Roadworks doomy arrgh rant rant

[simont]

What is it with Cambridge being in a perpetual state of being dug up and rebuilt? I've been noticeably inconvenienced by three different sets of roadworks in the past two days, just driving to and from work and going shopping in town. Before that there were others, and others still before that. Some months I get the strong feeling that it must have been ten years since my daily experience of Cambridge didn't involve any roadworks at all, and even that was only because I was a town-centre-based student who never had to go more than five minutes' walk in any direction from Trinity.

Are all cities like this, and I only notice it with Cambridge because I move around it a lot and so deal regularly with a large proportion of the potential roadwork sites? I suppose that's possible, but it doesn't seem likely to me. It feels much more as if Cambridge in particular is so flimsy that it has to be being perpetually repaired or it would fall apart completely.

Comments

[fanf]

IME most places have building going on most of the time. Building is particularly noticable - a building site is really messy and changes all the time, unlike its surroundings - so I suspect it seems to take up more space than it actually does.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"It feels much more as if Cambridge in particular is so flimsy that it has to be being perpetually repaired or it would fall apart completely."

They're probably adjusting the dimension of the space we're embedded in, or something.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Cambridge has quite a crappy road system for a city, so any significant roadworks seem more likely to have impact on a high number of road users.

For contrast, look at the Milton Keynes grid-road system, where people route around such inconveniences very easily.

I don't think Cambridge has much in the way of equal-cost alternative routes to most destinations, from my memories of driving and riding (a motorbike) there. There's usually only one obvious way to get somewhere.

[naath.livejournal.com]

From my knowledge of Cambridge there are generally zero good routes to take a car. It is part of the conspiracy to make everyone cycle.

[j4.livejournal.com]

If I were to draw a conclusion based on my admittedly small sample of three towns/cities I've lived in while old enough to notice such things as roadworks (Cambridge, Oxford, Loughborough), I would be forced to conclude that all cities are like this all the time.

It keeps road-menders and builders in business, I suppose.

[aiwendel.livejournal.com]

I remember when they dug up st andrews street (i think thats the name, the bit outside lloyds bank and boots)... had just finished putting it back together again, put all the paving back, and bing, a few months later it was all dug up again. Apparently the services - gas/water etc can't coordinate themselves to do jobs on the same tunnel at the same time, so they dig up the same bits separately instead.
bloody stupid...

as are things like this:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/casby/24537.html

[senji.livejournal.com]

The corner of Cambridge Road and High Street in Girton has been dug up three times while we've been here…

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I don't feel there was a lack of roadworks in Cambridge when I arrived in 1992, or ever since then. I mainly used to notice it in the summers when I stayed up, as a student - I presumed that they tried to keep work to a minimum during termtime.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Is it because it's built on what used to be a swamp?

[sheffers.livejournal.com]

It might just be cos it's tiny in comparison with other cities but still gets very heavily used, so they are as frequent as, say, London but you notice them more because they are not as spread out.

If that makes sense.

[mtbc100.livejournal.com]

A lot of construction is to be expected. There are a lot of roads, each of which deteriorates, and increasing amounts of traffic.

Columbus has a ring road. If there's not construction being done on it, it's scheduled to be done. Much of the time, OSU is doing construction somewhere on its campus: there's even a mailing list for updates.

crowding and construction

[joshdavis]

The problem is that people keep breeding, and most of the breeders are the idiots.

Though, if a smart person breeds, does that make them an idiot? Hrmmm