I’ve been trying without success to rent a vehicle all week because business is good for the rental companies for the first time this summer in a long time. But they have good reasons to smile because the government is indirectly bringing business to the car rental companies, which after-all is not a bad thing.
Reason being?
Well, a lot of vehicles are in the garages or mechanic shops as a result of the horrible road conditions on island. From Roseau to Portsmouth is particularly a nightmare. Almost every day I see at least two vehicles changing tires along that route. Recently I had to visit my mechanic because a number of things are suddenly going wrong with my vehicle as a result of the deadly jerks it gets from dropping in numerous potholes.
I know a few friends whose vehicles are now parked up or are being repaired, therefore they have no alternative but to rent.
I do understand that the road rehab project is underway and in time we will have much better roads, but for Christ’s sake, can some patch work be done until this becomes a reality? There is no way to escape potholes anymore because they are taking over the roads. You swerve from one and drop right into another. These have and will continue to cause traffic accidents, frequent flat tires, and damaging cars.
Please government. Put aside a little money to do some patch work until the highway project is completed. I also call upon residents in communities where the roads are bad to come together and buy some marl or asphalt and do some work on the roads in their communities. Government alone can manage everything.
Work must begin now because it’s no longer fun driving on the roads of Dominica, neither for locals or tourists.
Frustrated
at last someone talk, & only now i realize during this summer i spent over 900 dollars just fixing my jeep!!! Every week something was going wrong on my vehicule, ask G&A enterprises in portsmouth why their truck overturn on Morne espanol & u will knw….
THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM IN D/CA. LUV THE PIC, SHOWED EVERYONE @ WORK LOL
…now that the buffoon responsible for roads has seen the tip of his nose and fixed the road through Cochrane for the attendant VIPS, perhaps he can explain why the upper stretch to Middleham Falls, and the houses on the ridge are still destroying vehicle undercarriages. They are impassable without a 4 wheel drive, and in the rain are simply dangerous.
When asked, the workers fixing the Cochrane upper stretch replied that they were told not to do any work there. It may not be a lot of houses but we pay taxes, vote, and the road is public.
If you are going to a village to repair roads, do all of them, not just those that are visible to your boss when he comes up for a visit. How can you be so short sighted. If you want photos, I’ll send them.
Our biggest problem with roads is the thickness of the wearing course (the asphalt surface), road drainage and strength and thickness of the underlying layers (poor compaction of subgrade and poor grading and compaction of sub-base and base layers). 50mm( 2 inches) of asphalt is suitable for a driveway not a road with significant axle loads, a proper road design usually requires at least 100-150mm (4-6 inches) of asphalt. Vehicles using the road cause wear and tear, and if the road is not designed to withstand these stresses it will eventually deteriorate, once the asphalt surface fails, the underlying layers quickly follow. Another thing is our people seem to not comprehend how to camber a road properly (slope it continuously to one or both sides), you always find indentations in the surface, where water collects and weakens the road!
Concrete roads also known as rigid pavements also require a solid base and subgrade, otherwise the road would still fail. Unfortunately we just cannot afford rigid pavements in Dominica. I just hope in the very near future our engineers will use the appropriate ESAL to design our roads. It is malpractice on the part of any engineer to specify 2 inches of wearing course for any major road.
u see, u cant jus keep patching up the road! and when they do it they do it bad. jus filling the holes is not the solution…they should break up the old road around it level it nicely and fill it. first, u just cant eat and drink on a vechile..and u have to have ur eyes open…is MISS ONE, FALL IN TWO…………MISTER FISHING DERE MAN!!! LOL…SO HOW THEY LET THE HOLE GET BIG SO NA?
New roads need to be built from scratch. this patching crap is not working. real engineers are needed. not the illiterate fools that are just using a roller and putting tarish! What a waste of money!
Dominica is just backward in all standards!
roads in dominica are being dammaged very quickly not cause the road base is made from compacted sand ( which it is not ) or because it is not made from a concrete base the reason it is being coroaded so quickly is because the tarmarc upper layer of the road is to thin if u lok at the loubiere point miclel road the tarmarc layer there is approx 4 times thicker than alot of other areas on the island and is constructed from a tarish base the road is al cambered ( leant to one side) so that rain water does not settle in any depression on the road surface where it can cause problems the key to building long lasting roads in my buitiful island is to thicken the layer of tarmarc on the road surface and also to camber the road so it drains easilly
oh if u all wondering how come si know about roads its cause im an engineer with the british army and we construct hundreds of miles of bomb proof road in afghanistan a year where we use a sand base to suport the road
signed a combat engineer with the british army loving native of dominica
@Patriot:
Thanks!! Are our local people certify to built road at that level?
What do you think?
you so right, now that we are in the planing for Creole festival and Independence celebration. and I know that alot of visitors come in to the Island. so lets please start working on the roads.
