly.

Sure, NZ could spend the big bucks necessary to get "the best roads" but it makes more economical sense to do it the current way. Don't get the idea our road making systems are any worse than overseas though.

[Ocean1]

Money is the only thing that is going to fix our roads and shitloads of it, but unless we all want to pay a hell of a lot more taxes or something, it aint gonna happen. We are just too small a country to spend the money that needs to be spent.

We already pay a hell of a lot of taxes.

And how come the South Island's roads are far better than tha North's?

[unstuck]

We already pay a hell of a lot of taxes.

And how come the South Island's roads are far better than tha North's?

We have all the gravel and rock and a better base.

[george formby]

Trying to get the bloody stuff off my pips is what really rips my nightie

[Daffyd]

We already pay a hell of a lot of taxes.

And how come the South Island's roads are far better than tha North's?

The South Island doesn't have the traffic volume that causes all the damage.

[Daffyd]

Another related thing that pisses me off is they put up "Slippery When Wet" signs, and then, later, much later, when they finally repair the problem they leave the signs up permanently.

Same thing when re-aligning bends. When they sealed the road through the Catlins they re-aligned a lot of corners and left all the old advisory signs up.

[miSTa]

Another related thing that pisses me off is they put up "Slippery When Wet" signs, and then, later, much later, when they finally repair the problem they leave the signs up permanently.

Same thing when re-aligning bends. When they sealed the road through the Catlins they re-aligned a lot of corners and left all the old advisory signs up.

Unless the "Slippery When Wet" sign is the fix, seems to be.

[Zedder]

We already pay a hell of a lot of taxes.

And how come the South Island's roads are far better than tha North's?

In general, the roads are "better" in the South Island because: The river gravels that are predominantly used for road aggregates there are very good. Also, the temperature range is wider and the methodology of pavement construction is altered to suit.

[unstuck]

The South Island doesn't have the traffic volume that causes all the damage.

I have noticed quite a decline in some of our roads in the last 20yrs due to milk tankers, those buggers are hard on roads.

[Road kill]

I have noticed quite a decline in some of our roads in the last 20yrs due to milk tankers, those buggers are hard on roads.

Hmmm,,,More like about 25 years,,,,but we had Milk tankers before then anyway.

What really happened was that around 1985 local councils took over the responsibility for their local roads rather than having one or two large and very competant companys looking after the whole country.

From there on the councils started contrating out to the cheapest bidder and things steadily went down hill as all these small roading companys started appearing.

I guess there were also environment standards that effected change as well but from my point of view "25 years of always accepting the lowest bid for the job has played the biggist part in it.

Around Franklin where I live we have road works happening and for the first "TWO OR THREE DAYS" they look ok,,,,but within a week you start to see the strips of tar appearing,,and it's not tar bled yet,,it's just the top surface failing,,,,then comes summer.

Then the next year their back doing it again.

[scumdog]

Trying to get the bloody stuff off my pips is what really rips my nightie

You an Inspector or something with all them pips?

And how does the tar get onto them??

[scumdog]

Hmmm,,,More like about 25 years,,,,but we had Milk tankers before then anyway.

.

Down here it's only been in the last 15 or so years that a lot of places have become dairy farms, before that it was all sheep country, now there's dairy farms in place you would not have thought possible 20 years ago.

And O.T. - I believe there's an ecological time-bomb a-tickin' away what with all the extra effluent being discharged and the massive water draw-off from rivers and extreme amount of irrigation being poured onto the land in places like the McKenzie Basin etc...

[unstuck]

Down here it's only been in the last 15 or so years that a lot of places have become dairy farms, before that it was all sheep country, now there's dairy farms in place you would not have thought possible 20 years ago.

And O.T. - I believe there's an ecological time-bomb a-tickin' away what with all the extra effluent being discharged and the massive water draw-off from rivers and extreme amount of irrigation being poured onto the land in places like the McKenzie Basin etc...

I think they are starting to notice this same thing in the five rivers, mossburn area already.

[Gremlin]

Then the next year their back doing it again.

You'd think the council / organisation would want a warranty. Please someone in the department have a brain that a job that costs twice as much lasts say, 5 times as long = a bargain?

Highbrook in East Tamaki is a good example of modern roading. It's a feeder between industrial and motorway. When developed it was hot mix, nice and smooth. In time, with the large volumes and their weight some sections broke up. They put in a few terrible patches (bumpy as hell transitions) which actually sped up the break down. Then they removed all the hot mix (including the sections that were fine) and laid chip seal instead, which is so rough the first few times over it I thought my bike had a problem, as it slipped and slithered over the stones. Noisy as well, and the traffic volume has pounded the surface into crap again...

[awa355]

It takes time to get things right, remember,

You cant learn road making in a mere 100 years, can you??