More than 40 motorists laid complaints yesterday afternoon as tarseal lifted up for several kilometres of SH1 and stuck to tyres and chassis, forcing motorists off the road.
As one BFD member says: “It looks like the ‘Road to Zero Useable Roads’ plan is coming along swimmingly.”
The roads weren’t melting: the official temperature for the region yesterday was only 21 degrees.
What’s gone wrong? This article from April yields some clues.
Bitumen is considered a “strategic commodity” because NZTA and councils have no alternative for road building.
It has been entirely imported since early last year, after Marsden Point oil refinery stopped making 100,000-120,000t a year […]
Despite the acknowledged impact of bitumen prices on “NZ Inc”, NZTA refused to answer most of RNZ’s dozen questions about its changes to bitumen supply, and blanked out 50 of the 55 pages of the reports it released, mostly on the grounds of commercial sensitivity. […]
The national market for bitumen – about 190,000 tonnes a year – is worth more than $100m a year at recent global market prices of about $600 a tonne.
RNZ
Who bears the brunt of the cost for the damage to the cars?
Discuss it on The BFD.