Landscape : Curbing the Curbs 2

Road curbs, when wrongly placed, or poorly maintained, literally curb the rainwater from flowing away from the road, thus keeping the rainwater on the road surface.  When curbs defeated its purpose, road become streams of waterway.

Not only the scupper/discharge drains are not sufficient to direct the water to storm drain, they are clogged with sands and vegetation as well.   Over time, sand and earth form vehicles accumulate at the road edge. Yet, instead of sweeping the sand away, they were dumped on the road shoulders.

It does not need an civil engineer or a town planner to realize that the curb is not serving its purpose.

Obviously, there are other reasons.  I can imagine some :

1. incompetent architects designed the road.  They are either ill-equipped with the knowledge, or with ill-intention ;

2. deceitful contractors cut corners in doing their sloppy work ;

3. cheating maintenance contractors not doing their job ;

4. corrupt government officials closed one of their eyes ;
5. damaged of pipes by third-party contractor ;

6. and yes, we could blame the weather : it rains too much !

Or, we can just do away the curbs.   For new projects, level down the road shoulders so that rain water can flow freely to the storm drain.  That should settle the problem once and for all.

However, for the existing problematic curbs, either spend a perennial sum to maintain and repair the drains, or spend a lump sum to level down the shoulders.  Of course, the government can always find whoever created the mess, and make them pay.  



Just in case, for those who don't know how's the look of a road without curbs, check out the photo below.