Name(s):
Broken surfaces of streets and roads
Unrepaired roads
Roadway pot-holes
Postponement of street repair
County-based street repair
Piecemeal paving plans
Incidence
Developing countries need to spend as much as $45 billion to rebuild roads fallen into disrepair through lack of maintenance. Over the past ten years, roads in many developing countries have been allowed to deteriorate beyond the point where noraml maintenance could be effective. Traffic loading has been much heavier than intended, and maintenance has been widely neglected. Funds budgeted for highways have been mostly absorbed in expanding rather than in maintaining the network. Extra costs due to inadequate road maintenance chiefly involve spending foreign exchange on spare parts, fuel and vehicle replacement.
Claim
The worldwide road-building boom of the 1960s and 1970s threatens to become the road-maintenance crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.