Those crazy Dutch guys...

[Globalti]

That's a sign of a wealthy and civilised country!

 

[MisterStan]

[QUOTE 2244265, member: 259"]They use return pipes from district heating systems to heat football pitches (not sure about Uppsala) and pavements. It would be very wasteful to use a heat pump to do that, surely?[/quote]
You're probably right Mort, the heat pump bit was what someone else told me. I was watching them put the pipes in under the paving slabs.

 

[ArDee]

Yebbut British roads are mostly squeezed into narrow corridors in towns and cities or between banks or walls or hedges or on hillsides whereas Dutch roads are correctly laid out with plenty of space for a separate cycleway alongside. Don't ask me the historical reason why theirs are so much better; all I know is that in the British context things didn't begin to improve until turnpike roads, which are generally wider and better engineered.

The main problem with British Roads is pressure groups; vehicle and transport industry only getting what they want not joined up thinking of the needs of the country as a whole; and years of neglect by consecutive governments of all parties; as road building costs a lot and takes longer than their 5 years in government to complete and hence they won't get the kudos, the next bunch will.

 

[Globalti]

It's called short-termism and in one post you've put your finger on the biggest reason for underdevelopment in most of Afica, except that there a politician may only have a six month lifespan, hence the scramble to loot as much as possible and the almost complete lack of public electricity or water supplies in many African cities.

 

[ArDee]

We can also probably add our special friends, the Americans, into the picture of U.K's Roads woes with their sudden and unexpected termination of the Lend-Lease agreement on 29 August 1945 and the need to negotiate the Anglo-American Loan Agreement - which leant money to the UK; but, limited what it could be spent only on the UK's external commitments, buying food from other countries. It could not be used to support the incoming labour parties domestic health reforms (the national health system), re-develop the road system or the rail system. Hence, the UK fell behind it's European counterparts who had these system re-built for them more or less free of charge after WW2.

 

[Globalti]

Interesting stuff. But going back to the question of geography, consider this: Dutch road builders have almost no need at all to deal with the vertical dimension thanks to the flatness of most of the terrain. They also enjoy a soft even silty soil, which must make road building easier. We, by contrast, live in a country where significant industrial development (hence need for roads) took place in hilly areas thanks to the availability of water power, minerals and coal and the history of British road building is littered with stories of epic bridges, cuttings, embankments, landslips, subsoils and peats, not to mention the need to build roads up and down hills where only pack horse trails existed. The most recent epic major road is the M62 over the Pennines where several metres of wet peat had to be removed at huge expense in order to find a solid footing. Imagine how much that motorway must have cost compared to the same distance in Holland.