Why are Irish roads so potholed and bumpy?

fricatus

I know it's a particular problem now after the bad weather, but Irish roads are bumpy in the summer too!

I was amazed lately when I was in Belgium, because all the roads were lovely and smooth. The surface didn't appear to have any defects, and you could barely detect joins and bumps at all. It was the same for busy roads with loads of traffic, where you'd expect plenty of damage to be done, as it was for sidestreets.

What are the reasons for Ireland's roads being so bad? There are a few I can think of, but I don't know how true they are, or whether they'd be different in any other country, but they're a good starting point for discussion:

- Too many roads per head of population? Although that's not an excuse for potholed national roads, given the proportion of the country's vehicle kilometres they're responsible for.

- Local authority under-funding. I think we can take this as a given...

- Lack of competence where maintenance is concerned. Kilkenny county council have "filled" potholes in Stonyford and Knocktopher using material that sits around 1-2 cm proud of the road surface. It's obvious that the shock of cars and trucks hitting these bumps will eventually cause the filler material to start coming loose again. (Not singling KK co co out by the way - it's just that I drive their roads most often).

- Is the depth of the hard road material perhaps too thin or not compacted enough? This would lead to it being much more vulnerable to shocks, flooding, subsidence, etc.

- Something I suspect is that construction and agricultural vehicles often bring stones out onto the road and that these stones cause potholes by acting as a focus for passing heavy traffic to punch a hole into the road surface, which then gets exacerbated. In other countries, builders and farmers are obliged to wash the tyres of vehicles that are heading out onto the public road, whereas here, it seems to be acceptable to open a hole in the ditch on a national primary route, put down a load of trunking stone and drive in and out on it.

- Is there a general Irish character flaw whereby we love spending money on new stuff, but can't be ar5ed maintaining it? I see people buying new cars and then selling them on three years later without getting the bloody things serviced. We also see rows of shiny new houses springing up on the edge of villages, whereas the main street has umpteen elegant old houses falling into rack and ruin. We saw how the M9 opened in Kildare there lately but one lane was closed for days because we didn't salt it.

Discuss...

Tech3

I would say that older national road schemes were not built to the correct standard as we see the new road schemes today. Post 1990's the surface was built on a better quality sub base.

Yesterday I came across the N18 in a horrendous state. I would describe the holes in the road more like craters than potholes. This was down to the recent flooding near Labane and Kiltartan. How the road was opened like that was a disgrace and still is. If we cant maintain out national primary's what hope do we have for the rest of the road network

wellbutty

Great question! The standard of repairs is extremely low here although credit must be given to whoever was redoing the roads for CLG (the gas crew) a few years back as they did it properly. In some parts of Europe, it seems that even a rural road is analysed and all the dodgy sections are circled in yellow. Then a crew is brought in for 1 day, dig them, fill them and then SEAL the edges...and the result is the repairs blend in with the road (in smoothness but certainly not in looks).

The towns and cities here are also rough, in Waterford it amazes me how the council constantly put tarmac patches down 1 centimeter above the road surface and in numerous examples, they're still the same height years later! Anyone know what the council's magic sinkage formula is?!!

murphaph

As well as the reasons already given, there is a tendency in Germany (prob same for France etc.) to duct as many utilities as possible under the pavements, not under the road itself. The pavements here are all cobble lock over sand, ie, removable! They very rarely use concrete for their pavements with anything ducted underneath.

Whenever they have to dig the road, they seem to ensure they install extra ducting for future use, so the road doesn't need to be dug again. Digging into the actual road surface for utilities seems really quite rare here, almost always just the cobbles get lifted from the pavement and the utility located, I even saw this directly outside my own apartment block when our electircity feeder needed replacing, all done under the footpath, road not touched.

In Ireland, the tendency seems to be completely arseways, though perhaps that's because the cobbles would be nicked if just laid in sand!

Irish roads develop potholes at an alarming rate, for a country with such a mild temperate climate. There's generally nothing like the temperature variations between seasons as you find in say Berlin.

