How much are our potholes?

Driving on Ukrainian motor roads and highways is easier said than done. In some places the road is a mass of potholes, ruts, and cracked asphalt. Here driving is especially difficult and sometimes you have to stick to 20 km/hr.

In a word, our motor roads are badly in need of repair, and I mean quick and quality repair, for the way they patch up our roads can hardly be described as repair. These patches last for a day and then new potholes appear. Ukravtodor admits that this kind of repair is inefficient, but without it our roads would have long ago become impassable. Why are our roads in such a lamentable condition? Ukravtodor officials explain it by the lack of funds and an especially vicious winter.

Says Vadym Hurzhos, head of the Ukravtodor: “Last year the central budget was to allocate 14 billion hryvnias for road repairs and renovation, but because of the financial crisis we received only half the sum. Part of this money was spent to pay on international loans we received in 2008. This year’s budget appropriations amount to 10 billion hryvnias, including 3.7 billion for road renovation and five billion for major repairs. After this winter 70 percent of our roads, totaling 170,000 km, need major repairs. Repairing one kilometer of highway costs an average of 500,000, so such repairs require mind-boggling funds. We don’t have enough budget money, so we use foreign funds. We have already received more than three billion hryvnias worth of loans from international financial organizations.”

Ukravtodor promises to start with expressways as part of preparations for Euro-2012. When the weather gets warmer, repairs will begin on the highway between Boryspil and Lubny (some 126 km). Repairs are underway on the Kyiv-Chop highway, being financed jointly with the European Investment Bank. This project is tentatively estimated at 400 million. Works started in 2007 and are scheduled to be completed before the end of 2010.

“Over the years of independence we haven’t had a single opportunity of doing major road repairs. The roads, like motor vehicles, need maintenance, routine repairs every five years, and major repairs every 12 years. We are way behind this schedule. The scope of repairs has markedly narrowed in the past decade for want of funds, so our roads are in a state of physical deterioration,” continues Hurzhos.

Ukravtodor promises to start patching up the roads once the state budget has been adopted and the weather improves. Such repairs will be completed on expressways before May and on local motor roads before June. Vadym Hurzhos reassures the Ukrainian drivers that other countries have the same problems. Germany also lacks funds for road repairs after the winter, so they found an interesting solution to this problem. They offer residents to pay €€50 for a pothole and in return to impress the payer’s name on the asphalt (one is reminded of Hollywood Stars’ Alley). If we followed suit in Ukraine, our potholes would sell considerably cheaper, 200 hryvnias apiece. The big question is who would be willing to buy them. In Kharkiv, 2,000 motorists declared they won’t pay the transport tax until the roads are made adequate.

The Ukrainian capital city is not different from the regions in terms of quality of motor roads. Here 85 percent of roads are in a state of disrepair. The mayor’s office promised to allocate 101 million hryvnias, but this money will suffice for only 60 percent (with the total area amounting to 1,335,000 square meters), says Kyivavtodor’s chief engineer Vasyl Melnychenko. Despite meager funds, Kyivavtodor promises to patch up all of the city’s potholes before the end of May. In addition, this corporation plans to replace the upper layer of the road carpet on Kyiv’s main highways.

The Day’s correspondents studied the road condition and repair schedules in the regions.

CRIMEA: NOT READY FOR SUMMER

Most motor roads in the Crimea are actually expressways. Some of them are excellent, like the one leading to Simferopol Airport or part of the Kharkiv-Yalta highway. But there are also terrible roads in some urban areas, in the mountains, and between raions. Road construction experts are sure that the reason behind the low quality of Ukrainian highways is that in their construction world technologies were not followed to begin with, so they deteriorate much quicker and demand heavy funding. For example, by international standards the road carpet should be multilayered. On German autobahns it is 80-120 cm thick. In Ukraine it is half, one-third, or even one-fourth of that. The new Kyiv-Odesa expressway, although not all of it, is the only one that meets these standards. Kyiv roads and approach roads are comparatively good, whereas in other regions they are horrible because they were built using obsolete Soviet technologies.

The bypass highway at Simferopol is still being built. It has already absorbed 82.9 million hryvnias. Engineering protection was carried out in landslide risk areas on the south Crimean coast. Repairs worth 27.8 million hryvnias from the Crimean budget were done on municipally owned roads in populated areas. Repairs were done on 142 streets in 63 populated areas.

There is a direct connection between the quality of roads, motor vehicles’ depreciation, and road accident ratio. Statistics of the Shulhin State Road Construction Research Institute show that in 2005 the Crimea placed first by the number of traffic accidents on expressways. Starting in 2007, the ARC Motor Road Service has been implementing a comprehensive road development program. In the course of this program road accident hotbeds have been located, the reasons determined, and preventive measures taken. As a result, statistics of the State Traffic Control Directorate (DAI) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine show that in 2009 the number of road accidents in the ACR caused by inadequate road conditions nearly halved compared to 2008 and was one-tenth of the 2007 figure and one-twentieth of the 2006 index.

The Crimea is a special locality. During the resort season the traffic intensity rate goes up two to three times. Regrettably, the road maintenance authorities cannot afford to increase maintenance expenses by as many times, so the condition of some of the roads is getting from bad to worse. To solve this problem, even if partially, road maintenance authorities started using recycler-type road machines and the technology of regenerating the threadbare road carpet in 2007, particularly in the course of repairs on the Krasnoperekopsk-Simferopol

and Dzhankoi-Feodosia-Kerch expressways. Last year repairs started in Ukraine’s only Mt. Drakon Tunnel on the Yalta-Sevastopol expressway that hadn’t been touched since the time of construction.

