How much does a road cost?

[lamboman100]

Didn't Top Gear build a ~1-mile road in about a day for about 50 quid and a few free beers.

[Martin4x4]

CoolHands said:

what completely insane prices, there's no way it's justifiable. No wonder we have st roads.

We have crap roads because while fuel tax revenue alone raises 50 Billion a year only 2 Billion a year is spent on maintenance.

[CoolHands]

blueg33 said:

Our current rate for a 4.5 metre wide estate road with one 1.5m footpath and 1 service strip, including drainage but excluding streetlight columns is just shy of £400 per linear metre.

so approx £400,000 per km whereas sleep envy quotes £1million per mile for public B road

there you go

[Puddenchucker]

There was a stretch of the A149 in Norfolk (narrow rural A-road) surface dresssed a few weeks ago.

£48,000 for 1.7 miles.

[sleep envy]

CoolHands said:

blueg33 said:

Our current rate for a 4.5 metre wide estate road with one 1.5m footpath and 1 service strip, including drainage but excluding streetlight columns is just shy of £400 per linear metre.

so approx £400,000 per km whereas sleep envy quotes £1million per mile for public B road

there you go

Rather than try and pick holes try and understand that there's a big difference between an estate road with one footpath and a public highway which will have a higher specification to accept HGVs etc together with street lighting, bell mouths, street furniture and the like.

Aside from your poor attempts at pot shotting you still haven't explained how you'd cut cost as you appear to have all the answer but aren't willing to share. I'm waiting with baited breath.

[Hasbeen]

Well a bit of planning might help.

We recently saw our council spend 5 days assembling all their road plant to repair a country main road T intersection, damaged in a recent flood. This would have been a state government contract as it is a state owned main road.

They spent about 6 weeks rebuilding 150 meters of the stem, & 300 meters of the top of the T. That done they took a week to move all the plant off to it's next job.

Damn me if they didn't spend another week just 2 months later assembling the whole plant to do another 300 meters on one arm of the T. That took a couple of weeks, & the week long removal was repeated.

Would you believe just a month later the whole performance was repeated to resurface about 3 hundred meters of a minor side road, adjacent to the T intersection.

I reckon they got about 2 weeks work, for every week spent relocating the plant.

On the other hand, they do that top dressing of minor roads everyone is complaining about here too. About every 6 or 7 years they give them a spray of bitumen & gravel. The engineer reckons that if they do this regularly the roads will last much longer.

It does appear to work. My road has been done every 7 years, & is still in excellent condition after about 30 years of moderate farm traffic. It is noisy though. I can tell which neighbor is coming by their tyre noise, when they are still a few hundred of meters away.

So can my daughters cat. It is waiting at the front gate just before her car comes into sight.

[blueg33]

sleep envy said:

CoolHands said:

blueg33 said:

Our current rate for a 4.5 metre wide estate road with one 1.5m footpath and 1 service strip, including drainage but excluding streetlight columns is just shy of £400 per linear metre.

so approx £400,000 per km whereas sleep envy quotes £1million per mile for public B road

there you go

Rather than try and pick holes try and understand that there's a big difference between an estate road with one footpath and a public highway which will have a higher specification to accept HGVs etc together with street lighting, bell mouths, street furniture and the like.

Aside from your poor attempts at pot shotting you still haven't explained how you'd cut cost as you appear to have all the answer but aren't willing to share. I'm waiting with baited breath.

As sleep envy says the difference is pretty big between an estate road and a trunk road.

I recall paying for a dual carriageway junction on one development about 15 years ago, IIRC it cost us about £18m As a private developer we try and keep costs to a minimum.

Roads are expensive

[Puddenchucker]

The proposed Norwich Northern Distributor Road - basically approx. 12 miles of dual carriageway bypass is currently estimated to cost £148.55m (approx £12.5 million per mile, including junctions etc).

[RammyMP]

I've recently been involved in a resurfacing project near Chester. It was £1m to plane off and resurface one mile of a main road but that included renewing a lot of the kerbs too.

[alangtt]

RammyMP said:

I've recently been involved in a resurfacing project near Chester. It was £1m to plane off and resurface one mile of a main road but that included renewing a lot of the kerbs too.

Bridges road Stanlow??

[iloveboost]

CoolHands said:

<conspiracy theory coming up> Personally I think there is something dodgy about government / big construction industries. I live in London and am continually astounded by the constant revisions to road layouts / pedestrian crossings / kerbs / traffic islands that takes place. I've noticed it for well over the last 10 years, to the extent where it is obviously ridiculous. First they will install some bumpy paving stones for the 0.5% blind population, then come back a year later and widen the footpath, then come back a year later and install a traffic island while reducing the width of the footpath, then come back and alter the shape of the road so busses block anyone from passing them while at the bustop etc.

