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Road Surface Degradation

Can an engineer with experience in this field explain to me and my readers why our roads got ruined after the rain last week? In Lebanon and London, for example, it rains a lot but the roads survive, how come they didn’t in Kuwait after just a weekend of rain?

Also, why did some roads survive and some not? You can see that clearly on the Gulf Road where you would be driving and the road is perfectly fine but then get to one area where the whole top surface had disintegrated.

129 replies on “Road Surface Degradation”

What’s even worse is that the material on the road surface is a byproduct of petroleum, and Kuwait being a huge player in this field, this quality of the road surface is so bad!

You have countries who import oil and have much better roads

Not an expert here – in India we face similar issues when it rains

Apparently two of the factors that affect this are:
1. the type of gravel
2. weight of the road roller used for pressing the road

Looking forward to some more knowledgeable inputs though

Hi,

Not sure which part of India you’re from but the quality of roads in India (overall quality, not the current condition) is a lot better than that of Kuwait.
India experiences a lot of rain every year, a lot lot more than what Kuwait experienced during the weekend but Indian roads tend to survive those.
I’ve seen roads being laid in Indian highways and it takes a lot more work than in Kuwait where it’s basically spread tar and run the road roller (from what I’ve seen).

I agree with Ashraf. Not ALL indian roads become like this. Some here and there do, but the majority roads, even after torrential rains, stay good.

I should have mentioned that, my apologies.

Referring to the roads of Mumbai.

The are terrible within the first couple of rain showers. They break within the first week of rainfall.

I’m from Mumbai and have spent a lot of time living there. I haven’t seen the roads falling apart with the first sight of rain in Mumbai.
The roads are in terrible condition due to non maintenance and negligence. If the authorities acted there in time like they do for Bandra worli sea link, there would be nothing to complain.

The main roads of India is laid by putting up a foundation of around 3 foot thick concrete first and then spreading tar over it.

Mid Day was covering the pot holes in Mumbai extensively this year and in 2017 as well.

Here is one of their articles this year:

https://www.mid-day.com/articles/mumbai-potholes-decoded-heres-why-they-keep-reappearing/19647182

When I was there during my vacation they opened a new fly over in Goregaon and I remember that too was riddled with pot holes. And that was with a couple of days rainfall.

The roads have been bad in the suburbs since a long time. The situation is different in South Mumbai though, where the roads are a lot better and well maintained.

The 3 foot thick concrete does nothing in keeping the road in good condition. It is just a foundation. The tarmac spread over it starts to come apart when it rains.

civil engineer here, however the answer is not necessarily engineering related. The problem is due to the cheap materials we use here in Kuwait. Some roads survive because the material used on those roads are of better quality but generally, the materials we use are crap and result in disintegrated roads after an unusual rainfall.

This it purely engineering related.
Water weakens asphalt. Specially when in contact for long time. Of course asphalt can be strengthened. Now why the roads here are crap?

Rains everyday from where I’m from in Florida and we pave new roads every 15 or so years because of the contractual mandate to use top quality material at a minimum thickness of 8”. Kuwait contractors uses the cheapest material available and only repair the roads with a maximum asphalt depth of 2”.

Reasons are due to contract selling meaning, a major company will win the paving contract then sell it to a smaller company for a percentage of the contract value. The smaller contractor will then do the same. It’s rinse and repeat until the job is done.

and that’s the reason why Kuwait looks like it doze. Example, the Gulf road landscape contractor, who the frak is in charge???

Hi fellow Floridian. I’m so happy to see someone knowledgeable chromed in here from my home state, where yes in fact it rains so much at least in Miami it does. Also the amount of hurricanes we see season after season and only once in my 37 years of life did I ever see floods like the ones I saw here in the past few weeks. I AM.not an engineer and frankly I don’t think it takes one to see clearly that there is a misuse of funds in public works. But who to complain too, or let me guess is that the foreigners fault too? Next thing we know foreigners will be blamed for the poor quality if the roads😂Governement officials in charge of infrastructure need to carefully study their budget and investigate any mishandling.

Kuwaiti Civil Engineer above is example of the Engineers I gave earlier.

Civil engineer says the road quality is not an Engineering issue… . … then what is it? A software problem? Is it an artitique problem? Is it a Kuwiati mentality problem? What is the issue ? I am sure it is not a culinary issue.

My guess is that it is an engineering related issue.

I rest my case.

TBH I get the sarcasm, but a lot will read your comment and fully agree and be serious about the conclusion.

Sad.

The funny thing here is that the expats all have better roads in their countries, Kuwait seriously needs to fix this embarrassing problem because it should never have happened and cannot seem to find our way out of this.

