Some pics and screen shots from the Hogs, Cogs and Two Aussie Flogs Facebook page to remind us of what the concern is about. First two on the Melba Highway, and then some from the Marysville - Woods Point Road.
The management of the roads is poor on a number of levels:
- The condition - that's obvious.
- The time it takes for faults get any attention and then ultimately repaired.
- Even when repairs are implemented these are often poor, further work is then required, it's often a vicious circle
With resect to #2, VIC state legislation requires all road authorities (VicRoads and Councils) to have a road management plan (RMP). These set-out timeframes for inspections and surviellance, intervention levels for when faults on roads are identified, and grading system for faults.
It's a number of years since I was directly involved in road maintenance (the memory is fuzzy), but typically higher order roads have priority over minor roads, ie. frequency of inspections (weekly to yearly), how long for intervention to occur (4 hours to 3 months) and large potholes to small potholes (detailed definitions are in the RMP). In some circumstances it may be adequate for an initial intervention to simply be the deployment of advance warning and appropriate hazard signs, although this should only be temporary, ie. until repairs are implemented.
Apart from the obvious, this area is largely where VicRoads fas failed:
- Inspections are not as frequent as required, or if they are VicRoads' officers are not adeuately identifying and / or reporting faults.
- Advance warning and hazard signs are not installed as required.
- Repairs are not implemented as required.
Take the Melba Highway example, this failure did not occur overnight, it has taken many weeks, perhaps months to get to this stage. In my experience, this would have started as a minor fail, probably a minor crack in the seal or small pothole but due to not being reported and repaired, water seeps in, softens the base, more traffic, bigger crack or pothole, more water, soft base spreads, the failure spreads exponentially. A $500 repair is now a $50,000 repair.
Same with the Marysville - Woods Point Road which is a $500,000 repair. In the meantime. all of thsoe potholes and defects should have advance warning and signs, but they don't.
And both examples show repairs have failed, more repair and $$ required.