And who pays for all this....

You're being paranoid. In the USA I know some government contractors have been linked to some government politicians either directly or indirectly so they profit in some way but I've not heard of that type of corruption in this country.

I think we have a good government overall my own main concern is I feel that the private funding of politicians and governments to stay or get into office inherently means a direct political influence from the individuals who funded them. That's the biggest problem I think.

We could go to a system of election whereby a pool of people are independently selected based on experience/skills and after passing a series of tests/checks are asked whether they want to work for the government whilst being paid whatever they earn now plus an inflationary increase each year. Then there's a vote with each candidates pay, experience, skills and manifesto promoted by a fair campaign funded by a central pool of money. It's probably the fairest way and you could also vote people out not just in.

The problem with criticising a working system is that you have to think of a better system to replace it.

Edited by iloveboost on Saturday 5th July 14:05

[sleep envy]

iloveboost said:

The problem with criticising a working system is that you have to think of a better system to replace it.

Which is beyond ClammyHand's capacity.

[toerag]

it seems it very much depends on which council is involved and how much they purchase their hammers for.

[slipstream 1985]

Everyone on this thread has missed the real question the op was asking. He was secretly asking what the cost of laying a racetrack on his grounds but calling it a driveway

[1878]

slipstream 1985 said:

Everyone on this thread has missed the real question the op was asking. He was secretly asking what the cost of laying a racetrack on his grounds but calling it a driveway

[Thankyou4calling]

Many say how rubbish our roads are and of course in an entire country there are going to be some.

But taking into consideration surfaces, signs, safety features, drainage, visibility, and more I'd say our roads are pretty good and way better than say Americas.

[lamboman100]

iloveboost said:

CoolHands said:

<conspiracy theory coming up> Personally I think there is something dodgy about government / big construction industries. I live in London and am continually astounded by the constant revisions to road layouts / pedestrian crossings / kerbs / traffic islands that takes place. I've noticed it for well over the last 10 years, to the extent where it is obviously ridiculous. First they will install some bumpy paving stones for the 0.5% blind population, then come back a year later and widen the footpath, then come back a year later and install a traffic island while reducing the width of the footpath, then come back and alter the shape of the road so busses block anyone from passing them while at the bustop etc.

And who pays for all this....

You're being paranoid. In the USA I know some government contractors have been linked to some government politicians either directly or indirectly so they profit in some way but I've not heard of that type of corruption in this country.

I think we have a good government overall my own main concern is I feel that the private funding of politicians and governments to stay or get into office inherently means a direct political influence from the individuals who funded them. That's the biggest problem I think.

We could go to a system of election whereby a pool of people are independently selected based on experience/skills and after passing a series of tests/checks are asked whether they want to work for the government whilst being paid whatever they earn now plus an inflationary increase each year. Then there's a vote with each candidates pay, experience, skills and manifesto promoted by a fair campaign funded by a central pool of money. It's probably the fairest way and you could also vote people out not just in.

The problem with criticising a working system is that you have to think of a better system to replace it.

Edited by iloveboost on Saturday 5th July 14:05

I know someone who bought himself a nice home from the proceeds of fastfood and traffic light "incentives"

[rsv gone!]

blueg33 said:

sleep envy said:

CoolHands said:

blueg33 said:

Our current rate for a 4.5 metre wide estate road with one 1.5m footpath and 1 service strip, including drainage but excluding streetlight columns is just shy of £400 per linear metre.

so approx £400,000 per km whereas sleep envy quotes £1million per mile for public B road

there you go

Rather than try and pick holes try and understand that there's a big difference between an estate road with one footpath and a public highway which will have a higher specification to accept HGVs etc together with street lighting, bell mouths, street furniture and the like.

Aside from your poor attempts at pot shotting you still haven't explained how you'd cut cost as you appear to have all the answer but aren't willing to share. I'm waiting with baited breath.

As sleep envy says the difference is pretty big between an estate road and a trunk road.

I recall paying for a dual carriageway junction on one development about 15 years ago, IIRC it cost us about £18m As a private developer we try and keep costs to a minimum.

Roads are expensive

Not to mention that there are 1.6 kilometres in a mile.

[Super Slo Mo]

And not to mention that the estate road is only just over half the width of the B road quoted.

Seems to me like the B road is pretty good value for money.

[RammyMP]

alangtt said:

RammyMP said:

I've recently been involved in a resurfacing project near Chester. It was £1m to plane off and resurface one mile of a main road but that included renewing a lot of the kerbs too.

Bridges road Stanlow??

Newbridge Road