I totally agree with Faisal, Vampire, and ALex. In my modest experience of 25 years in Contracting , the problem is of Several Parts:
(1) Those who are in charge within the Ministry of Public works has chosen to build a short lived infrastructure, which means there isn’t a proper consolidated underground sub-structure to cater for (Heavy Rain fall, Sand storms and dirt, and cabling (Tunnels) and Proper Sewage Lines. Why? because if they did, then our infrastructure would last for 10’s of years = no more tenders = no more bribes = no more under the table money for those employees to make = no gain for them = disaster for us

(2) The contractors use the lowest quality materials so that the roads get serviced every six months or so (legitimate stealing of our national wealth) all contractors are unethical , and (they pay their way to win the contracts and if they don’t pay they use bad materials), so it is a (loose- loose) situation. The supervisory personnel from our side are corrupt and unethical, I can name a few, but lets not go there.

(3) Since Kuwait is a small country Concert is a much better option, since properly constructed concrete based roads last up to 40 years with no or minimum servicing, whilst asphalt based roads can only last 10 years if done properly which is not our case of course

(4) The best option is to use a cocktail of a bitumen + concert paving methodology to get the best of the two worlds

A good example is London, no matter what rain falls they don’t face a catastrophe, because the underground city if I may use that wording has a proper sub-structure since the 1800’s to cater for rain fall, sewage and cabling and other things too.

Normally, a road constructed near the beach will have a lot of plastic by-products in it to protect it from humidity and will also have a proper drainage system in place.
Whereas roads constructed elsewhere are done haphazardly which aren’t levelled properly.
Continuous stagnant water on the road will weaken the structure under pressure from running cars.

Kuwait’s population is far more obese than either Lebanon’s or London’s. Also, the vehicles themselves are heavier (tonnage per vehicle per road).

The increased weight is bad for roads, it just becomes more apparent when it rains so much.

Also, you have to understand that roads are constructed based on their location and use, you can hardly blame them when there is record-breaking climate change-induced rain.

London’s roads might not survive kuwait’s heat.

All good points above. My thoughts, as an earth scientist, would lean towards the materials in the road, specifically clays in the aggregate portion of the asphalt. Clay minerals will swell significantly when exposed to water. If one stretch of asphalt is good, and an adjacent section is poor, I might expect to see a higher percentage of clay minerals in the deteriorated section. As the clay minerals hydrate, they expand, breaking the surface apart.

I haven’t done any materials testing or examination. This is just an educated hunch.

close talking about Aggregates. But mostly it is adhesion in the asphalt, and water would just wash it away.

Working on my PhD.

This is a multi-factor issue.

1) Bitumen ( asphalt) will always erode or run off or wash off if you will, with water. Hence Any standing water will cause cracks and potholes due to eroding the bitumen.
hence Crowning ( making the road like a dome so water doesn’t pool, and also having a slight grade, and drainage is a huge design consideration when designing roads because we don’t want standing water.

As we can tell with Kuwait’s infrastructure, and policy planning ability, if there is wasta there is waste.

2) Bitumen will need to adhere to an aggregate, and various aggregates will cause different properties under rain or UV rays.
designing a road in a wet area like England, VS somewhere like Arizona is different. One needs a focus on rain sustainability, other can be focused on hardness.
Durability and Hardness of the Bitumen will always be degraded with water over time , Always.
The question is what kind of aggregates would we want in this certain road.
There are two catagories of aggregates, Acidic (Granite) and Alkaline( limetone, marble).
Acidic will be less durable in rain.

3) The quality or composition of the Bitumen would also be a factor, we can increase the “rubber” content ( think tennis court with shredded tires) or decrease. Obviously as we increase the polymer or rubber the costs increase but its durability also goes up.

4) If road is build in Kuwait using Kuwaiti Firms we will asume that the Kuwaiti Engineers are the guys who dont really undersntand engineering, and we are relying on Indian Engineers. Indian Engineers are used to building Indian Quality roads.

There needs to be a focus on research in kuwait to come up with a standard that fits kuwait, as apposed to hiting international Engineers who bring various policies and standards from outside.
As you can see from the resources, there are various “Grades” of Bitumen they have various Young’s Modulus ( “strength”) and durability, and I am assuming Kuwait is using the 3rd world country grade/quality/mentality.

5) There is the last resouce I linked it talks about how to do the Moisture sensitivty test. Like all thinkgs Civil Engineering, you want to test the materials at various phases and various deliveries. So would you imagine that a Kuwait firm would take a sample of the asphalt and take it to a lab to perform the Lottman method test? does Kuwait even have a lab? Im not talking about a Lab with prehistoric equipment and low wage, low skilled workers, Im talking about a Lab with people working who have an average IQ over 100 ( does such a group exist in Kuwait?) I dont think such a thing exists in kuwait. Because they spend all the money on the Avenues.

