Many of Jeddah's motorists and their passengers experience a nauseous feeling where it counts the most as they navigate through our city's streets — in their guts and buffeting pain in their behinds. And no matter how sophisticated the suspension systems in their vehicles, our city's roads are bad enough to rattle the soundest of riders and nerves. And just why is that? Why is it that our roads remain akin to some found in the least developed places on earth? I mean roads one finds in countries whose annual GNP would barely fill basic survival needs. While we are more fortunate in this regard, we could easily compete for and most likely win the laurels for the worst urban roads on the planet. Streets and roads filled with potholes that boast of mini-craters and uneven patchwork in road resurfacing posing a nightmare to any vehicle litter this fine city. And it just doesn't seem to get any better. After almost five decades, a sewage project that has left some unscrupulous officials very rich but the rest of us wanting, has succeeded in destroying our roads as one after another contracting company has taken on the challenge of trying to install a sewage network. The grand project was in the interest and for the welfare of the city's residents, but what appeared to the eye was the fiscal progress of the road contracting companies. What is happening is a continuing adventure in road destruction by supposedly professional contracting companies. And unless a city inspector is blind or closely related to these road repair companies, I cannot for the life of me understand how such shoddy work is being signed off on by the city's inspectors as acceptable. But what is the point of incessant complaints if one is not prepared to offer a solution? Perhaps these inspectors are not aware of the proper methods of road recovery. To help them and the contracting companies involved with such projects, I contacted civil engineering associates at the King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in Dhahran to come up with a few pointers to set these people in the right direction. The quickest way to repave a roadway is through the "mill-and-fill approach". This approach dramatically reduces the amount of time a street or road needs to be closed as a work zone with all of the related traffic diversions and delays. Milling machines should grind out the worn-out asphalt, and then transfer the material to a haul truck for delivery back to the asphalt plant for recycling into new mixes. Much of the grade and slope is restored as part of this process. Meanwhile, immediately behind the milling machine, pavers can replace the removed material with fresh mix and have it compacted by heavy rollers and turned back over to traffic in a very short period of time. The advantages of this process are the short construction time, restoration of grade and slope and ability to reuse the milled up asphalt. Unquestionably, the mill-and-fill technique for road restoration is one of the great advantages of paving with hot mix asphalt. In another method, the process of reconstruction of road pavements can be carried out by the hot recycling process, which is very suitable for deformed and uneven road surfaces. First of all, the existing asphalt surface is gently heated up to about 120-150°C with multiple infrared radiators, which are fueled with propane gas. This allows for it to be reshaped and, if needed, aggregates added to it, such as stone chips, bitumen, etc., completely using all of the material present. Treated surfaces can be opened up again to unrestricted traffic within a very short amount of time. Depending on requirements and the roadwork situation, different procedural methods for restoration and surface reinforcement are applied. Once in place, heavy rollers run over for a lasting finish. So if you are out there road contractors and city inspectors, wake up and take notice. We offer these tips freely and in the hope that the turbulence in our bellies and the soreness in our behinds will finally begin to ease up. The author can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena
