A reasonable observation Peter. Much further north to Auckland’s little suburb of Devonport, we recently had hundreds of orange cones out on one of the main roads with more along part of each (unaffected) side street. The re-surfacing work was carried out on night shifts, using proper tarmac, then re-painted etc so it was actually pretty efficiently done.
However, I asked one of the staff why our road was being scraped and re-surfaced in the first place since it was in good condition - yep, contractual work, whether needed or not.
yes, you need to keep the voters happy up there that is where the election is won and lost
Here in the south the percentage of the budget on roading is about half of what is collected from here in taxes it's a disgrace as are the roads down here
Congestion charges are being devised by Auckland Council as we write. Roads repaired that were okay anyway, yet they don’t want us driving unless we pay more - hmmmm.
Totally agree Peter our roads have become an embarrassment along with our old one lane bridges
They will tell us they need to increase taxes but the truth is they collect more then enough to cover the cost of roads and yes how does the saying go keep doing the same thing and getting the same results and didn't the new government promise to sort the over the top safety systems 🤔
Australia's soils make a much better foundation than our clay soils which are suseptible to swelling and contracting when wet and dry. That explains road quality to a certain degree but not fully. They certainly do build quality that we can only dream of. If I was 40 years younger I'd be there in a flash.
I think Fulton Hogan are laughing all the way to the bank. Excessive pricing, it appears excess workers employed ( as you see many of them standing around when passing these refurbishing areas) Yet government and councils continue to use Fulton Hogan when there are other probably better priced and more efficient companies to do these jobs .
Hi Peter, in a nutshell "it's the economy ......".
Earlier this year, I had an opportunity to talk with a former four-term Mayor of a mid tier city
over lunch. when our road cone addiction entered the conversation. He spoke of his very good friend who owns a major road cone manufacturing plant here, and explained the math. There were around 11 million road cones in Aotearoadcone then, which was about half the declining number of sheep, and each one earned $2 a day plus another $2 each time it's moved. The quick calc for a single hard working road cone, moved every four days and at 80% occupation rate p.a. is around a cool thousand Kiwi Pesetas. While a sheep farmer might be lucky to earn 10% of the very productive road cone.
Sadly this is not satire, however, as our economic activity continues it's decline into recession or worse, we can easily double the number of working road cones to mitigate the negative effects of worsening GDP figures and so, like our plucky Reserve Bank, underpin efforts to keep interest rates lower than they otherwise would be.
Now some folk might think this is a reflection of our State apparatus gone off the rails, to them I say don't keep your conspiracies to yourself!
I agree but having lived in Byron bay before moving to Taranaki in 2020 I have to say that apart from road cones the roads here are incomparably better. I agree with you about Fulton-Hogan and Downer. They virtually run NZTA it seems.
The people in the know tell us that chip seal is 5 times cheaper, I wonder. When you see part of the road being resurfaced with chips then you have to also look at how long it takes, how many machines and people are employed for longer periods. A large amount of equipment sitting idle for long periods of time. As they say, time is money and that cost does not seem to be taken into the equation. On top of that comes the discomfort of driving, noise, less grip, cracked windscreens and frequency of road surface repair, I wonder if adding up all those cost, it would not be more comparable with hot mix. When we observe how the hot mix work is done in a fraction of the time it takes the chips to put down, then I do wonder but I am just a road user paying for our crappy roads!
Totally hear you. I drove Nelson-Queenstown- Nelson last week. Several traffic light stop/starts with long delays, many hundreds of road cones and a lot of frustration along the way made for a very long drive down over two days.
Once there, the Frankton road works did nothing to help traffic congestion with over with over 13,000 athletes (marathon weekend) trying to get to the convention centre for their races and having to drive past the location, circle a roundabout then back towards town to access the turnoff.
The drive home back up the West Coast by contrast was fantastic, hardly any traffic, minimal roadworks.
