Roadworks

[sherer]

why is it that in the UK when we have roadworks the sings always say it won't be finished for several months or sometimes years.

On the M6 at Thewall Viaduct work has been going on there since about 2001 or even before then and won't be finished until 2005 if it finishes on time

The same thing happens all over the country. Why it is when a bid is submitted and they say it will take 6 months to we let the contractors get away with it. They should work 24/7 and get it finished on time or earlier or face financial penalties. They want to finish late to get more money. They should be rewarded for finishing early.

In the US i've seen entire motorways repaved in a few days and they worked non stop to get this done.

No wonder we can't get anywhere in the country. It would be quicked for me to fly to New York from London and my sister to do the same from manchester airport than it is to drive up the motorway

Originally Posted by sherer

They should work 24/7 and get it finished on time or earlier or face financial penalties. They want to finish late to get more money. They should be rewarded for finishing early.

Ummm ... this already happens. There are penalties for finishing late, and bonuses for finishing early. Dualling part of the A500 between Stoke and Nantwich was finished months ahead of schedule, earning the contractor a nice wee pot of money. That, however, was a completely new piece of road, so there was virtually no disruption while building it and no need for complex traffic management.

At the Thelwall Viaduct, they are working on crumbling old concrete bridge supports, which is vastly more complicated than just closing a road to re-pave it. It's taking ages due to the complicated nature of the work, not because the contractor is spinning it out to make more money.

They do close stretches of British motorway when resurfacing is required. The work is done overnight in order to cause minimum disruption. A stretch of the M1 between the M25 and Hemel Hempstead has recently been done in this way (actually, only the entry/exit slips were completely closed - they kept one lane of through traffic open and re-surfaced one lane at a time, overnight, for a week. It still caused huge tailbaks, even at midnight on a Sunday/Monday, as I found out to my cost ) But you can only do this when it's just the tarmac that's worn out and needs to be replaced. When the underlying structure of the road begins to decay, you have to dig the lot up and start again. Again, that takes time, and you just can't shut an entire motorway for six weeks while you do the work.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by sherer

In the US i've seen entire motorways repaved in a few days and they worked non stop to get this done.

In the northern states (like NY) this is done because the harsh winters and the salt and grit wreck the road surface, the repaving is a scrape and retarmac. Many of the UKs motorways are reaching the end of life where the whole foundations need replacing (they use ground up green glass for foundations now!), this takes much longer.

What really needs asking is what damn fool allowed them to build a 3 lane M25 when predictions said it would be running at capacity when opened.

[sherer]

it just really annoys me that when you go past these places late at night , early morning or at weekends you never see anyone working.. I remember after the last earthquake in the US at LA they rebuilt most of the motoways in about 2 months.. somehow I don't think we could do the same...

i know some of this is complex engineering works and will take time but i think if we had people working 24/7 we could get some of these roadworks done quicker.

[SMHarman]

But look at how long the roadworks in Boston are taking

www.bigdig.com
http://www.bigdig.com/thtml/summary.htm
http://www.bigdig.com/thtml/schedule.htm <-this one shows the timeline

Originally Posted by sherer

it just really annoys me that when you go past these places late at night , early morning or at weekends you never see anyone working.. I remember after the last earthquake in the US at LA they rebuilt most of the motoways in about 2 months.. somehow I don't think we could do the same...

i know some of this is complex engineering works and will take time but i think if we had people working 24/7 we could get some of these roadworks done quicker.

And at a much increased cost! There has to be a balance between the cost of the work and its value to the economy. Repairs following the LA earthquake aren't really a good example. The roads were wrecked, they were the arerial routes of the city, they simply had to be fixed, and pronto. If Al Quaeda bombed every bridge on the M25 you can bet the damage would be repaired very quickly indeed.