Monday 28 February 2022
Stagecoaches were faster
He still loved, too, such Devonshire dishes of his boyhood, as “junket” and “toad in the hole”; and one of his favourite memories was that of the meals snatched at the old coaching Inn at Exeter, while they changed the horses of the Plymouth to the London coach. Twenty-four hours at ten miles an hour, without even a break! Glorious drive! Glorious the joints of beef, the cherry brandy! Glorious the old stage coachman, a “monstrous fat chap” who at that time ruled the road!
John Galsworthy - A Portrait (1910)
Our daily school run has been infested with roadworks since well before lockdown and it is becoming worse. On the journey home this morning we managed to cover slightly less than four miles in about thirty minutes. Stagecoaches were faster than that.
On a conspiracy theory note, I wonder if those who organise roadworks are encouraged to gold plate the road safety aspect. It’s as if they are required to close one lane and bung in some traffic lights even if all they do is dig a hole in the pavement.
Of course they have to dig down to see what the problem is in the first place, but my conspiracy gene does wonder if there is a Net Zero green light for obstructing the traffic. Probably not, but trusting official motives is not a good policy either.
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6 comments:
Perhaps it is in the nature of previous lessons being learned? Many years ago I was involved in letting contracts for underground works (digging trenches, laying pipes). The contractors were obliged to temporarily reinstate the excavation (and be responsible for it) until the council carried out the permanent reinstatement. These costs rose and rose because slapdash reinstatement meant far more potholes, so more rigorous standards become a requirement and that meant more extensive groundworks.
Plus nowadays there is far less space under the pavements and roads for new pipes and wires (look down an excavation if you get a chance, I still do) and so they have to be buried more deeply to miss the existing services. That causes greater disruption.
The paperwork for such jobs probably has a huge section for the risk assessment and controls, but no box for the completion date.
It seems to be a rule that they never clear up every warning sign so that for weeks people slow down at the remaining sign and then wonder where the devil the roadworks are.
DJ - this morning I was chatting with a retired surveyor about this problem. He mentioned the problem of having to dig big holes just to locate the problem because there is so much down there. One issue which would make a difference is where the traffic light timing causes very unequal queues of traffic although that could change during the day.
Sam - they put completion dates on the internet but I don't know how reliable they are.
dearieme - I remember years ago being told by a safety bod that clearing up warning signs promptly was absolutely essential, otherwise people wouldn't trust them.
AFAIK, Germany & some US states use the lane rental model for roadworks.
This entails when anyone needs to obstruct a public roadway, then they have to rent per lane closed i.e. towns its per metre & country per 50m. This is am hourly rental paid to the local authority, even the council roads dept must pay rent to another dept.
You can imagine how much this incentivises gas water electricity to coordinate & get the job done quickly.
Ive asked my MP a few times for a private members bill to make this compulsory in the UK but crickets.
Nessimmersion - a very good idea and I'm sure something similar was once proposed for the UK. Too effective for us perhaps.
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