Our roads are falling apart...London...

[NicholasP]

Guys can anyone tell me what the roads are like out of London? I'm hoping that they're better than in London. Ignoring congestion and rogue cyclists, and 21 year olds with BMWs, and the occasional crazy white van...the actual road surface on a majority of London's roads is appauling...

I live in south west london in Barnes..It's a nice quiet area but one of the main roads in it is simply to die over. Pothole after bump..after dip...after pothole. Its a nightmare driving down it

Wherever I drive in London, im always dodging bumps, and holes and cracks in the road. I've noticed it has got alot worse recently and I know the governemnt is aware of it due to numerous complaints from the public..but is there a brighter future for our roads?

Or is it just going to get worse...

[MalcQV]

I think it is just getting worse. We have I understand one of the poorest quality roads in Europe.

If you read road tests on cars in magazines they normally mention that "The car tested well in Europe, but lets see how it does on the UK roads".

Just heard we are to get congestion charging in Manchester by 2011. They are apparently going to improve the public transport first

[Marc97]

Just goes to show that all the tax we pay as car users DOESN'T go back into road maintenance, all it does is pay for wars we have nothing to do with!!!!

As for the congestion charge in Manchester, saw that in Thursdays paper Malc and I would imagine they would have to fix the roads as well as our poor public transport. Can you imagine thousands of fully loaded double decker buses weighing god knows how many tonnes on Oldham road every day.
They's spend more time with the road closed because they'd have to keep repairing it due to the extra pressure on the surface. Someone hasn't really thought this through!!!!

[MalcQV]

Marc,
You should read this if you have not already - http://www.manchestereveningnews.co....harge_due.html

They are going to extend the Metrolink, not sure how it helps me though.

Download the pdf and just look at the "corridors". Are we going to be charged to use them in both directions? They will charge to use the main routes, therefore the motorways will be even more chocca!

I live not far from the A580, soon as I hit that I will pay! I hope the public transport is going to be good

[Marc97]

It all makes my blood boil mate. I watched the video and as they were filming at the metrolink station, an announcement came over saying there would be delays due to a broken down tram!
They go on about lost costs in production due to traffic jams, just wait until a few trams or buses break down and a couple of thousand people miss a full mornings work rather than just half an hour or so because of a jam.

As I said, they won't be able to cope with the extra passengers, I don't think they realise how big of a brain dead idea this is.

Register your car to a dead person, that will stop you being liable as since they brought out all the new laws about V5 documents etc, they now say that a vehicle is the responsibility of the recorded keeper, not neccessarily the current keeper or user!!!!

I could rant forever about this, the best thing that could happen to me if/when this comes in is that someone cuts my legs off, I don't drive because I need to, I drive because I want to and I love driving. Now its gonna cost even more (as if that was morally possible) to do something I enjoy!

[MalcQV]

Well it is early days yet, so lets see how it pans out. From what I understand the London congestion charges are done differently?

Anyone care to comment on the London congestion charges?