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news
fixing"Headline-grabbing" cycling investment fails to address fundamental issue of potholes, says road surface industry body
The head of the Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA) says that the latest bout of cycle funding merely distracts from fundamental problems with the nation’s roads. “Before making headline grabbing announcements the Government should provide real levels of investment in road maintenance to ensure that cyclists have a safe road surface to cycle on,” said Howard Robinson.
According to government figures, around 50 cyclists a year are killed or seriously injured (KSI) in Britain in incidents ‘caused by poor or defective road surfaces’.
Last week the eight cities to have benefited from Cycle City Ambition funding were invited to bid for a share of £6.5m in the latest wave of government cycle funding.
However, Robinson told Highways Magazine that the nationwide issue of potholes is the issue that needs to be addressed.
He points to the latest Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey, which found that to address the backlog of potholes and restore the local road network to a satisfactory condition would take 13 years and cost over £12bn.
“Cyclists are among our more vulnerable road users. For them, the continued deterioration of local road surfaces can result in death or serious, life-changing injuries. Initiatives to get more people cycling are to be welcomed but the Government needs to invest in the provision of a well-maintained road network that is safe to for them to use.”
Last year, after reporting on the pothole-induced death of a cyclist, the assistant coroner for Greater Manchester North said that the pothole guidance issued by the Department for Transport (DfT) in October 2016 increases the likelihood that cyclists will be killed.
Previous practice had been to repair any pothole “found to be 40mm or deeper,” but guidance now states only that potholes of 40mm or deeper should be "investigated".
Cycling UK’s position is that better guidance is needed. Its view is that there is little to be gained from defining a minimum size of pothole and it points out that the position of a defect can render it hazardous even when it is below a certain size.
Earlier this week, Surrey Road Police tweeted that the county’s cycle lanes “are not fit for purpose” because they are “full of potholes and manhole covers”. The tweet went on to point out that luckily cyclists aren't obliged to use them.
Cycling UK says there needs to be greater understanding of the difficulties potholes present for vulnerable road users and has called for greater investment into repairing local roads, suggesting that the Government reallocate funding from its £15bn Road Investment Strategy to deliver this.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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Ah, but: in UK, if a motorist drives into you (or simply parks in a cycle lane, forcing you out into the path of another motorist) then the council...
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17 comments
I blame Thatcher.
Before competition and outsourcing, councils had their own DLOs ( direct labour organisation), so if something needed fixing, then anything else the DLO found could be done at the same time. Now we have contracts and specifications, so the external contractor has a disincentive to fix things, they only fix things for the job ticket issued, otherwise, it is a loss of income for them.
Someone did joke a few years ago that their council didn't fix potholes, as it saved money on traffic calming. So win win !
^^^^^^^^
This x 1,000,000,000.
Road near me has been closed and dug up 5 times in the last 4 years and is still a piece of shit. Great forest road we ride in Kent is an abomination of cable network fuckdom.
You dig it up for commercial gain, you leave a pristine masterpiece, should be LAW.
But it's not the council (or its contractors) who are digging up the roads repeatedly. It's utility firms - they have always had the powers to do that, both before and after their privatisation.
It occurs to me that the government are more than happy to spend £56 billion (and counting) on a new railway to get to London ten minutes faster (or something like that)...
Imagine how shiny and perfect the road network would be if they spent even a third of that amount on the existing roads instead of building a brand new pfi white elephant.
I think I lost half my teeth by the time I'd gone up Leadhall Lane.
At one time, Leadhall Lane was on the news because it was the most dug-up road in Britain - utility companies constantly doing works.
As for Harrogate having a well-off council, it probably does. It certainly has some forward-thinking and pro-cycling councillors. Unfortunately, the roads authority is North Yorkshire, and they haven't heard of any forms of transport except the motor car.
Taking money from the tiny cycle infrastructure budget, and reallocating it to potholes, is an idiotic idea. If it must come from existing budgets, it should come out of the enormous fund for building new roads that nobody wants.
Very small amounts of cycling infrastructure money seems to get spent on properly dedicated cycling stuff as it is: lots seems to go on shiny new shared use infrastructure (aka "resurfacing a footpath").
If roads need resurfacing, pay for it out of the roads budget (which is several gazillion times bigger than the cycling budget as it is).
I was back in my once hometown of Harrogate today and I'd get the money for potholes from wherever you can. The town's roads are akin to ones the American's have carpet bombed. Good job everyone has Audi Q7s and the like to soak them up. I think I lost half my teeth by the time I'd gone up Leadhall Lane.
I don't think I've ever seen such a shit correlation between what must be a fairly well off council and road conditions.
Road surfaces in Cheshire are almost universally poor. I hear Surrey's are crap, too.
Yep. Surrey were quick to adopt the “guidance (that) now states only that potholes of 40mm or deeper should be "investigated”.’ In practice, in Surrey this means that even if you report a deep pothole AND provide the photos, they will send someone along to assess if the pothole meets the criteria to be repaired. If it does they will then, in their own time, send a team to dob in a lump of tarmac into the original hole without modification - which gets washed out in the next significant rain. Unlike, say, the header photo which shows the defect being enlarged to a rectangle prior to a likely decent repair.
Cheshire roads? Luxury ! Some of the potholes around Manchester (Wythenshawe) are so spacious the council is rehoming families in them.
Rehoming just families? When I were a lad...
I think the same every time I cycle round Henley-on-Thames!
FTFY
Kudos to Beecho with that response
I don't know. Given that so many "cycle lanes" are actually an extra danger (too narrow, encourage riders up the left side of left turning traffic etc.) I would rather the money was spent on potholes.
Have a look through a few of these and see if you think they're worth spending money on http://wcc.crankfoot.xyz/facility-of-the-month/
On a local scale, get a can of spray paint and draw a cock on any pothole that needs fixing.
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