Our State Government has reminded Victorians to report potholes and other road safety issues. The Transport Victoria web site advises us to call 13 11 70 for urgent road hazards. For non-urgent matters such as faded line marking, small potholes, signage, vegetation and graffiti you can report these via their web site form on: https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/traffic-and-road-use/report-a-road-issue
For our local roads you can contact Council and they will confirm whether the road is theirs or a State road. Generally, highways and main roads are State responsibility these include Vincent Street North, King Street, Ballan Road, Trentham Road, Midland Highway (including Albert Street section) and Dean Road from Newlyn. Contact Council on 5348 2306, attend at their Duke Street office or go to their web site: https://www.hepburn.vic.gov.au/Council/Report-an-issue
There has been a lot of discussion and debate about the condition of our State and local roads in recent times. Higher rainfalls have been one of the reasons given. However, if you look at historical rainfall levels we have had some wetter periods and drier periods but not long-term excessively wetter years. This year we have had around 30% more rain in Daylesford for the first 6 months but last year it was well below average.
Vic Roads no longer exists as a semi-autonomous Road Authority. Vic Roads was dismantled several years ago and most of the roads expertise is gone. Part of the responsibilities now come under Regional Roads Victoria and much under Transport Victoria which is a mega entity responsible for transport generally.
With issues such as the pothole outside Coles, one contractor would have come to place the two Hazard signs out. They did not fill in the hole. Eventually another contractor came to do a temporary bitumen fill.
As seen in the photo, there is a very large section of pavement which has been cracking for months and is rapidly failing. Instead of just patching the large hole, a complete rebuild of that pavement is required, otherwise more of it will fail soon. On Wednesday morning I witnessed many cars swerving to avoid the pothole, including crossing onto the wrong side as did the car in the photo.
Vic Roads used to have a policy of “A Stitch in Time” where they would monitor road conditions and repair pavements such as this one before they had massive failure. That policy saved lots of money because a quick effective repair would normally cost a fraction of the cost being faced once a whole section deteriorated.
I am qualified as a Civil Engineer and discussed these issues with a former Vic Roads Engineer of more than 35 years experience. I can say that the problem is not that we have had a lot of rain, it is that roads such as this have been heading towards failure and the rainfalls just contributed to quicker failure. The cracks in the pavement are still letting in water and unless a complete rebuild occurs very soon, watch that corner.
On the Daylesford to Trentham Road I counted 31 potholes between the cemetery and Musk fire station corner. Apparently, the Trentham Road also has significant problems.