Over 37 km of highways are in the landslide risk areas in the Crimea, especially the Simferopol-Yalta and Yalta-Sevastopol highways (70 percent of all landslide risk areas on the peninsula). Repairs in the aftermath of landslides are extremely expensive and time-consuming. Since 2007 10 such areas have been reinforced. In 2009 repairs were made in another 11 landslide risk areas, restoring Yalta Honcharna highway passage (it had remained impassable for 11 years). In the course of repairs the dry rotary drilling technique was applied that allowed to increase the efficiency rate fivefold.

DNIPROPETROVSK: THREE-QUARTERS OF ROADS IN ACCIDENT CONDITION

At present, three-quarters of Dnipropetrovsk roads are regarded as being in an accident condition. The municipal authorities explain the lamentable situation by the hard winter and say that the road repairs cost almost half a billion hryvnias. The residents, however, know that the problem of the roads has been there for decades. Every year large sums are spent on repairs, ranging from 50 to 150 million hryvnias, yet the roads of Dnipropetrovsk are way behind those of Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, and even some cities in Dnipropetrovsk oblast, like Kryvy Rih.

Experts in Kharkiv believe that major road repairs cost an average of 110 hryvnias per square meter, including all expenses, deliveries, and payroll. Patching up a road costs about the same if the total area is over 25 square meters. Considering that last year’s repair works cost Dnipropetrovsk 141 million hryvnias, the result should be 183 km of roads with an average width of 7 meters. Local statistics have it that in 2008 road repairs covered an area twice as large, so the length of the repaired road carpet should be one-third of the total length of the roads of Dnipropetrovsk. As it was, the costs of works done were often overstated — actually, by almost four times.

This arithmetic infuriates the Dnipropetrovsk City Council. Oleksii Samiilyk, deputy head of the municipal engineering department, declares that the above estimates are totally wrong. He explains that in the course of major repairs it is necessary to have not one but three layers of road carpet, for this is the set standard. Also, these estimates do not take into account the cost of repairs of storm water sewers, replacement of curbs, and other works. Samiilyk is sure that the problem of Dnipropetrovsk roads has become a target of political speculations. The City Council explains the quick deterioration of highways by the regular underfunding of roadway maintenance works. Last year they received roughly one half of the earmarked budget money, so they had to use bank loans to finance these works. Part of these loans are still to be paid. Wherever full scope major repairs were made — for example, on Chernyshevsky and Liebknecht Streets, the road carpet will last for 12 years, according to standard, and so far there have been no complaints.

Because of underfunding, they have to make do with routine repairs that are good for three years at the most. Frequent road repairs in Dnipropetrovsk are explained by the traffic which is much more intensive than in other cities. Being at the crossroads of numerous Ukrainian expressways, the streets of this megalopolis are jammed with transit motor vehicles, including large delivery trucks whose wheels gnaw at the asphalt. Dnipropetrovsk is also one of few Ukrainian cities without a bypass highway. Its two suburban bridges across the Dnipro were originally built without access to expressways and their broad ramps end up in old narrow streets that are as good as transport blind alleys.

The municipal authorities pinned big hopes on government support in the construction of a bypass highway for Euro-2012, but former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s promises remained on paper. This year the City Council intends to resort to extreme measures and bar passage through the city to heavy delivery trucks. This is expected to prolong the service life of the city roads for several years. Also, the CC is shortly to send envoys to the new president to frankly discuss with him changes to the budget policy. Under the existing one the Dnipropetrovsk budget is regularly relieved of funds that are channeled into problem regions, whereas this budget actually needs help. There is one thing, however, that puzzles the city public. Over the past four years the majority of the City Council members, led by the Party of Regions, have allotted hundreds of hectares of land without auctions, yet the municipal budget does not appear to have been replenished in any noticeable way.

MYKOLAIV-ODESA: DRIVERS REFUSE TO DRIVE

Winter-devastated roads started being repaired toward the end of February in Odesa, but outside the regional center the situation is much worse. Even among the unattractive suburban highways the one from Odesa to Mykolaiv stands out in its monstrosity, especially the 65 km section from the township of Kobleve to Mykolaiv. It is one of five important transport routes for Odesa, and it is even more important for Mykolaiv. In some places there are more potholes and ruts than asphalt. Lots of motor vehicles break down here every day, and sometimes such road accidents involve casualties. The total number of such accidents over the past two months surpasses last year’s statistics.

To keep their vehicles from breaking down, people drive in the wrong lane (there is no dividing strip) or on the side of the road. Another option is driving at 10-15 km/hr, or a detour using the Odesa-Kyiv expressway, but this means additional 15 km. A number of truck drivers refuse Mykolaiv-Odesa deliveries. Making a detour is too expensive, while using this highway you are almost sure to have a breakdown. The road maintenance authority in Mykolaiv (the most problematic part of this highway is within its jurisdiction) says this road can’t be closed for repairs.

Experts believe that the Odesa-Mykolaiv highway is a negative calling card of Ukraine’s transit potential.

“We talk so much about Ukraine’s inclusion in the European transport system and integration into the EU; there must be no such highways in principle, the more so in this direction, considering that this highway links Ukraine’s two largest seaports,” points out Yevhen Hevel, economist with the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

The Mykolaiv Oblast State Administration has requested that the Cabinet help finance road repairs. How much Kyiv will allocate and when is anyone’s guess. Drivers say that this highway will be repaired, sooner or later, or its will be abandoned, in which case the bypass highways between the two regional centers will be in exactly the same terrible condition.