MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

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  GeoffWard2

  The problem isn't 'public or private',
  though this conditions the revenue and cost variables,
  it's the quality of the build itself. This is fundimental, and a serious weakness. This was understood 2000 years ago when the Romans built roads.
  
  Though the Brasilian motorways do suffer from land slides and frequently huge sections of motorway slide into valleys, the major problems are with the medium sized roads of the type that 'sustain' populations the whole world over.
  In Brasil these roads are commonly 'an inch or so of tarmac spread directly onto the sand/subsoil'.
  Thus, every year, potholes break up the road by the million - typically as deep as a car axle, full of rain water for a lot of the 'rainy season' and frequently marked by a tree branch placed in the hole. A road can look like an avenue of saplings and traffic weaves around and across the road in a sometimes deadly game of two-way-dodgems. Playing the game in the dusk/dark when pedestrians, bicycles, donkey carts and frequently motorbikes chose to travel against the flow of traffic (they consider it safer to see the oncoming traffic rather than to be hit up the rear) and you have a recipe for the clogged-chaos that hundreds of thousands of Brasilian feeder-roads have become.
  
  Essential:
  Road contour drainage and roadside drainage.
  Road sub-basement capable of retaining its integrity when constantly traveresed by 44 tonne axleweight trucks.
  High-grade impermeable road surfaces with visible, logical lanes and other road-surface markings.
  Raised road edgings and continuous pedestrian pavements maintained to 'road standard' in urban areas and
  reinforced road edgings in rural areas, especially where the 'hard-shoulder' is at risk of erosion and wash-away.
  etc,
  etc.
  
  Yes, there is a huge need to bring road infrastructures, road build, maintenance, and buried/aerial roadside utility services up to first world standard.
  Whatever it takes, public and private.

  Feb 24th, 2012 - 11:17 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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• 

  ChrisR

  1 GeoffWard2
  
  It must be a LatAm problem. Here in Uruguay I was amazed how the local A & B class roads are constructed in the way you describe, with much the same results.
  
  However, for us there is a ray of hope: elections this year! One of my Urugauyo friends has told me that 'all the potholes will be filled in soon'.
  
  This is so the present incumbents of the Intendencia will be able to claim that 'they are looking after your interests'. Doesn't fool too many people.

  Feb 26th, 2012 - 09:29 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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