Alun

With regard to the standard of repairs, I suspect that in a lot of cases it's a lack of after-the-fact quality control in many cases.

I've noticed around here in Bray, where, just as everywhere else, the roads keep getting dug up at regular intervals there's a huge difference between the work done by different contractors. Some of it is exemplary, i.e they cut cleanly around the affected area, dig down deep enough and back fill then apply the tarmac, roll it properly and seal the edges, so that you wouldn't even notice it had been repaired when you drive over them. And at the other extreme you get the shovel of cold tarmac in a hole and stamp it in with a welly boot.

EDIT: just saw a post above about CLG. I think it was they who were doing some work here in Bray recently, and indeed they did a fantastic job of repairing the road afterwards.

In theory the council should be inspecting each and every roadworks after completion, and forcing the contractor to redo anything that isn't up to standard, but that doesn't appear to be happening. Simply withholding a portion of the payment until the work is signed off would help there I'd think.

RobAMerc

Can someone please tell me why the councils dont have someone employed to QC any work done by contractors on our roads - I mean some of the fill ins that have been done around are a disgrace - bordeing on dangerous in spots, and nobody does a tap about it.

this is our infrastructure - these are our assests - why not look after them? If not by fixing them when broke, by at least making sure the third parties put them back to a decent standard !

ForiegnNational

The manner of "fixing" potholes in West Cork seems to be simply to put loose tar into the offending hole, raised up one or two inches for the forthcoming compaction. None of the holes are sealed on completion, and as tarmac is being filled into basically soil and not foundation, the next time that it rains/freezes/snows, the new tarmac has not bound to the surrounding road, so simply washes out.

The country lanes around us have been effected by an incredible amount of subsidence over the past month, so even where there is no visible hole, the road itself has been compromised and is basically individual bits of tar without any cohesion. The next flood will see all of these washout clean, doubling the already terrible conditions.

As the earlier poster said, you will notice that the roads laid or relaid in the past 10 years have none of the potholing issues.

Unfortunately, the cost of fixing all of the roads is going to be prohibitively expensive given the current state of council/NRA funding, so I can see the roads degrading to a dangerous extent over the next 18 months.

marmurr1916

All the issues raised above are part of the problem. However, the main problem is that Ireland has too many public roads.

Consequently, road maintenance is spread too thinly.

If we had less public roads (or at least less tarmac-surfaced public roads), then we could build and maintain roads to a higher standard.

Many of the boreens in Ireland that have tarmac surfaces (especially the ones with grass in the middle!) would be gravel roads in other European countries such as Denmark.

loyatemu

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Many of the boreens in Ireland that have tarmac surfaces (especially the ones with grass in the middle!) would be gravel roads in other European countries such as Denmark.

yeah, but how much maintenance money is being spent on boreens with grass down the middle - many of them wouldn't have been resurfaced in decades.

2 main things - low population density + low taxes = not much money for councils to spend on road maintenance. Also poor quality control when repairs are done.

The recent floods and snow have destroyed the roads in many places, and given the state of the public finances I think we're looking at driving on 1980's-standard road surfaces for the next couple of years.

Zoney

marmurr1916:

I can appreciate that point to some extent, but where work is undertaken, it is to such a low standard that it is essentially burning money. I cannot believe that sending crews out to dump tarmac into potholes really costs less than sending out a crew to put tar over cracks before they turn into potholes, and then the odd pothole that develops, properly replace the foundation before patching it properly so that it will not likely need attention again. You could then also dispense with the annual tar+chippings charade.

It just seems to me to be a lack of will to actually police or organise things, combined with a lack of will among certain workers to be policed or organised.

Fortunately I think things are gradually changing in this country (or at least the more "proper" section of the population is growing), but we have a long way to go before we can honestly criticise stereotypes of us Irish.

marmurr1916

loyatemu wrote: »

yeah, but how much maintenance money is being spent on boreens with grass down the middle - many of them wouldn't have been resurfaced in decades.

