Jamaica’s pothole plague (pt I)

Potholes have become an emblem of frustration for Jamaicans, symbolising the chronic issues with the nation’s road infrastructure. Despite billions of Jamaican dollars being allocated to road construction and maintenance over the past decades, the poor state of the nation’s roads remains a persistent problem.

There is no doubt that the average commuter is observing the worse road conditions in living memory. A colleague at this year’s Jamaica Institution of Engineers’ annual dinner lamented that even in the time austerity in 1990s, the main road from Kingston to Westmoreland was maintained. Today, the trip from Norman Manley International Airport to Mannings Hill Road is an exercise in pothole dodging, once you get on to Sir Florizel Glasspole Highway.

Journalists, analysts and social media angels have not been blind to the pothole plague, either. Two Sundays ago, The Sunday Gleaner lamented, on the front page, about the impacts the adverse state of the roads was having on emergency vehicles. Travel times had increased, and police vehicles were being damaged. Meanwhile, Mark

Wignall remained hopeful - “ what I like about the PM laying out this programme is that we have his commitments…” There was the TikTok article in Tom’s Hope, Portland, with a freshly paved road surface folded like a black carpet last week. And the reality is that SPARK has less to do with national development than urgent road repairs of delayed maintenance. No major highways will be built to spark an economic paradigm shift, and less than six per cent of the road network will be addressed.

In this article I explore the root causes of this issue, assess the value for money from the National Works Agency (NWA), suggest the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in road maintenance, and propose a way forward.

Key points:

 Jamaicans are frustrated with pothole-ridden roads after spending billions of dollars.

 Good roads consist of layers of good material that are highly compacted, with drainage and fit for traffic loads.

 Potholes are mostly caused by water and weakened road base.

 NWA is underfunded. NWA receives about $6.6 billion, but requires $20 billion to $30 billion.

 It would take $100 billion to $200 billion to sustainably address the condition of the road network, or about four to five SPARK programmes.

 It is questionable if the public has received value for money with recurring expenses, lack of professional oversight and use of poor-quality material.

 The way forward must involve long-term planning, a PWD-style department, professional oversight, and extended warranty periods.

The persistent problem of potholes

Potholes are both a significant economic and safety issue. They damage vehicles, increase transportation costs, and contribute to road accidents and deaths. Potholes can even cause death by drowning, as was suspected in Ridge Pen, St Elizabeth, in October 2024. I think all of us were surprised to see the man lying prostrated in the huge pothole. And then there was a recent incident of the motorcyclist in Hanover who died swerving from a pothole in November. Potholes can kill. The National Road Safety Council (NRSCR) vice- chairman, Dr Lucien Jones, suggested that over 400 deaths can be expected in 2024. This is in keeping with an increasing trend of road fatalities. For the period 2014 to 2018, there were less than 360 road fatalities per year. However, that increased dramatically to an average of over 460 in the last four years (2020 to 2024), based on the NRSC data. Bad roads increased road fatalities.

You don’t have to ask too far to hear the stories of increased taxi fares or reduced taxi service owing to traversing bad roads.

On a recent trip from Duncans to Clarks Town, Trelawny a local tradesman and a number of tourism workers recounted that the taxi men had added $50 to each trip because of the deplorable state of the road. Indeed, the potholes made what was usually a five-minute drive become a 10- to-15-minute drive, requiring the maximum focus of the driver. There is no doubt that the roads islandwide are less safe, and that the cost of taxi fares, particularly in the rural areas, have increased.

What is good road construction?

Good road construction prioritises durable materials and construction methods. High-quality materials, such as crushed stone for bases and properly mixed asphalt, ensure structural strength when properly executed in construction.

Compaction of subgrade, sub-base, base and asphalt layers are critical to minimise voids and improve structural integrity and strength of the road under traffic loads. Compaction and grading must start from the subgrade. Weak spots in the subgrades must be reinforced or removed and properly compacted. Layers of properly graded 40-millimetre and 80-millimetre aggregates must be placed in thin layers and compacted to not less than 90 per cent of their maximum densities and tested to confirm compaction, before moving on to subsequent layers. Design for expected traffic loads prevents premature failure, especially under heavy vehicles. Robust drainage systems are critical to managing heavy rainfall, preventing erosion of the road, and flooding. Many construction technicians have a limited appreciation of the variability of material from quarries and often mistakenly assume that all material from a given quarry is good. This is not the case, as material quality often changes within a quarry. Routine testing of materials and workmanship is crucial for the roads to be sustainable. Skilled engineers, technicians, and proper machinery are essential for quality execution.

