Fill that hole

[AndyK]

Install it before you go out.
Instructions here:

https://www.fillthathole.org.uk/about/web-app

It should then be usable onsite without a network. I'm guessing the report is stored on the phone then uploaded when you're next connected to a network, but it'll be interesting to see.

My assumption is that the progressive web app will be cheaper and easier to maintain, as the same codebase will work on Android, iPhone or any web browser. And it'll be MySociety doing the maintenance, it's what they do, and they're good at it. And apparently progressive web apps generally take up less space than a "native" iOS or Android app.

I can't see means to give it Location Services permissions without granting such access to everything in Safari (all those web sites, 3rd party objects, etc. you don't want to give permission to.

So if it's just FixMyStreet why not use the FixMyStreet app - which you can give Location Services permissions to (without it being Safari wide), can report as Guest, etc. Why spend limited CUK resources providing a different UI to a system (with dedicated app) in effect cloning a perfectly good/superior system?

Ian

"National FixMyStreet app replaced with progressive web app" (4th May 2023)
https://www.societyworks.org/2023/05/04 ... e-web-app/

Can't comment on your Safari issue definitively as this is a proudly Apple-free household, but here in Chrome on Android I can select which websites I allow to have location info on an individual basis. The FTH progressive web app is still effectively a website, it's just one that's being stored locally for offline use. The first time I tapped on the "Use my location" button, Chrome asked me whether I wanted to allow FillThatHole access to my location info, as it would for any other website seeking that information. Does it not work like that in Safari?

The question of what to do with FillThatHole came up while I was a Cycling UK trustee back in 2020. The website and app were not being properly maintained and they needed either to spend substantial resources on updating it, or drop it. It happens I have a lot of relevant experience in this area, and my advice was to bin it - but if they had to keep having one, I suggested they talk to MySociety about providing a customised version of FixMyStreet for them. So three and a half years on, I'm sitting here looking smug. Cycling UK has chosen the least expensive, least resource-intensive and most effective way to continue having a FiilThatHole service. I'd rather they hadn't bothered at all, but there you go.

To be clear, FMS did it better and does it better than the old FTH - if by "it" we mean reporting and monitoring street scene problems of all sorts, not just potholes, and communicating them to councils.

But the primary purpose of FTH was different: it was a campaign tool, so that Cycling UK could point to the stats and say "Look! there are X thousand potholes being reported by cyclists and Y thousand cyclists were injured by them and Z thousand cyclists had their bikes damaged! It's a major national issue! And our stats show Bogcaster City Council is the worst!"

And that's why the customised FTH has those extra questions about whether you were injured or your bike was damaged. Not for ambulance-chasing lawyers, but because that's useful data for campaigning.

Apart from the extra questions and some different logos, links and text on the page, you're looking at FixMyStreet.

By contrast the purpose of FixMyStreet was always to force improvements in efficiency and openness onto local government by developing online services that citizens could use to report stuff. That's the ethos of MySociety generally: they're also responsible for WhatDoTheyKnow (freedom of information request management) and TheyWorkForYou (stats about your elected representatives). They're a charity that develops useful stuff then tries to get the public sector to use it.

[Tinkerbell]

So I read in the latest Cycle magazine that Fill That Hole had been relaunched. Good idea I thought as the WSCC app had been discontinued and the WSCC website is not great. Unfortunately the relaunched app won't work on my phone (it was built for an earlier version of Android).

What is going on at Cycling UK HQ?

[Psamathe]

...
The question of what to do with FillThatHole came up while I was a Cycling UK trustee back in 2020. The website and app were not being properly maintained and they needed either to spend substantial resources on updating it, or drop it. It happens I have a lot of relevant experience in this area, and my advice was to bin it - but if they had to keep having one, I suggested they talk to MySociety about providing a customised version of FixMyStreet for them. So three and a half years on, I'm sitting here looking smug. :-) Cycling UK has chosen the least expensive, least resource-intensive and most effective way to continue having a FiilThatHole service. I'd rather they hadn't bothered at all, but there you go.
...