Which is why so many boreens (with grass or not) are potholed and bumpy!

loyatemu wrote: »

2 main things - low population density + low taxes = not much money for councils to spend on road maintenance. Also poor quality control when repairs are done.

All these are factors - especially the lack of local taxation. Ireland should have a local taxation system to pay for local services and local infrastructure.

The lack of local taxation means that people don't see the connection between their lifestyle choices (eg: living in one-off rural housing), the cost of providing local services and the amount of taxes they pay.

It also encourages local councils (and councillors) to continue irresponsible behaviour (excessive rezoning etc) knowing that the extra money required to provide services won't come from local taxation.

Since the money doesn't come from local taxation, there's no pressure from local taxpayers on local councils/councillors to behave more responsibly to keep local taxes down.

loyatemu wrote: »

The recent floods and snow have destroyed the roads in many places, and given the state of the public finances I think we're looking at driving on 1980's-standard road surfaces for the next couple of years.

Sad but true...

munchkin_utd

The amount of roads under the care of country councils is immense.
Heres some numbers......

As of 31 December 2007, there was a total of
- 5,427 km of national roads: 2,743 km of national primary routes (including motorways) and 2,683 km of national secondary routes.
- 11,630 kilometres of regional roads and
- 78,972 kilometres of local roads.

(from wikipedia)
Thats a total of 96,029km of roads.

Thats an awful lot of road for a government with no money to be maintaining!

Tech3

I agree with the above in regards to the amount of money we burn into covering up potholes and throwing a few loose chippings on the road. In one case, my local regional rd the R576 was re-layed with loose chippings 3 years ago. Now it is back to the standard before it was resurfaced.

The road is poor with bad depressions and humps. If the foundation was relaid from scratch this would not need to be resurfaced for decades.

Although many are like this I have seen some high quality regional roads certainly in terms of road surface the R555 outside listowel for example was redone and is superb only for tight bends. There is also one from Manorhamilton to the northern border which was a pleasure to drive not too sure which one it was though.

rubensni

The councils aren't liable for maintenance of the road, so if you hit a pothole it's your problem.

If you could sue them (as is the case in the UK) then they'd be very quick fix the roads/maintain them.

busman

loyatemu wrote: »

yeah, but how much maintenance money is being spent on boreens with grass down the middle - many of them wouldn't have been resurfaced in decades.

Our boreen usually gets a visit about every 6 months by a JCB, two men and a scoop of black stuff! The 'auld fella then throws a few shovels of tar along the lane. I often wonder what process he uses to select the location of where to place them! My guess is some sort of complex randomiser algorithm back at HQ that relays exact coordinates to the GPS receiver in the young fellas phone in the JCB as he appears to be using it all the time!

Sadly I have long ago accepted that it will never be any different. Roads in Ireland have always been poor and will always be poor.

murphaph

rubensni wrote: »

The councils aren't liable for maintenance of the road, so if you hit a pothole it's your problem.

Yes they are. They are legally charged with doing so as Roads Authorities.

rubensni wrote: »

If you could sue them (as is the case in the UK) then they'd be very quick fix the roads/maintain them.

A guy in my old job got money from Meath CC for a new alloy wheel, but he carefully documented everything and got a solicitor to write the letter. The wheel was an expensive factory fitted type, so worth the hassle.

Chris_533976

Was a story on RTE the other night that I think one of the county councils were flat out refusing to pay claims related to pothole hits after the bad weather.

Carawaystick

It's a bit ironic that the op uses Belgium's roads as an example. the motorway network there is appallingly badly surfaced. It'd make the old concrete section between Kill and Rathcoole on the N7 seem like baby's bum smooth in comparison.

I'd say a lot of the roads in Munster are poor because of the bedrock being sandstone and not up to the loads of modern traffic. The solution would to be rebuilding the road to a proper standard.

There are ( were) many roads in the wicklow mountains with a very high quality surface, one in particular between Aughavannagh and Donard is smooth enough to drive at over a hundred kmh despite the road being only about 2m wide.
plenty of shockers though where they were repaired badly over time and this snowballed.