I understand that the seal mix dilemma is another consequence of the closure of the Marsden refinery, along with C o2 and probably other products. I was told they had or were testing a water based emulsion (Sigh.... unsuccessfully it appears.
Peter, you are commenting on the equivalent in NZ to the motorway north out of Auckland to Warkworth. The Sunshine Coast Highway is certainly good. But I suggest you don't try to drive the 'Savannah Way' between Darwin and Cairns - specifically the stretch between Heartbreak Hotel and Hells Gate. I have completed the 'Big Lap' of Australia in my large RAM and outback caravan. The highway across the Nullibor to the south of the country is excellent [no bends on the road for 146 kms!]. But the Savannah Way is hundreds of kms of deeply rutted loose gravel and clay track that we survived at an average speed of 11 kph for two days, our spare fuel tank jarred loose [we were overtaken by a truck full of Aborigine workers who shouted out "Hey White Fella, you have left your petrol tank on the road!'] and disintegrated, and one blowout. It is graded only once a year at the start of the northern winter. We experienced it in September, and it was a hundred times worse than any NZ road I have experienced - and the road is designated 'Highway 1'.
Recently I spent 10 days centered at Perth. What a delight the roads were, and I couldn't stop remarking about it. Not a road cone in sight, or if there were they weren't obtrusive or noticeable. Unbelievable in our Aotearoacone invested country.
You have to wonder also at the state of new roads here. I remember the days when a new road stayed in good condition, the base work put in making it so. Why not now??
Incompetent and shortsightedness come to mind. Just had about 400 road cones on our tiny street in Chch for contractors to repair kerbs and minimal road repairs. 4 days and a weekend. Productivity is an issue in NZ. Lived in Sydney for nigh on 40 yrs with 13 yr stint in Asia. The comparison to Japan the most obvious and China....try Bangkok and you will be thankful for NZ roads.
A reasonable observation Peter. Much further north to Auckland’s little suburb of Devonport, we recently had hundreds of orange cones out on one of the main roads with more along part of each (unaffected) side street. The re-surfacing work was carried out on night shifts, using proper tarmac, then re-painted etc so it was actually pretty efficiently done.
However, I asked one of the staff why our road was being scraped and re-surfaced in the first place since it was in good condition - yep, contractual work, whether needed or not.
yes, you need to keep the voters happy up there that is where the election is won and lost
Here in the south the percentage of the budget on roading is about half of what is collected from here in taxes it's a disgrace as are the roads down here
Congestion charges are being devised by Auckland Council as we write. Roads repaired that were okay anyway, yet they don’t want us driving unless we pay more - hmmmm.
Totally agree Peter our roads have become an embarrassment along with our old one lane bridges
They will tell us they need to increase taxes but the truth is they collect more then enough to cover the cost of roads and yes how does the saying go keep doing the same thing and getting the same results and didn't the new government promise to sort the over the top safety systems 🤔
Maybe the next one will we live and hope
Australia's soils make a much better foundation than our clay soils which are suseptible to swelling and contracting when wet and dry. That explains road quality to a certain degree but not fully. They certainly do build quality that we can only dream of. If I was 40 years younger I'd be there in a flash.
I think Fulton Hogan are laughing all the way to the bank. Excessive pricing, it appears excess workers employed ( as you see many of them standing around when passing these refurbishing areas) Yet government and councils continue to use Fulton Hogan when there are other probably better priced and more efficient companies to do these jobs .
Hi Peter, in a nutshell "it's the economy ......".
Earlier this year, I had an opportunity to talk with a former four-term Mayor of a mid tier city
over lunch. when our road cone addiction entered the conversation. He spoke of his very good friend who owns a major road cone manufacturing plant here, and explained the math. There were around 11 million road cones in Aotearoadcone then, which was about half the declining number of sheep, and each one earned $2 a day plus another $2 each time it's moved. The quick calc for a single hard working road cone, moved every four days and at 80% occupation rate p.a. is around a cool thousand Kiwi Pesetas. While a sheep farmer might be lucky to earn 10% of the very productive road cone.