CTC/CUK have only themselves to blame for the unnecessary demise of the previous (and superior) FillThatHole app. In the CTC days there were a few minor issues.bugs with the iPhone app and I was corresponding with CTC about them

Having had a long career in software development, largely in mobile software from pre SIBO, through EPOC, Symbian, Windows CE, Palm OS ... Android and iOS, for corporate clients and invariably involving back office systems to link to their eg warehouse systems, I offered to manage the app through to taking on all software development/maintenance on a volunteer/free basis (I am a "paid-up" Apple developer, etc.). Being retired it was something I had time to do and after my career something I was more than qualified to do.

I was thanked for my offer which was "being considered" but even getting to that point was like "wading through treacle". And eventually ... nothing happened, no responses, nothing about my offer.

Well you can't be more generous than I was being, and from the history of FillThatHole CTC/CUK had no other offers so it really made me wonder about the organisation (I was a member at the time).

I've done volunteering work with other organisations as they are so so different.

Ian

[MikeF]

Filling potholes is "sticking plaster". It should not be needed in the majority of cases - the road should be resurfaced so that potholes do not occur. In most cases noting the section of road that's failed should be what is reported, and not pinpointing the exact position of potholes. There are several reasons why potholes occur. Many are caused by utilities just back filling a trench and resurfacing the backfill, leaving the road with a mixture of surfacing and base that wears at different rates.

[rjb]

Thinking outside the box.

[mig]

Filling potholes is "sticking plaster". It should not be needed in the majority of cases - the road should be resurfaced so that potholes do not occur. In most cases noting the section of road that's failed should be what is reported, and not pinpointing the exact position of potholes. There are several reasons why potholes occur. Many are caused by utilities just back filling a trench and resurfacing the backfill, leaving the road with a mixture of surfacing and base that wears at different rates.

very much so. i have reported several potholes in recent weeks and they have been attended to. the problem being that it is usually in the order of "wellying in half a bucket of tarmac" and the hole re-appears sometimes in days especially when there is so much rain.

[mjr]

Filling potholes is "sticking plaster". It should not be needed in the majority of cases - the road should be resurfaced so that potholes do not occur.

The only way to stop potholes occurring is to ban motor vehicles and keep on top of drainage problems. They are now too heavy. Some local cycleways get resurfaced about once every 30 years and are generally OK, as it's only cycles plus the occasional maintenance and emergency vehicles on them. Unrestricted carriageways rarely make it 5 years before emergency patching starts.

[rjb]

here on the somerset levels several of our roads are beside the rivers Tone and Parrett. Due to the high rainfall this winter the river levels are above the road constrained by the adjacent bank. Its quite noticeable how the roads are awash with water being forced up from below and opening potholes up in the process. Theres no point in attempting to repair them until the river levels drop back to normal. Its only going to get worse with global warming. Theres even spurts of water spouting through cracks in the mortar. Ive thought about poking my finger in the dyke to stop it.

[JohnR]

Filling potholes is "sticking plaster". It should not be needed in the majority of cases - the road should be resurfaced so that potholes do not occur.

The only way to stop potholes occurring is to ban motor vehicles and keep on top of drainage problems. They are now too heavy. Some local cycleways get resurfaced about once every 30 years and are generally OK, as it's only cycles plus the occasional maintenance and emergency vehicles on them. Unrestricted carriageways rarely make it 5 years before emergency patching starts.

Current heavy vehicles (and agricultural equipment) quickly kill the roads that were never designed for them, particularly if the road foundation is wet (either high groundwater level or water leaking in through cracks and potholes). The fourth power law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law is a good starting place in terms of damaging effect. Does vehicle tax take account of this? It's a viscious circle problem as one reason people are migrating towards bigger, heavier cars is that they are less vulnerable to pothole damage. Nonetheless, one big lorry can cause as much damage as 10,000 SUVs.

I think the situation for minor roads is worsened by the relative cheap surface dressing ("spray and chip") falling out of favour although very effective for sealing cracks and adding some overall strength. Cycle tracks only need thin surfacing to provide enough strength to handle wheel loads but in areas with clay soil this means that they aren't strong enough to handle the seasonal swelling/shrinkage of the clay.

[mjr]

I think the situation for minor roads is worsened by the relative cheap surface dressing ("spray and chip") falling out of favour although very effective for sealing cracks and adding some overall strength.

Falling out of favour? About time! It's still widespread in Norfolk, but done so badly that it probably adds little life to the road, while being obnoxiously dangerous to bikes, alternating inches deep drifts of chips with patches of bare tar that will ruin a posh bike as it's either flung off the tyres or a chip stuck to the tyres scores the hell out of any low -clearance aero forks or stays.