101sean

Many roads in my area and not just the minor ones have lost the most recent layer of tar and chippings. Most holes are roughly filled with cold lay tarmac but I've seen it done with clean chippings and bitumen poured over from a bucket. S Tipp do have a special lorry mounted rig that blasts the hole clean and then fires in chippings and bitumen which seems to be more effective.

The worst stretches are usually poorly drained, once the sub-base gets saturated and freezes you lose large stretches of road. The practice of just scarifying the surface or putting 804 down and then a couple of layers of tar and chippings and hoping it's going to stand up to modern traffic levels is a short sighted one.

ballsymchugh

101sean wrote: »

The worst stretches are usually poorly drained, once the sub-base gets saturated and freezes you lose large stretches of road. The practice of just scarifying the surface or putting 804 down and then a couple of layers of tar and chippings and hoping it's going to stand up to modern traffic levels is a short sighted one.

that be true, a lot of the roads in ireland are built over old bogland. hence the serious amount of bumps on a lot of the secondary roads.

Irish and Proud

Carawaystick wrote: »

It's a bit ironic that the op uses Belgium's roads as an example. the motorway network there is appallingly badly surfaced. It'd make the old concrete section between Kill and Rathcoole on the N7 seem like baby's bum smooth in comparison.

...from what I saw in the mid 1990's in Belgium, I'd have to agree mate! The surfaces on many of the motorways there were appalling - any Irish motorway would be a dream there - virtually no potholes etc!

Carawaystick wrote: »

I'd say a lot of the roads in Munster are poor because of the bedrock being sandstone and not up to the loads of modern traffic. The solution would to be rebuilding the road to a proper standard.

There are ( were) many roads in the wicklow mountains with a very high quality surface, one in particular between Aughavannagh and Donard is smooth enough to drive at over a hundred kmh despite the road being only about 2m wide.
plenty of shockers though where they were repaired badly over time and this snowballed.

...if I had my way, all motor tax would go back into roads - particularly maintenance - also the government was really raking it in with VAT and VRT from car sales etc during the 2003-2008 credit bubble and the 1996-2001 Celtic Tiger. With this in mind, more money should go into roads - even if any further motorway project was to be put on hold. Our regional and local road network badly needs investment, and many such roads should be rebuilt (like the ones near Trim in Co Meath - yeah, Meath West is doing really well on the roads front - I wonder why? :rolleyes: - what about Meath East Mr Dempsey??? :mad:). If this country can afford €billions to bail out bankers (rather than banks) and developers, then it can afford few hundred €million to fix our local and regional roads - even the ones in Dublin!

Regards!

Carawaystick

The IT has the N24 as either a secondary route or a regional road today.
they also had an article on water shortages and beneath were dublin city, Fingal coco, south dublin coco and dlr coco's phone numbers.
paper of record me hole.

L1011

Irish and Proud wrote: »

...from what I saw in the mid 1990's in Belgium, I'd have to agree mate! The surfaces on many of the motorways there were appalling - any Irish motorway would be a dream there - virtually no potholes etc!

I last drove in Belgium in March and they hadn't improved. Surfacing is very poor, everywhere on the network - the carpark of the MSA I stopped at looked like the surface of the moon.

Other stuff was dodgy too. One of the first things I saw after crossing the border from France was a horrific improvised crash barrier to protect a sign sitting on the median barrier - it was a single strip of Armco pointing out about 30 degrees. Wouldn't want to spin in to that!

Noffles

These are quite simply the worst roads I've ever driven on... living in the Wexford area I'm appalled at the destruction the weather has inflicted on the roads... meteorites would make less damage... unreal!! And what do I see making repairs a man alone in a van with some tarmac and a shovel.... he fills the whole pats it down and moves on... now what the **** is the point of that???

