IN THE COMING months, the Ministry of Works and Transport will embark on a mammoth task of rebuilding collapsing roads throughout the country, some of which are threatening to cut off access to communities.
After two years of reduced maintenance and road works owing to the focus to combat the spread of covid19, the network of roads felt the full wrath of devastating floods, landslides and shifting soils.
The Manzanilla/Mayaro Road, which links Sangre Grande to Mayaro, had to be closed off to a constant rush of water from the Nariva Swamp leaving large chunks of asphalt unearthed in several areas. Other villagers in north, east, central and south Trinidad protested after major road linkages in their areas became near impassable.
Sunday Newsday reached out to experts in the field of civil engineering, and planning to explore some of the solutions to the recurring problem which, if deployed, will save taxpayers in the long run.
Engineering consultant Adesh Surujnath suggested that one of the first steps was to determine the remaining life of the road by using either the Benkelman Beam Test or Falling Weight Deflectometer Test; both devices are used to evaluate pavements and pavement layer stiffness, before determining the appropriate repair strategy – reconstruct entirely, mill and add a layer or asphalt or even patch the existing pothole.
Surujnath believes that road engineers are not making that initial assessment before repaving roads.
"You do not see a proper survey being done on the road. How the road failed should indicate what the repair strategy should be in that location. You may have to do an asphalt patch, you may have to dig out the foundation and put back in all the different layers and then the asphalt, but you have to do a proper survey on the road, and from what I have seen in the repairs, I am not seeing that being done. It is not evident to me," Surujnath said.
Another major factor, he said, was inadequate drainage or failure to maintain roadside drains which was critical to not allow water to saturate the layers of the road foundation and depending on the soil type it can result in a pothole or worse, shifting of the road.
[caption id="attachment_990386" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A section of the Manzanilla/Mayaro Road which was destroyed by the constant flow of water from the Nariva Swamp. - ROGER JACOB[/caption]
He said the use of weighbrigdes can check whether trucks, often overloaded with aggregate, are carrying the loads for which they are licensed and this can help reduce damage to the road network.
Civil engineer Dr Don Samuel recommended that the ministry prioritise the implementation of sustainable engineering solutions to landslips and floods which have negatively impacted the nation’s roads.
He too identified landslips and floods as the root causes of repeated road failure and said if these issues are not addressed urgently then any road repairs would be both uneconomical and futile. The required maintenance regime must include annual inspections of roads, br
