Brick road making machine

[Matty F]

Wouldn't the road be a bit bumpy?

[Nightjar]

As with all roads, it depends upon the quality of the subsurface. Concrete and brick pavers are quite common in Europe, especially where there is a need to have a good appearance and / or to mark areas with restricted access or lower speed limits.

This is Westgate in Chichester, West Sussex, which has no special restrictions, but is in a conservation area. The local authority have removed the kerbs and given the road a brick paver surface, possibly in an attempt to discourage traffic by making it look like a pedestrianised area. The bollards are a later addition. Originally there was nothing except a visual difference to mark the pavements, but they found that didn't work very well.

Colin Bignell

[polygonum]

A number of years ago the council laid broad bands of such pavers at both ends of a nearby village where the 30mph limit starts/stops. I'd guess something like ten metres.

Over the years quite a number of the pavers have disappeared - I imagine vehicles travelling too fast with effectively sticky tyres have lifted them. So now it is a mess to pavers and tarmac replaced bits. Bit perfectly OK to drive over at the appropriate speed.

(The fact the 30mph speed limit at one end of the village was later made contiguous with that of the nearby town, making the second band entirely superfluous, meant that one of them was entirely wasted money, is not a comment of their practicality.)

[Nick]

"Matty F" wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

I saw this being done in 2006 on a brownfield site. Land cleared and then stabilised using a Wirtgen, similar to something here:

Site thoroughly rolled with Bomags. Left for a week to settle. Gradients pre-formed and kerbs pre-installed.. Then hundreds of tons of sand were delivered by tipper. The labour intensive bit. About thirty, obviously skilled, men spent some days on their knees spreading this sand evenly & uniformly over the entire surface. Then it was again left to settle for a couple of days and rolled. Along comes a little machine which starts to lay block paviors in a double herringbone design. Each pass was 3m wide using 200x 100x 80mm thick blocks. Along comes several lorries each containing several pallets of blocks. Each pallet weighs 1.5t. Blocks are unceremoniously lobbed into a hopper at back of little machine. Machine sorts them and lays them. Little machine covered nearly 4 hectares in one day. Cutting & fitting of blocks to trim the edges took a few days. A light scattering of sand over all. Whole site then rolled for the final time and swept. I've seen worse bowling greens. The result is nigh on perfect and after 7 years not a solitary block has been displaced, other than where the kerbing has been damaged by negligence. I use it almost daily and it gets heavy traffic. Good luck, Nick.