This is a significant acknowledgement of the AA’s long-requested additional funding for road maintenance throughout the country. Over the next three years, Northland will get a 58 per cent or $55 million increase in funding over and above the current allocation for local road maintenance. That is a pretty good start. The dollar increase is exceeded only by Auckland and Waikato and tends towards a realistic recognition of the parlous state of our local roads.
Sheeting this back to potholes is a fascinating play on our emotions.
Potholes are caused by too much rain, not enough drainage and heavy traffic use. Traffic causes cracking in the road surface, the increased water gets through into the base material, inadequate drainage does not let it get away, and the hole fills with water. With further usage and more water, the pothole gets bigger. The road becomes a source of annoyance and danger to vehicles and people.
Potholes cause damage to tyres and rims, suspensions, wheel alignment and windscreens. Vehicles, particularly motorcycles, risk losing control if they hit a pothole, and people swerving or braking to avoid them can create a dangerous situation.
But, according to Victoria University of Wellington psychology professor Marc Wilson, potholes are a kind of everyday annoyance that sticks particularly in our minds, and we pay more attention to immediate annoyances than future ones.
“When we’re feeling more pessimistic overall, facing climate change, high inflation, high interest rates, cost of living crisis, and gloominess about Covid hanging around, we’re more likely to focus on minor annoyances and find them more annoying,” Wilson says. “Potholes highlight how hard it is for us to think about times and places beyond ourselves.”
So, good one Simeon Brown. A symptom of our national malaise is expressed in a proliferation of potholes in our roads. A white knight comes charging in with a “Pothole Prevention Fund”. We hope to see the results in better roads, increased productivity and an improved driving experience. Our spirits are lifted and we can finally see light at the end of the tunnel.
But talking in metaphors is one thing; doing something about the potholes is another. Experts say there are three options in pothole repair: pothole patching, mill patching and dig-out patching. All involve road cones, stop/go people, temporary traffic management and people working on the road. The chosen method depends on the size of the pothole and how long you want the repair to last.
JCB Construction has a new machine called the Pothole Pro, which will do most of the manual jobs in 15 per cent of the time, with fewer people involved and a better outcome. It can cut, clean and crop the area around the pothole and get it ready for repair in around eight minutes, and it drives itself to the job. The most obvious price I could get at the time of writing was £165,000.
That’s about $300,000. The national agent said he would get back to me on that. But there’s certainly an opportunity for some enterprising contractors. The pothole province could become a potholeless paradise.
The minister’s announcement is a most welcome start to that.
