Politics of potholes: why Bristol can't fix its broken roads overnight

Marsh Street in Bristol has a badly deteriorated tarmac surface with many cracks, patches, divots, and holes, including areas where multiple layers of road structure are exposed. The roughness makes travel difficult for cyclists, who carefully navigate through the city centre, and it creates an assault course for buses and cars as well. A bus driver notes that steering heavy vehicles over hollows and humps can harm drivers’ backs and wrists, and colleagues share information about particularly bad craters. Avoiding potholes is limited because swerving can conflict with oncoming traffic. The problem extends beyond Bristol, with the UK facing a pothole plague, including an RAC estimate of about a million potholes and a sharp rise in compensation claims for pothole damage.

"Marsh Street in the historic centre of Bristol is a modest little stretch of road with an office block at one end, a Thai restaurant at the other, and an almighty mess in between. Along its length of 200 metres or so, the tarmac surface of the road is pockmarked with many dozens of cracks, patches, divots and holes. In some spots where the surface has worn away, three or more layers of road structure are exposed beneath."

"What is a bouncy enough ride in a bus or car is even more of an assault course for cyclists, a number of whom weave carefully down its length as they cut through the city centre. I think it's quite ridiculous how bad it is, says Gary Gainey, nodding at the surface and as a Bristol bus driver, he is well acquainted with the bumpiest bits of its road network."

"Steering heavy vehicles over hollows and humps can play havoc with drivers' backs and wrists, Gainey says, and his colleagues swap intel when a particularly bad crater appears on one of their routes. It's not as if buses can swerve to avoid the hole, he says with a grin: The oncoming traffic doesn't really like that."

"Exactly how many holes there are in the country's roads depends on who's counting and how they define them, but the RAC reckons there are a million potholes in the UK's residential, city centre and rural roads, or six every mile. Its data backs up anecdotal evidence that things are getting a lot worse, quickly: compensation claims for pothole damage against UK local authorities rose by 90% in the three years to 2024."

Read at www.theguardian.com