Side road resurfacing

Looking at the unmarred country roads round here, the short answer is 'no longer than anywhere else'

Potholes galore.

I read, a long time ago, that the type of road surface tended to be a reflection of the state of the economy: concrete - economy poor; tarmac - economy good. (I remember when the A50 Uttoxeter bypass was built towards Stoke on Trent, within a few weeks of opening a local village (somewhere near Checkley) erected signs on it complaining of the traffic noise from the concrete road surface.)

I'm sure there was a time when the powers that be accepted that the noise from busy concrete roads was unacceptable, and gave dates for their replacement. Seems like they then moved on and forgot about it.

Chris

The concrete can be stroked with a wire brush before it's set but wears smooth quickly.

Grooves can be made before the concrete sets but makes a noise. If the grooves are pseudo-random a white noise is produced but it's still noisy. I think there was a place where the grooves were made that played a tune. (Brushing was used near residential districts to reduce the noise.)

Once the concrete wears smooth it's hard to restore the texture so they usually just cover it with asphalt.

The expansion joints are actually called contraction joints on "proper" roads like motorways, as they are produced while the concrete sets and contracts, with strips of wood underneath and on top to start the crack so the joint is rough. The strips on top are removed and the joint sealed with bitumen. There are also steel rods in cardboard tubes to stop the slabs from tilting.

Concrete motorway carriageways are made in one go with a "concrete train" which is impressive to watch.

Here endeth the lesson.

I used to live in a road (a cul de sac) with a mini-M1 type concrete slabs surface. It looked fabulous.

Then a statutory authority dug a trench right along one side and re-surfaced with tarmac. The result was absolutely *hideous*.

Following our complaints, the council eventually got them to come back (or send someone who knew what they were doing) to reinstate the surface of the trench with concrete as similar to the original as possible. It looked better than the asphalt patch.

The part of the M6 between the A449 and the A5 was originally surfaced in concrete. Then after you'd braved the A5, the bit of the M1 south of A6 Luton Airport was all concrete, including the once-infamous Watford

I'm sure that's correct.

No. I don't think there ever was a concrete-paved section there. There used to be some further up around Lancaster.

That famously happened on the MI soon after the opening of the original seventy-mile stretch in 1959.

Most of which has had to be rebuilt because of subsidence.

Locally rumoured that the hoggin used, taken from this farm by Redland Aggregates, was too sandy!

Also A45 Coventry bypass. First time I hit it in my 105E Anglia I thought the arse end had fallen out.

Well, a "tune" of sorts: southbound on the original concrete surface of M1 between A6 (Luton) and A5 (Markyate).

I think we can safely regard the original wearing surface(s) as well and truly worn.

Harry Bloomfield, Esq. was thinking very hard :

All done now, they finished it all off around 500 yards, during the course of last week, at around 100 yards completed per day. Just the speed bumps and yellow lines to be reinstated now. The only seemed to work half days, mornings only. A massive double manned, tracked machine, pushing a tipper lorry with the bulk of the hot tarmac on it. Closely followed by a vibrating roller. So around six weeks, start to surface finished.

The revealed concrete slab sub-surface had completely broken up in several places, down to the soil - I'm surprised they didn't clean them out and lay a new concrete sub-surface, before tarmac.

Even though that may have been sensible to extend the life of the newly laid tarmac possibly not what they had been contracted for. Not my job!

Until now

This?

Content free drivel. What have The Beatles got to do with it?

They don't explain precisely what is the matter with concrete motorways of how they will be replaced.

They're difficult to maintain apart from covering them with a layer of asphalt. Is that what they will do?

Laying asphalt over existing concrete slabs is rather a compromise as the slabs will expand with heat or break up as noted. I don't know what they do now, but they used to lay bitmac and asphalt on crushed limestone chippings or lean mix concrete, which are reasonably flexible.