Maintenance plans involving routine inspections, patching, resurfacing, and drainage cleaning sustain road integrity over time. Roads must also account for challenges like hurricanes and traffic growth by using scalable designs and resilient materials. It is understandable why the older roads, constructed with firm, well-placed coarse gravel bases have stood the test of time. Good road construction leads to delayed potholes and slows deterioration rates by a factor of five (World Bank, Road Deterioration and Maintenance Effects, 1987). Poorly constructed roads do not last.

Causes of Potholes

Potholes are the result of depression or cracking in the road structure that fail. If cracks are caught early, the occurrence of potholes can be limited. There are several types of failures, but most are caused by water entering and weakening the road base, excessive traffic loads, poor construction and sub-standard material.

The major causes of Jamaica’s pothole pandemic are the lack of drainage and poor workmanship. I would place neglected maintenance as a secondary factor. Inadequate drainage exacerbates water infiltration and weakens the road structures. It is not fair to blame climate change for increasing road deterioration. Roads are supposed to be designed with drainage infrastructure to handle heavy rainfall from frequent storms and hurricanes. Unfortunately, less than 10 per cent of our roads have drainage infrastructure. This is in comparison to international and NWA guidelines that require drainage inlets every 110 metres. However, drainage typically costs as much as the road works. A project can therefore get twice as much road ‘repaired’ if the drainage works are minimised. The result is a weakened road structure without drainage. Properly supervised roadworks will last longer if drainage is put in place.

Low-quality materials and poor workmanship results in roads that fail prematurely in less than six to seven years. Very often we see road contractors using sub-standard crushed marl limestone to repair potholes. This in comparison to the ‘ballast’, or gravel material, we see in older roads that met the NWA standards. Very often the material is poorly compacted. Rarely will you see contractors ‘squaring’ the potholes to allow for good compaction or even the generous application of tack coats to ‘stick’ the asphalt to the compacted fill. The result is the ‘washing off’ of the asphalt during the next rains. Supervision and oversight are generally lacking.

Delayed and neglected maintenance is also another major reason for the pothole pandemic. Essentially, small cracks and ruts grow into large potholes. In 2015, the NWA spent over $27 million on the North Coast Highway, to great effect. Since 2015, the micro surfacing programme has not been as popular. The result is a widespread deterioration.

Not all potholes are the same. It is useful to think about the repair of potholes in the context of the type and causes of the failure in the road structure.

For example:

 Alligator cracking, caused by poor drainage, heavy traffic, improper construction.

 Reflection cracking, caused by layer movement due to moisture and ageing.

 Rutting, caused by insufficient thickness, weak asphalt, poor compaction, moisture.

 Longitudinal cracking causes fatigue, poor joint construction.

 Ravelling, caused by asphalt degradation, water intrusion.

 Edge cracking, caused by soil shrinkage, poor drainage, excessive traffic.

 Asphalt push and creep, caused by high traffic load, weak asphalt mix and base at intersections.

While good patching methods and drainage are key ingredients in road repairs and rehabilitation, the type of repair required should be evaluated by the engineer on site on a case-by-case basis.

Underfunded NWA

NWA is severely underfunded to carry out road maintenance by a factor of at least three to six times. This makes maintaining the high road density of Jamaica that more

challenging. Jamaica has over three times the global average of road network density, with 201 km of paved roads per 100 km (squared) in comparison to the global average of 64 km per 100 km (squared). Underfunding of the maintenance of the dense road network creates a vicious cycle of deterioration, rising costs, and negative socio-economic impacts.

NWA received an average of $6.6 billion annually in recurrent expenditure over the 10-year period 2013 to 2023 (JIS and MoFPS). This amount is minuscule when the estimated cost required for maintenance and rehabilitation for the 18,000 km of paved roads is considered.

Twenty billion dollars to $30 billion is required each year, based on the observed levels of deterioration of the road network for annual pothole rehabilitation, milling and repaving and rebuilding. A survey of past and present senior engineers of the NWA and PWD confirmed this estimated. This is three to five times what NWA receives annually. We can therefore sympathise with CEO of NWA E.G. Hunter, who in November 2020, said, “The NWA is grossly underfunded.” ( Gleaner).

- Dr. Christopher Burgess is a registered civil engineer specialising in public and private infrastructure projects across the region, with over 25 years of experience. He is the managing director of CEAC Solutions Co Ltd, an engineering firm. Keep an eye out for part II, ‘Value for money and the road to innovation’.