Bl***dy crap NZ roads

[scracha]

Sounds like you should stop bleating & ride to the conditions.
Alternatively, you could go back to where you came from.
Why do people come here & then moan about it. You can still get a plane out of here.

The little racist kiwi syndrome resurfaces. You're happy enough for immigrants to come here, work hard, contribute, bring their pensions and pay taxes for years but god forbid if they make a fair complaint about anything.

Anyone with half a brain knows the roads here are shite and it's mostly because the contractors simply don't get penalised for it.

[Ocean1]

West Australia has mediocre roads. Large country (2,500,000 square km) relative to a small population (2,500,000) and we travel a lot (also, we allow large trucks to chew up the roads). But at least they stay intact in 45 degree heat without any bleed out! - They even survive bushfires. And the road outside our place is just a sealed gravel road, and it's fine - narrow sealed strip, but a good chip surface.
NZ and NZ ers are quite prepared to accept shitty second rate services and then complain about the cost! - it's cheaper to do it right the first time round!

Still no excuse for inferior surfaces though.

Yeah. But dozing a flat track through the sand and sprinkling a bit of lime on top is a tad less expensive than the reasonably serious teraforming required here. Leaves a fair wad of budget for surfacing yes?

Yes, that's all very well, but did anyone make a profit in those days? Of course not. Get real, good roads/services/infrastructure are a wonderful idea, but what's the point if nobody makes a profit?

Insert new sarcasm symbol here?

Seriously, if the costs were assigned according to the benefits the roads would be better and there'd be a deal less bitching.

Why blame trucks? They already pay more than their fair share for using the roads and fuck all get put back into it.

Simple, 'cause trucks is what fucks the roads. In fact trucks are responsible for so much of the damage it might as well be 100%. If trucks pay less than the total cost of road repairs they're getting a fucking good deal.

[Motu]

When we had a smaller population and a smaller tax take per capita and roading was carried out by a supposedly inefficient Government Dept., we had quality roads that didn't melt in Summer and we carried out enormous engineering projects.

Bullshit.In the '50's I remember my father being pissed off with bleeding roads and wipping tar off the car with a turps rag.In the early '70's when I started riding bikes and driving cars they used to spread sand on our local roads to soak up the bleeding tar.Our roads have been melting tar for as long as I can remember....obviously I have a longer memory than you.

[James Deuce]

Probably different roads mate. I do remember spending Summers digging roads back to bedding and then redoing the lot from bedding up, not just stripping the top coat off and laying tar and chipsela, plus suburban streets and motorways and highways all got different grades of bedding gravel and surface. Suburban streets used to bleed more than they do now.

[Mudfart]

I remember playing with tar bubbles as a kid in the late 70's early 80's. It was like boiling water back then.

[Mudfart]

The ancient Romans built better roads.

The ancient romans used slaves from conquered territories for labour, so build costs were way down.
Like I tell everyone, and is a quote on my facebook, "every great civilisation throughout history has its foundations cemented in a strong prolonged use of slavery".
Noone has ever acknowledged this.

[shrub]

Seriously, if the costs were assigned according to the benefits the roads would be better and there'd be a deal less bitchingl.

And 80% of the roading budget would be spent on State Highway 1.

[Ocean1]

Our roads have been melting tar for as long as I can remember....obviously I have a longer memory than you.

You'll remember the "De-slicker MK1" then. Designed and built by the MOW at the now defunct Department for Certain Things in Gracefield.

Was a rack of kerosene burners under a stainless steel hood, dangled off the arse end of a TK Bedford (iirc). Used to rock on out to a stretch of road where the wee stones had all sunk, fire up teh burners and singe all the tar off down to the stones again.

Was a bloody good bit of kit, worked OK until some bastard invent ecology. Must admit the smoke looked like a county-wide thunderhead. Or armageddon.

Oh, and the reason (one of ‘em) the tar melts more now is that back in the dark ages there was a lot of coal tar in the mix. It’s a by-product of coal gasification, we don’t do that any more either.

[Ocean1]

And 80% of the roading budget would be spent on State Highway 1.

Yeah, the steel one.

[Spearfish]

The americans were going to carve a highway of 4 lanes from top to bottom of nz as a parting gesture for the war effort, the Govt of the time said no thanks we can do that our own way in our own time....

I think that was the best thing the govt could do...why have it free when you can wait for a recession in 2009-2010 and spend billions employing companies who have more interest in a creating maintenance intensive surface than a pat on the back for a job well done.

[shrub]

The steel road - I love it. Keeps freight off the roads i want to ride on - now all we need to do is get passengers and tourists on it.

[scracha]

The americans were going to carve a highway of 4 lanes from top to bottom of nz as a parting gesture for the war effort, the Govt of the time said no thanks we can do that our own way in our own time....

I've heard this a few times. Methinks it's urban myth.

[Ocean1]

The steel road - I love it. Keeps freight off the roads i want to ride on - now all we need to do is get passengers and tourists on it.

No problem, building nostalgic 19th century steam trains is smack in the NZR's field of expertise.

[Hitcher]

I've heard this a few times. Methinks it's urban myth.

You are quite correct in that belief.

[James Deuce]

The americans were going to carve a highway of 4 lanes from top to bottom of nz as a parting gesture for the war effort, the Govt of the time said no thanks we can do that our own way in our own time....

The Seabees began a number of projects around Wellington whilst waiting for the island hopping stage of the Pacific advance to start including a tunnel to Wainuiomata. All the projects they wanted to undertake were purely about getting troops and equipment from A to B, there was no altruism in any of the offers or any of the work they did complete.

I've heard this a few times. Methinks it's urban myth.

The Government of the time said "no thanks" to a number if US offers of assistance because the US were pushing to take Commonwealth territory from NZ and Australia post-war. This culminated in the Canberra Pact of 1944 which NZ refused to sign because they rightfully pointed out that whilst they were nominally NZ protectorates (Samoa, Fji, Tokelau, Niue plus a fiew others) they were sovereign territories of the Crown and the negotiations needed to be undertaken with the UK government, especially as NZ was not independent of the Crown and still isn't.

The US demanded that we repay a substantial proportion of the ANZAC Lend-lease agreement immediately and withdrew field support of supplies, logistics and spare parts and ammunition, even though NZ had been charged with tidying up the Solomons after they were bypassed. NZ troops were denied access to US field hospitals and my family had two of my Great-Uncles die of dysentery in the Solomons, less than a mile from a US hospital.

The ultimate effect of the Canberra Pact was to drain NZ's coffers almost completely leaving us with no cash reserves, which left us very vulnerable to shifts in trading practices post-war. NZers weren't allowed to take more than $200 cash overseas with them until the early 80s, and needed special permission to import vehicles from overseas on an individual basis, particularly if it wasn't available locally. Muldoon's Ford Sierra was an exotic car in the early '80s.

NZ's relationship with the US is long and complex and the publicly presented image, historically and presently, is oversimplified. China is a better "friend" to NZ than the US has ever been, despite the way we treated the Chinese up until the 1930s.