Log In

Reset Password
BERMUDA | RSS PODCAST

Roads to ruin

When you see a country’s infrastructure starting to fall apart, it can tell you a lot about the state of their economy. Case in point, Bermuda’s roads. Heavens knows, our roads have been deteriorating for years and we’re not aware of any plans to repair them any time soon.I don’t think I’ve ever seen our streets in such bad shape as they are now. I suppose one of the main reasons, other than lack of funds to fix them, is that they are constantly digging them up.Not too long ago Queen Street was closed off for repaving. Then, within a week it was being dug up again! I mean, what’s the point?! After all that money is spent to make it a nice, smooth new road, they go ahead and tear it up shortly thereafter. However, it’s not so much the digging that seems to leave our roads in a bad state; it’s the shoddy workmanship when patching up the hole or the trench. Sometimes they leave the road worse than it was to begin with!As a bike rider I’m forever on the lookout for what I call the ‘mono track’. This is where they have trenched a two foot wide channel in the road for a pipe or something and have filled it back in about an inch lower than the rest of the road surface. When your front wheel hits this ‘mono lane’, you’re stuck in this gutter and to try and get out is not at all easy — one wrong turn and you will be kissing the asphalt.There are also other ‘victims’ that have fallen foul because of the shoddy state of our roads. Just the other day after a bit of shopping in a Hamilton supermarket, I placed my groceries carefully on the floor of my bike in front of me, making sure that the kid who packed my bags placed my eggs on top of the bag so as not to crush them. I only had a short trip down the road but unfortunately, after a few feet I hit a bump and my carefully placed eggs went flying and I ended up with roadside scrambled eggs — the whole dozen. Yet another casualty falls victim to our dilapidated streets.However, it’s not just pot holes or uneven roads that I have noticed. It’s a road that seems to be literally coming apart. Long cracks in the centre or at the edge of the road as if the footing underneath is starting to come away. Case in point, the bottom of Brighton Hill Road on the South Shore side, you can clearly see the road is beginning to sag again after they spent quite a lot of time fixing it a few years ago.Of course driving on some of our roads that resemble the ‘road to Baghdad’ doesn’t just take its toll on the driver and his/her produce, the vehicle is also take a beating, and what with less and less repair work being done on our roads, I fear that more and more of our money will be spent at the repair shop, buying new tyres, etc — not to mention all the sore rear ends …. and I’m not talking about my bike.But like anything else on this Island, nothing will be done until it’s too late for some poor soul who will meet with an awful accident or until we lose a GP car in one of these sink holes … of course, it could be a while before anyone notices they have disappeared.