[JohnR]

I think the situation for minor roads is worsened by the relative cheap surface dressing ("spray and chip") falling out of favour although very effective for sealing cracks and adding some overall strength.

Falling out of favour? About time! It's still widespread in Norfolk, but done so badly that it probably adds little life to the road, while being obnoxiously dangerous to bikes, alternating inches deep drifts of chips with patches of bare tar that will ruin a posh bike as it's either flung off the tyres or a chip stuck to the tyres scores the hell out of any low -clearance aero forks or stays.

Yes, surface dressing needs to be done in a timely manner once a road start to show signs of distress and is best avoided for a couple of weeks after the work is done. It's better than either nothing or a mixture of pothows and patches which seems to be the alternative for much of the road network.

My local highways people haven't figured out how to patch a pothole so that the top of the patch is flush with the surrounding road. Not enough of a step to upset a vehicle but can be uncomfortable on a bike. Highways inspectors should use bicycles for their inspections to get a better appreciation of the problems. It's also much easier on a bike to see where roads are cracking.

[Psamathe]

Yes, surface dressing needs to be done in a timely manner once a road start to show signs of distress and is best avoided for a couple of weeks after the work is done. It's better than either nothing or a mixture of pothows and patches which seems to be the alternative for much of the road network.
...

Some years back I stopped and was chatting to a crew (council sub-contractor Kier) and they were saying how surface dressing the road we were on was a complete waste of time but "Hey, profitable business and we get paid well". Many of the small single track "roads" round me apparently are not really roads atall but dirt tracks somebody laid a bit of tarmac over, no foundations.

And sure enough, as happens all over the place, within a mo nth of the surface dressing council were visiting to repair new potholes.

...
My local highways people haven't figured out how to patch a pothole so that the top of the patch is flush with the surrounding road. Not enough of a step to upset a vehicle but can be uncomfortable on a bike. Highways inspectors should use bicycles for their inspections to get a better appreciation of the problems. It's also much easier on a bike to see where roads are cracking.

Norfolk (or their sub-contractors) have some of those machines that automate a lot of the repair process and they do very good (flat) repairs. Unfortunately either they don't have enough of it's broken (or repossessed or som,ething) as we've just had a load of potholes repaired that are the more traditional mounds to be avoided on a cycle.

Ian

[Ron]

I don't use a smartphone and find Fix My Street https://www.fixmystreet.com/ does the job for me, it looks similar to the CUK site and my Council doesn't need photos. The big problem is getting my local council or the Trunk Road Authority to take any notice of complaints submitted, I have about 40 reports in the system awaiting action at present. Fly tipped items can take a year or more to get lifted, and signs reported as having badly rusted posts seem not to be dealt with until they fall over.
I enter positions from my GPS in Ord Survey Grid Ref or latitude and longitude format. Had a note from the council saying they would prefer the Three Word code method as they could not find the things that I had reported. I tried the 3 word method but found it laborious and will not use it again.

[fastpedaller]

I think the situation for minor roads is worsened by the relative cheap surface dressing ("spray and chip") falling out of favour although very effective for sealing cracks and adding some overall strength.

Falling out of favour? About time! It's still widespread in Norfolk, but done so badly that it probably adds little life to the road, while being obnoxiously dangerous to bikes, alternating inches deep drifts of chips with patches of bare tar that will ruin a posh bike as it's either flung off the tyres or a chip stuck to the tyres scores the hell out of any low -clearance aero forks or stays.

I live in Norfolk and although the road repairs (and delay to repair) aren't great ..... Cambridgeshire is in a different league! Our Daughter lives there and I've never encountered roads like it. Last year 80 reports on the Council website highlighting HUGE holes on one roundabout and the Council did nothing for several months. Two weeks ago we saw a road with 2ft deep holes in it (I kid ye not) and drivers heading into the other side of the road into oncoming traffic to avoid them. The Council's response "we filled a hole 4 weeks ago on that road - report closed! Unbelievably arrogant and dismissive Council staff.

[mjr]

Our border region means I have the delight of reporting faults to Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. They are all currently pretty awful and behind. Despite that, they all want to build more roads to fail to maintain, instead of moving to more efficient transport.