Titiwee please oh bondier people doh fish titiweeee with rod……LMAO, i just love that picture. Then again de humour done, all yoou doh see them chinesse working……
1lb red fish plzzzzzzzzzzzzz
@no concrete roads:
u have no ideal what you are talking about.. this is the type of roads that are being built world wide in big countries like canda the us and china. They may put asphalt on top of it but a special concrete is the way to go. Believe it or not i have seen far worst roads in other countries in the United States.
One pound of macquio please,if no more macquio i will take balaww….
I am in total agreement with the writer, and a number of the views posted here!!! First of all the Rental Agencies too will feel the pain sooner or later. I drove on the road to the East often enough, and a few weeks ago some of these pot-holes were deep enough that you could use a ladder to get down into one, funny enough I was driving from the roundabout and I saw this sing “Slow Down, Asphalt Laying Ahead” so I was excited and saying to myself wow, finally had a big laugh, then got angry when I saw it was a road crew, filling the holes with “salaman” or what the call “rough tarish” and rolling it with a Roller, how long this is going to last? You tell me but if you drive down to the East you will see for yourself!
The Jimmit-Warner Road was closed for about 3 months, ok I understand that there was some equipment issues and whatever, but not only did they do some limited re-surfacing, all the waste material were bulldozed to the side and eventually blocking the drains, now we are in the hurricane season, that means rain, since there are no drains for the water to run, it does so on the “limited” re-surfacing that was done, how long will this last, you tell me in fact there are pot-holes from the end leading from Jimmit!
Let us go back in time, this area of road in Canefield, just around the “roundabout maze” close to NAPA, they would repair with asphalt and no sooner done, it was gone (man am rhyming), because of the volume of water that came down from the SAG Motors area, anyway if I recall correctly, in the late 80s’ the Queen of England (or one of them) had to visit and they actually concreted that little part of the road and to this day it is still there. So based on our rainfall in Dominica, it might be benefiting, not to the spare parts dealers but to the users of the road if our roads were concrete, of course am no Engineer or Expert in any of this (Just Another Guy On The Street), but wisdom would suggest if it worked in Canefield, where I mentioned it just might work else in Dominica.
Finally there is no way 1/2″ thick asphalt will last on our roads, not with the great number of vehicles we now have in Dominica, worst is the patching, here and there like a “hop-scotch”, back in the day the guys used a can to pour colass after there prepared the holes for patching, today they are very conservative and meticulous in that they use a “paint brush” to apply it and then they patch. I recall being in Trinidad a number of years now, and the they were doing a piece of road applying 6″ of asphalt (concrete) on the surface, of course I expect persons to comment that Trinidad practically has the thing pouring our of the ground, so they can afford to lay it so thick! Well we practically have Stone, Sand and Water pouring out of the ground, all we need is Steel and Cement.
@or: Yeah that person have no idea what they are talking about. Most of the roads in Dominica(constructed years ago) are of compacted sand base. That’s the reason they damage so easily. A concrete base gives the road greater structural integrity to withstand the weight of todays traffic. That’s the standard used in road construction all over the world. But that concrete mix must also be engineered correctly.
It’s funny no too long ago I was watching a program on a new highway construction in the US. Every batch of concrete mix is tested upon arrival on the road construction site . If it does not meet specifications it is rejected. Also it has to be applied with the right amount of water. If for some reason there is a delay in applying the concrete and it looses moisture while sitting, it is returned.
I do understand the story and i can feel the writers pain for many
reasons. because it rains so freqently in Dominica the water
has an effect on the road and that causes the problem
But it is disgusting to find ur self ‘dodging’ the pot holes
all the time, during the process a car can be coming and it can cause
accidents..So these pot holes are very unsafe for visitors and the citizen
of the country. Patching the roads is a temporary fix.
Eh potholes are in all countries, .Hope those that pose danger to people will
be fixed
If a picture paints a thousand words! I nominate this one PICTURE OF THE YEAR!i Please submit to TIME magazine.
For any road asphalt or concrete some key things to consider is good drainage beneath the pavement, with proper compaction, and the proper thickness of the asphalt.
Heavy truck loads are the biggest killer to any roadway – one truck passing a single time on a road will cause as much damage as over 10 000 cars passing. The thin sheets of asphalt on a lot of dominica roadways are way inadequate. Hope with the sharp increase in D/ca that we can build better roads.
It’s a disgrace to see how the relevant authorities are maintaining the roads. Adequate drainage is needed along a number of our roads in order to reduce the impact of water undermining the road foundation. The regular and deep potholes are beginning to make the road look as if it has come under a barrage of missile strikes.
@no concrete roads: Dont you know that concrete roads last longer and are more durable than the tarred roads? Please do some research before making comments as stupid as this one
@no concrete roads:
What material should be used Mr Engineer?
do we need to go back to the days of horse and donkey until the roads are finished? people stop and slow down why are we always in a hurry?
Like that picture.
i so agree i but the thing is that when the vehicle is in shop you do even have to money to buy them parts that gone bad much less to pay the man that fix it lord please we crying fix them roads
please stop building concrete roads.
funny picture