Le Cahier Bleu

Saving money with sticky chips

Une fois encore, la ville de Wellington a opte pour le chemin le moins cher pour l'entretien de ses routes, en remplacant des portions au revetement d'asphalte a priori operationel, par un revetement bruyant et friable. C'est le traitement qu'a subit Totara Road, pres de chez nous, et aussi celui qu'avait subi Seatoun Heights Road il y a quelques annees.

Le 14 Février 2020 - Tags: opinion, scoop


Sometimes, presents come from unexpected people. Sometimes, you would rather do without those presents. Take Totara Road in Miramar: it seemed fine, with a nice asphalt covering, but it needed to be resealed because accountants said it had exceeded its lifecycle. So over the summer holidays, the Wellington City Council resealed three sections of it. But instead of resealing using asphalt, the council went with “chip seal”.

What is chip seal (or cheap seal)? It’s a coarse, stony, sticky gum, that creates roads only one level above a gravel road, which leaves stones running freely for months, and is significantly (by three-folds) noisier than asphalt, not only for road users, but more importantly for residents living next to it.

Since it wasn’t the first time we’d noticed a road had been administratively sabotaged in such a fashion, we decided to contact the council to enquire why a road that seemed fine had been punished like this. Here was its response:

Totara Road was sealed a couple of weeks ago. The previous seal on Totara Road had exceeded its life cycle and was showing signs of failure. One of the reasons why we chip seal is that it gives the pavement a good waterproof layer which asphalt fails to provide. The other reason is asphalt way expensive than chipseal. We are required to reseal as much of our network as possible every year with the budget we have available. Choosing asphalt because it provides a smooth surface is really not a feasible option. Chipseal was the best option for the road. All road works are complete on the road but may require some sweeping. Contractors are responsible for picking up loose chips from channel, driveway or footpath after sealing. You can always raise a query about loose chips (if any) lying around and I can send the contractor to pick it up.

It must be said our enquiry contained concerns about the effect of the stones on cars (some even made it into our house!), about the extra noise, and overall, a certain unease that our city roads would, ultimately, all be converted to sub-standard and overall lower quality.

It made us wonder if it was a good strategy to maintain our shared asset with band-aids.

After all, we’ve seen recently what under-funding does to, say, waste water pipes over time.

Why do we run after white elephants (some call them vanity projects) when we can’t even do the basics right? Is that an appropriate strategy when our city is growing? Or to set a budget knowing the next generation will end up with a more expensive bill?

- Benoit -