Author Name: Carribean Channel, Cuba TV.
This story was originally published on canalcaribe.ict.cu. [1]

Let´s talk about streets, their care and maintenance
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Today’s issue has a long history. And it is that many streets, avenues and interior roads suffer from a quality asphalt. And you could tell me, that the “quality” remains, because it is so much the absence of the asphalt that the first would motivate laughter.

But I would like to dwell on the privileged or “chosen” sections that realize that the effort was made to flatten a pothole: melt the heavy mixture composed of aggregates and asphaltic liquid, at 160 degrees Celsius, with a very high cost for the State, for the materials that are used and the specialized work force. And then see your results after two or three months. There is the problem.

In the visible slopes, in the underlying pothole that reappears, in the water that runs and breaks the work done, in the garbage container that overflows on all this and more. Then it is surprising to see how the asphalt run was NOT checked rigorously, how the technician present did not contemplate each of the phases of this process.

There begins a cycle of attrition over what happens there, due to the complaints of affected neighbors that result in a hygienic-environmental problem, because it is no longer a matter of Construction, Hydraulic Resources, or Communal, but of the government that is for all kinds of concerns and has its priorities.

It is urgent to give priority attention to the state of the roads; as well as taking care of the quality and periodic repair of the avenues of national interest and of other streets of maximum importance for the circulation of people and vehicles.

The growth of tourism clearly demands better roads and urban stretches. It is not enough with light patches.

It is necessary to study the terrain in all its complexity, with each one of the sectors that act on the road infrastructure.

Before and after. And that melted has the quality and execution necessary to make it durable. We know that there is obsolete equipment, with asphalt plants from the 50s of the last century, and with a raw material that sometimes does not have the expected quality. But many times you have the technology for it and the knowledge. The only thing missing is that the check-up at the work site is not part of the plans, when the possibility of diverting materials and other resources can re-visualize the hole that had already been discarded.

All the territories of the country have received an investment budget for their roads until the end of September 2018, according to data from the Ministry of Construction. Of the more than 455 million pesos allocated to the national engineering plan, more than 64 percent is destined for road works.

We could also say that the maintenance of the national highway shows progress, but we still have to recover very deteriorated sections.

For the repair of this road, 600 thousand tons of asphaltic mixture are required. This year 108 thousand tons were destined.

Which shows that the issue remains expensive for the country. We talk about streets, their care and maintenance, but many viewers, most of them elderly people write to us complaining about the holes in the sidewalks and that today they are a cause of traumas and accidents that are preventable for an increasingly aging population.

But it could well be the state of the sidewalks for a next comment.

(C) Cuba TV, Cuban state owned media.
[1] Url: https://www.canalcaribe.icrt.cu/en/we-talk-about-streets-their-care-and-maintenance/