Thappraya Road Mess

[PattayaOneTeam]

Pattaya Focus on….

How to Build A Road (Part 3)

Drainage and Obstructions

Let's assume you have now built your road, avoiding the silliest of mistakes, and you now want to consider your drainage options, which SHOULD have been done properly when the road was being planned and built. But let's say it wasn't.

And, for the sake of argument, let's look at some examples from a randomly-selected road in Pattaya - say Thappraya Road, a paragon of road-building prowess. But there are a few tiny, almost imperceptible things to be put right on it, so let's use them, although I don't want you to think I am knocking that long-standing road project.

Sufficient drainage is needed for any road. That should be obvious, right? And if you build a road in the tropics, you need a lot of drainage for heavy rain. Again, obvious.

If the road is on a sharp gradient, you need even more drainage to stop surface water running down the road, damaging the road surface, causing flooding at the bottom and mayhem and inconvenience to users and adjacent owners. Right?

Not installing ANY drainage on the central reservation of a large road on a gradient going downhill in the tropics, and relying only on inadequate, poorly-built, already-clogged grates in the gutters of one side, and stone-filled cattle grids across the road, would be a triumph of under-spending over common sense.

Surely that would never happen here.

And of course, this being a road, a dangerous place at the best of times, it would be far better if it was kept clear of life-threatening obstructions built INTO the road. Apart from potholes the size of World War 1 bomb craters, hapless motorcyclists and vehicles need to be on their guard not to hit anything such as the water hydrant (pictured), especially at night.

Next Edition: Traffic Lights and Pavements

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-- Pattaya One 2010-11-05