Judgement Day

Isn't one of the reasons that are roads are in such a bad state is the simple fact that we have too many and cannot aford their upkeep. Back in 1947 (?) the Milne report on Irish railways highlighted the fact that back then (!) we had 4 times the amount of roads per capita than the UK and I recently read where we now have the greatest amount of motorway per capita in the EU. Unsustainable?
The abandonment of some roads could be considered in much the same way as uneconomic rail lines were abandoned - and I don't mean cutting off towns and villages - I mean taking out very minor roads and joining fields together again and using one road where now there are two. I lived in a very sparsely populated county some years ago and the amount of badly maintained roads going nowhere or duplicating another route was staggering. At the very least it needs to be looked at. A certain amount of road closing has already taken place with the removal of certain accomodation and level crossings on the Irish railway network. Just a suggestion but I would be interested in what others think.

murphaph

Judgement Day wrote: »

Isn't one of the reasons that are roads are in such a bad state is the simple fact that we have too many and cannot aford their upkeep. Back in 1947 (?) the Milne report on Irish railways highlighted the fact that back then (!) we had 4 times the amount of roads per capita than the UK and I recently read where we now have the greatest amount of motorway per capita in the EU. Unsustainable?
The abandonment of some roads could be considered in much the same way as uneconomic rail lines were abandoned - and I don't mean cutting off towns and villages - I mean taking out very minor roads and joining fields together again and using one road where now there are two. I lived in a very sparsely populated county some years ago and the amount of badly maintained roads going nowhere or duplicating another route was staggering. At the very least it needs to be looked at. A certain amount of road closing has already taken place with the removal of certain accomodation and level crossings on the Irish railway network. Just a suggestion but I would be interested in what others think.

I would agree wholeheartedly. These boreens are a drain on resources and should be either extinguished as rights of way where possible, or simply graded the odd time. These boreens are effectively very long private driveways being maintained at taxpayers' expense!

amacachi

The "too many rarely used roads" argument works to an extent but here in Dundalk there's been a massive pothole at probably the most-used junction for at least 3 months. My dad has been onto the council and it still hasn't been fixed. After the bad weather there's another one around the corner, at least 5 inches deep and "sharp". It also appears that some lazy **** filled it with loose stones rather than patching it properly. My dad used to work in the council and he can't believe some of the potholes that are being left unfixed the last 4/5 years. It's great though, near those two potholes there's a bridge (that goes over nothing, was a railline til about 80 years ago) and on it and other bridges around town the council have managed to afford some flower pots. And of course there's the lovely landscaping at every newly-built roundabout. Bah, the mind boggles. Would go into more detail about the flowers and the council but don't want to get into litigation territory. :pac:

dermotp

I agree with a lot of above,if the roads were repaired properly and sealed as they should be we would not have halve the pot holes, and it would not cost the country as much to upkeep,some of the contractors hired by the local authories are left do what they like after laying cables or pipes they never seem to seal any of the surfaces they relay after the job is complete.

mike65

I see the gubberment has told the local authorities that there will be no new funds for road repairs.

marmurr1916

murphaph wrote: »

I would agree wholeheartedly. These boreens are a drain on resources and should be either extinguished as rights of way where possible, or simply graded the odd time. These boreens are effectively very long private driveways being maintained at taxpayers' expense!

Agreed.

Have a look at the density of local roads (boreens) around Castlebar in Co.Mayo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35945888@N04/4290867760/sizes/o/

This is fairly typical of rural Ireland.

KevR

A road near where I live (the Old Seamus Quirke road), the surface was in an aweful state over a year ago. Galway City Council came, dug up the bad spots, patched them and sealed them. It took them a couple of weeks to do a few patches on a short narrow stretch of road and they did an aweful job. The patches sunk below the level of the surrounding old road surface and the sealing wore away in no time. They had to go out and re-do some of the patches again recently.

If they got proper machinery out the first time around, they could have ripped up the entire old surface and put down proper new one in a couple of days (as I said, it's only a short and narrow stretch of road). Instead they wasted money carrying out corner-cutting work on 2 occasions and it still needs a full re-surface.