Sadly this is not satire, however, as our economic activity continues it's decline into recession or worse, we can easily double the number of working road cones to mitigate the negative effects of worsening GDP figures and so, like our plucky Reserve Bank, underpin efforts to keep interest rates lower than they otherwise would be.
Now some folk might think this is a reflection of our State apparatus gone off the rails, to them I say don't keep your conspiracies to yourself!
There’s money to be made with polyethylene eh? It’s a wonder the Greens aren’t all over it.
I agree but having lived in Byron bay before moving to Taranaki in 2020 I have to say that apart from road cones the roads here are incomparably better. I agree with you about Fulton-Hogan and Downer. They virtually run NZTA it seems.
The people in the know tell us that chip seal is 5 times cheaper, I wonder. When you see part of the road being resurfaced with chips then you have to also look at how long it takes, how many machines and people are employed for longer periods. A large amount of equipment sitting idle for long periods of time. As they say, time is money and that cost does not seem to be taken into the equation. On top of that comes the discomfort of driving, noise, less grip, cracked windscreens and frequency of road surface repair, I wonder if adding up all those cost, it would not be more comparable with hot mix. When we observe how the hot mix work is done in a fraction of the time it takes the chips to put down, then I do wonder but I am just a road user paying for our crappy roads!
Totally hear you. I drove Nelson-Queenstown- Nelson last week. Several traffic light stop/starts with long delays, many hundreds of road cones and a lot of frustration along the way made for a very long drive down over two days.
Once there, the Frankton road works did nothing to help traffic congestion with over with over 13,000 athletes (marathon weekend) trying to get to the convention centre for their races and having to drive past the location, circle a roundabout then back towards town to access the turnoff.
The drive home back up the West Coast by contrast was fantastic, hardly any traffic, minimal roadworks.
Plus the noisy in cabin hum cause by chip roads renders the good stereos in most modern cars useless. Reduces the pleasure of your journey.
I understand that the seal mix dilemma is another consequence of the closure of the Marsden refinery, along with C o2 and probably other products. I was told they had or were testing a water based emulsion (Sigh.... unsuccessfully it appears.
Peter, you are commenting on the equivalent in NZ to the motorway north out of Auckland to Warkworth. The Sunshine Coast Highway is certainly good. But I suggest you don't try to drive the 'Savannah Way' between Darwin and Cairns - specifically the stretch between Heartbreak Hotel and Hells Gate. I have completed the 'Big Lap' of Australia in my large RAM and outback caravan. The highway across the Nullibor to the south of the country is excellent [no bends on the road for 146 kms!]. But the Savannah Way is hundreds of kms of deeply rutted loose gravel and clay track that we survived at an average speed of 11 kph for two days, our spare fuel tank jarred loose [we were overtaken by a truck full of Aborigine workers who shouted out "Hey White Fella, you have left your petrol tank on the road!'] and disintegrated, and one blowout. It is graded only once a year at the start of the northern winter. We experienced it in September, and it was a hundred times worse than any NZ road I have experienced - and the road is designated 'Highway 1'.
Never again.
Recently I spent 10 days centered at Perth. What a delight the roads were, and I couldn't stop remarking about it. Not a road cone in sight, or if there were they weren't obtrusive or noticeable. Unbelievable in our Aotearoacone invested country.
You have to wonder also at the state of new roads here. I remember the days when a new road stayed in good condition, the base work put in making it so. Why not now??
Incompetent and shortsightedness come to mind. Just had about 400 road cones on our tiny street in Chch for contractors to repair kerbs and minimal road repairs. 4 days and a weekend. Productivity is an issue in NZ. Lived in Sydney for nigh on 40 yrs with 13 yr stint in Asia. The comparison to Japan the most obvious and China....try Bangkok and you will be thankful for NZ roads.