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-   -   Pune Mumbai Expressway rapid deterioration (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/56989-pune-mumbai-expressway-rapid-deterioration.html)

I am sure all car lovers love this road but of late I have noticed the road is deteriorating alarmingly rapidly, especially the fast lane. IRB is supposed to maintain this road for 10 years and then hand it back to the government but they are clearly just doing basic stuff hoping to last out the 10 years. Knowing how easily things are compromised here they will probably get way with it too. At this rate it will be a huge potholed crater when the government gets it back.

The fast lane is becoming too bumpy, and one to to wonder about the quality of engineering by L&T and Jog Engineering, surely they have to be held to account. And the patchwork repairs IRB keep on doing adds to the bumps, making the surface even more uneven and bumpy.

Aside what is the life of these cement expressways and what are the maintenance standards that are followed internationally. There must be a way to maintain it at least to the standards it was originally built .

Continuing on the rant surely trucks must be checked before getting on highways, how can trucks with no lights at the back and at the moment over 80% of them have zero visibility at the rear be allowed to compromise everyone's safety on highways.

lol, but this company's pretty much been financially in the dumps for quite some time no? loan restructured and all that?

What is the reason? Failure in the plans or failure while executing them(ie. building the road)

Another failure in the infrastructure of this country.
Funny how we are such a big market but have pathetic roads. :)

I usually drive back to Pune from Mumbai during late nights. The situation is HORRIBLE to say the least during nights. The highway is full of trucks - with and without tail lights and the entire ghat section of lonavla crawls to death during these hours.

The highway is in a mess - though the toll keeps rising every year or two.

just two days back i was travelling from my native place towards mumbai, the fast lane was very poorly marked because of some repair work. i was doing around 130km/hr. thank god for the 100/90 bulbs, or else i would have driven straight into disaster.:Frustrati

which co jog or irb?

lucky you.next time drive responsibly at 80kmph

In complete contrast, the Bangalore bypass, which begins where the Expressway ends on the Pune side, has been recently re-tarred.

The bypass is now spectacularly smooth and well-paved, with very little variation in the vertical direction ... which makes any car ride on it ultra-smoothly.

Wonder why the Expressway can't get a tar layer of the same quality.

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

Yup, that re-layering was done pretty fast and now its smooth as butter. But since the expressway is already uneven all over the place I wonder how effective a simple re-layering will be. You will need more major re-engineering to get it smooth.

Since the toll has been raised regularly and is now Rs 140 for cars and given the traffic density money is not the problem, willingness to maintain it well is. At this rate its matter of a couple more years and then there will be the usual but short-lived brouhaha by media and other publicity seekers and motorists will be left to deal with the consequences.

Ahmedabad-baroda express way is in much better shape than the mumbai pune

As of now, The Middle Lane is the best lane to Drive really really quick on. Unless you are overtaking. Also, has anyone noticed the exoressway getting a little bouncy nowadays?

@Cyrus43, my humble submission is that it's been this bouncy for a while now ... at least, since I started driving it regularly (nearly weekly) from 2006 onwards.

If one is used to properly paved highways (e.g. from other countries, or other parts of India), then the Expressway always was some ways behind, from the point of view of bounciness.

It's all about how well the contractor can control the leveling of the surface when laying the concrete.

Having said that, I would say that the concrete has worn pretty decently, given that it sees a fair bit of both heavy and light vehicle traffic all year round for quite a few years now.

The ghat (parts of it shared with the old Bom-Pune road) is another story, however.

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

Thats really sad, this was one of my favorite roads.

Something very similar happens every year near my office(BPT road - Sewri) Each year they spend 6 months building the road, with inferior quality materials. Then you have deterioration in no time, come 3 months later, they're rebuilding the road again. Its like if the road is actually top notch, the construction company will go out of business because they wont have anything to do!

Very simply, we lack a maintenance culture. We expect things to look after themselves and last forever without any effort on our part.

Its not just the roads, its everything about our country.

Zahir, that's not the case. when companies bid for these contracts, they agree to a maintenance period [typically 10-15 years] during which they have to maintain the road on their own.
it's either that or a Build Operate Transfer [BOT] arrangement where the contractor bears the entire cost and collects fee from users.
toll should not be paid if the road is not upto standard. but sadly, this 'standard' is inversely proportional to the bribe paid by contractors.
as individuals, nobody would have the time to protest but I guess 50 or so people refusing to pay toll and blockading the booths should serve as a nice wake up call to these idiots.