The local council elections are well passed us now and apart from Southland the dust has mostly settled and life continues. However, something happened recently that took me back to when, at least in rural areas, many farmers would vote for the candidate who lived on their road, preferably beyond them, to help ensure their road got better maintenance treatment by council workers.
Normally it just meant the grader went up and down a bit more regularly or the odd sharp corner got knocked off. It also wasn’t that long ago that we had ‘roadmen’ whose job was to maintain the country roads in a certain area and were given a cottage, tractor (if lucky) wheelbarrow and shovel and off they went.
Some things don’t change that much, and on a recent routine commute into Christchurch from the neighbouring council area (Selwyn) we passed (the ‘boss’ was with me) a road crew contracted to ‘maintain’ (highly dubious term) the local roads. They were shoveling manually hottish bitumen onto the roadside to build-up the tar-seal edging that had been broken away by the numerous large trucks that also use the road.
What they were doing, experience has shown, is a futile gesture and probably more to do with reducing the local council’s exposure to claims from irate road user and rate payers for damage occurring to cars and other light vehicles rather than making any prolonged improvement to the road surface.
Unlike some regions much of Canterbury has sealed roads so those less fortunate areas, such as the East Coast and Gisborne regions and Northland may find my complaints a little trivial, however, probably the same or similar principles could be applied to them also.
The reason the state of the roads are in far less than desirable condition (and the edging is a relatively minor complaint, the pot holes and ruts are far more serious) are due the continued use by (very) heavy traffic. These consist of logging trucks, milk tankers metal/quarry truck and other heavily weighted vehicles.
It is notable that the route towards the port or city is far more damaged than the route back out used when trucks are empty of their heavy loads.
In my case the most direct route into the city is via a secondary council road and cuts about 2-3 minutes off a 35 minute trip into the city (eat your heart out Aucklanders). The slightly longer route is also on a council road but a far wider and better formed one. It is actually 8 metres wide whereas the other lesser route 5.5 metres wide.
This brings in another point, anyone driving will have noted the protective curtain thrown up around any contractors working anywhere remotely close to a road to ensure the safety of the workers. Fair enough although there appears to be an overzealous approach at times which impacts upon the road users. Meeting 25 tonne trucks going at the legal limit (90kms) on 5.5 metre rural roads in my mind is far more of a safety risk to the oncoming driver etc., but councils and Waka Kotahi obviously consider this risk acceptable.
Much of the road condition is governed by funding, but before we even get to this councils do have the ability to restrict or limit which vehicles can use which roads. Why they don’t is a mystery as it would limit more heavy transport to ‘major’ roads thereby directing trucking to roads which are better suited to carry them and presumably reduce the maintenance costs on other roads less suitable. Plus of course make the ‘lesser’ roads safer for those who use them.
Not every region has multiple roads which could benefit from this but except where narrow or ‘weaker’ bridges are involved I can’t recall seeing much in the way of road use restrictions.
Funding is obviously an issue for all council roads and roading is quoted as soaking up about a quarter of council spending, this compares to 14% of council income coming from Waka Kotahi funding, leaving rates to pick up the balance.
Even given that councils administer 88% of all roading in New Zealand you can rest assured that the majority of funding still ends up going on State Highways, which may be what we want but it does mean that non-SH roads are the losers and that of course affects mostly rural folk.
Trying to find out how government calculates what councils get is a thankless task and seems to be on a need’s basis rather than by any formula created to recognise what is spent in a region or population.
Councils do have the ability to set a ‘special’ regional tax on fuel as Auckland has done but the scarcity of these seems to indicate that while people may be dissatisfied with much of the roading in their region their representatives at least are not prepared to impose more costs and would rather lobby central government.
28 Comments
What's the answer here? The wind-back in productivity/increased trips and higher costs to the rural sector that comes with smaller trucks? Or the difficult discussion about how far-flung reaches of the country don't have the population bases to fund the necessary upkeep on things like this anymore?
Rail hasn't been able to compete with road transport since the 1940s, except in certain circumstances. If the loading point has it's own siding, and the delivery point has the same, then rail can compete. Otherwise it is a trip to the railway station, unload. Then load onto train and away. At the other end, unload, load onto truck, and off to the destination. Three trips and six loadings and unloadings. Unlike railway tracks, our roading networks have been built door to door, so a truck delivery only needs one loading, one trip, and one unloading. Ridiculously more efficient. The roads we have can also be used by all sorts of different travellers, at any time they feel like, in all sorts of vehicles, for all sorts of reasons. We are even allowed to travel on our roads with a minimum of oversight and supervision, as we all seem to be able to comply with some sort of consideration for other road users' wellbeing and safety. Human beings have never before, in human history, been allowed to have as much fun as roads, and everything that has been produced around them, have let us have.
Exactly my point. We privatized the productivity but didn't bother overcoming the physics. If we did, then people would be crying about the cost of building roads as we would need to build roads out of concrete and probably steel reinforcing like they do in the States.
Yup. Our rural road at our former lifestyle block wasn't great, but it had been rebuilt recently.
