That's not helped the commute

[lozcs]

There have been signs up for a while near me indicating road surface works.

Over half of the road of my 4 mile commute has now been "surface dressed"

The stuff is bloody awful, piles of loose chippings, bumpy horrible ride and currently 20mph limit being ignored by everyone throwing up stones all over the place.

Not impressed at all - was looking forward to a nice fast new smooth black road surface..

Also, to top it off when they continue the surfacing it will go directly past my house I'm sure the road noise will increase.

I'm sure I know the answer to this but what was wrong with tarmac??!!

 

[snorri]

Cost.

 

[lozcs]

Cost.

Exactly...

 

[videoman]

They have done and are in the process of carrying this mess out on what appears to be half of the roads in my area. They have even started on the main A34 which is a 70 mph dual carriageway. Speed camera van was not having much luck yesterday though.

 

[Kookas]

Are you sure that they aren't going to apply a new surface on top of the chippings? Can't see why they'd downgrade a surface like that.

 

[lozcs]

Are you sure that they aren't going to apply a new surface on top of the chippings? Can't see why they'd downgrade a surface like that.

No idea, a38 between m5 and Bromsgrove if anyone knows that stretch

 

[snorri]

There's lots of interesting() information available on the whys and wherefores of surface dressing.
http://www.highwaysmaintenance.com/sdtext.htm

 

[fossyant]

The local council did loads of surface dressing last summer - terrible. I even took alternative routes.

 

[PJ79LIZARD]

They've done this to few roads by me. Roads that are more rural and used by cyclist they used the roughest type of covering they could find I think. Cycling on it is hard going. Then when you get back to built up areas they'd resurfaced lovely smooth Tarmac like the taffys get

 

[boybiker]

They have done this in kent when they dug it up I thought great it will be resurfaced. They just dug it up and painted the white lines back on Its a growing trend unfortunately!

 

[BenM]

There's lots of interesting() information available on the whys and wherefores of surface dressing.
http://www.highwaysmaintenance.com/sdtext.htm

ummm thanks for that... where did my life just go? oh that's right I was looking at a website about surface dressing...

 

[Pieface]

It's because they use cars to flatten the road also opposed to using rollers so it can open up quicker and is cheaper. Then when the road has been flattened enough by cars they paint the white lines upon it.

 

[Hacienda71]

I just rode over Long Hill from Buxton to Whaley Bridge and they have top dressed it. The surface wasn't at all bad and as a cyclist all top dressing seems to do is hide potholes and greatly increases your chances of slipping/skidding. I have had a number of skids when I have hit a pile of stones/gravel that has accumulated after top dressing has taken place.

 

[MickeyBlueEyes]

Suffered the same on local roads around here a couple of months ago, nothing massively wrong with what was overdressed but I guessed new surfaces now in prep for winter. Was bloody awful to ride over for a while, up to a couple of weeks, but now it's not so bad. Nothing like lovely smooth tarmac though is there ......?

 

[Deleted member 1258]

They did a road by me last autumn, in the spring they had to redo it as it had broken up so much, they would have been better off doing the job properly in the first place, the road is on my commute and contains a 30mph descent and a 20 mph turn.