Then they started logging in the area, and the companies are destroying the roads (covered in mud for kilometres, and the seal in the gorge ripped up again).
The solution when the neighbourhood complained to the council - forestry is a protected industry in NZ, and all they had to do was put temporary 50km/h signs at the entry roads that covered the road in mud. Instead of, you know, ensuring they weren't traipsing excess mud onto a 100km/h highway in the first place.
Having been in the road construction and maintenance industry for many years I can tell you the cost of the actual work is a fraction of the total cost spent. There are eye watering amounts added on unnecessary things that are not part of the finished job. The experienced and efficient operators get beaten down and eventually leave with a gutsful of excessive bureaucracy.
There are also some sections of road that are often prone to storm damage that would benefit from old style roadmen keeping water tables and culverts clear to prevent horrendously expensive washouts.
The experienced and efficient operators get beaten down and eventually leave with a gutsful of excessive bureaucracy.
This is basically every industry now, to be replaced by corporate players great at box ticking, who hire the cheapest labour possible.
People good at getting stuff done usually aren't compatible with excess paperwork.
It's about time the Fulton Hogan cartel was terminated.
Their $dollars per Km rate is the highest in the world yet thier quality and service the worst .
Time for bids from international road makers to be in a genuine price / quality tender process!
And get all the fffing trucks of the road... They are dangerous ( visibility when it rains) and are just a menace
You have to think about it when it comes to demanding all trucks off the road. Every truck load of milk, stock or logs means export dollars to pay for all infrastructure including roads. How would you even build and maintain roads without trucks and not to mention distribution of food etc.
All international contractors do is funnel money out of the tax/rate payers pocket to be spent in other countries. They simply sub the works to local contractors, transfer all the risk, and cash flow their margins.
The national contractor side of things is not the problem, its government procurement strategy, and the management/coordination of large contracts.
So often I'll price a civil job to a select few contractors and then a few weeks later I'll have an RFQ from a Tier 2 contractor for the same job. The tender documents will contain an invitation to price from the Tier 1 contractor who was recently awarded the job.
Now we're not talking about sub-contracted trades, we're talking about subbing the whole supply and installation of the bulk work. The T1 "Project Manages", when in reality they just act as an information funnel and not much else. If the T2 contractor has enough non-price attributes to supply/install, then they don't really need a T1 managing them.
Guy, be careful or you'll really get me going. Oops, too late.
We live on a rural road that is very well used on weekends by urbanites out on a drive through some lovely countryside. There's also a few very popular cafes along the route. Furthermore, the road provides an alternative route from the nearby small town into the nearest city, so rush hour traffic can get reasonably heavy if there's a hold-up on the main route.
But because it's a rural road the local council has seen fit to place the cost of maintenance upon rural landowners alone, and we're now having to fund repair or replacement of roads and bridges that are used far more heavily by urbanites than locals.
Personally, we're also in constant contact with the local council after a large subdivision went in up the hill from us yet no work was done to control storm water runoff. I had to explain to a council engineer how building a large roof and paving large areas stopped the water being absorbed by the land, and sped up flows downhill as the water is concentrated into a smaller area. I was proven correct shortly after when the (unmodified) storm water drains overflowed during a downpour and flooded a road that locals who have lived here for over 40 years say never went underwater. The downpour even washed gravel into recently-placed culverts under roads, halving their capacity.
The council have been out several times to dig the drains slightly deeper, and each time it rains more soil disturbed by recent downpours washes into them to fil them up again. The engineer told me the downpour was a one-off event and would never happen again. The culverts haven't been cleared.
Give me strength.
If councils were charged for the economic loss that occurs t the pubic when they do these ridiculous closures (the Brenderwyns down to one lane and kilometres of traffic recently while a few guys weed eated a side section) then perhaps they might sort their s##t out.
The safety and road cone nonsense that goes on is symptomatic of the ticket clipping in this country.
One thing I find interesting is if you look at a council gravel road that leads to a forestry block where milling is taking place the council road is in bad condition with pot holes etc everywhere yet the roads in the forestry that the same logging trucks drive on is in far better condition. Whether thats because the forestry roads are better built or they are newer or better maintained, I don't know.
As an ex grader driver a few decades ago, my take is that current vehicle configurations, speed, and maintenance practices have all shown up the original fragility of many secondary roads. Two roads as examples: one had sleepers from the originating bush tramway showing through the metal, the other had peat showing through the gaps between the original cart loads of river run which were elliptical lenses of metal. And a recent news item noted that some roads were built over fascines or log bases which are now returning to nature and giving way.
Vehicles now have multiple axles, and travel.at higher average speeds. This exerts a powerful suction effect on the road, so thin, flexible surfaces quickly get the underlying material pulled through.
The photo may not be indicative of NZ but shows two maintenance fails: there is little crown to the road, and the water table is retaining moisture which will weaken the road base.
Crown was always half a bubble on the level bolted to the front rail of the grader cab in those far off days, and to neglect water tables and drainage generally was amateur hour stuff. There was always a shovel tucked across the grader chassis somewhere for the bits the machine could not reach.
Hard to fix old fragile road bases, but slower speeds could be a band aid in the meantime.
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