Some reading for you:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0143749614001110

https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_syn_175.pdf

https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-0020927853&origin=inward&txGid=a3ef77d7da44a6901949c00d17a90296

https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-44249083200&origin=inward&txGid=b164f82c0b95f22d04ec1b6899a99848

https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-40549119831&origin=inward&txGid=7b8993999ab233e569c42858f7fb1727

https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-40549117192&origin=inward&txGid=43c5c180b03a90ee2ae419688d4093c7

https://library.ctr.utexas.edu/digitized/texasarchive/phase2/253-5-ctr.pdf

https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/conf/reports/moisture/03_top3.pdf

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fbc9/b0408ca2156fa03929e1f2c424a753fdb837.pdf

https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50817/1/Moisture%20Damage%20Paper%20NTEC%20Submission%20December%202014%20Final.pdf

https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-33644815047&origin=inward&txGid=96d008aa4272961b62b9a2d8d44ea1ae

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680629.2002.9689930

man u really are full of your self up untill your last 3 sentences i was interested, then your snide remark is a sad reflection on yourself.

What man, I am a Kuwaiti Citizen that is FED UP, with the way Kuwaitis act/think.
Just like a black man in USA is allowed to say N*****, I as a Kuwaiti am allowed to criticize my dysfunctional and mentally backward country. You don’t like that? maybe you guys should pull a Khashoggi on me next time I am in the Kuwaiti embassy.

Very disrespectful of you to bring up the subject of a murdered journalist in that context. Also, you can’t equate the notion that only black people are allowed to use the n-word with Kuwaitis being able to criticize Kuwait. Anyone can criticize a country, whether or not they are from that country. Criticism sheds light on what is potentially wrong with a specific issue, and as such, how to improve. Finally, perhaps you are mentally backwards.

you think your very highly of yourself. yet you can not present your opinon in a respectful manner, and think you are etitled to be disrespectful in your critique of your nation and generalizing its people and deep history because”just like a black man i am allowed as a kuwaiti”

and “you guys?”

im sure your hearts in the right place and when you grow up you will be valuable to your community.

Smarty pants is absolutely right. However you missed one critical factor (which might also be of use in your PhD). The Bitumen is locally produced and was working fine for many years. Eventually the residents near the area where the bitumen was refined won a lawsuit against the excessive air pollution. The solution was to alter the formula of the bitumen which is why for the past 4 years the roads have been absolutely horrific.

This crap bitumen is also a direct cause of the excessive flooding that happened last week. The drainage system was fully backed up by asphalt gravel. Ask you civil eng buddies about this. It’s surprising that no newspaper has written about this yet.

Thinking process:

1) Oh let me (buy/rent/receive for free from the Gobment) this home near this asphalt factory that has been here and is spewing pollution all over the air.

2) while sitting in a Shisha lounge with buddies smoking shisha + cigarettes, we get into a discussion about Air pollution near our home and what we can do to have access to smokeless quality Air.

3) next day in my home Diwaniya, while smoking cigarettes indoors with all windows closed, we have a discussion with my other local friends about how we don’t know how the smoke from the factory is affecting our lungs, we should sue to stop the pollution so we can finally have clean air.

4) win the lawsuit, not the factory that was already here stops making smoke,
victory smoke party at either my in-home Diwaniya or the local Qahwa, Shisha and cigarettes everywhere, we celebrate that now we can breath clean air.

Victory + happiness

hug my child because I have now done something to increase his quality of life, and lower his exposure to smoke toxins from the asphalt factory.

5) drive the kid to school in my car, windows all up, and smoking my cigarette.

Bliss 🙂

LOL

Sitting a shisha lounge and smoking cigs while discussing air pollution! LOL LOL LOL

After a while of seeing the same scenario in different fields though, you can’t help but wonder am I crazy or are they crazy, because this CAN’T be normal lol

I currently work at a company where we have to place bids in order to hopefully win government contracts. Once we win the bid, we import XYZ, hand it over to the government who in turn distribute XYZ to the designated places (i.e. government hospitals).

After some time, I noticed that the quality of stuff we were importing was… shit. That didn’t sit right with me. So, I asked my boss, why couldn’t we just bring over stuff that was higher in quality. My boss said, the government was only interested in certain grade products (basically the bare minimum) because anything more, would cost more money. The government weren’t willing to pay more. So, they would just give the bid to some other company and my company would lose out and eventually go bankrupt. If my company tried to pay the difference and still hand XYZ over to the government for the price they wanted, we would go bankrupt. There is no fix for this. Meanwhile, embarrassingly terrible supplies (from meds to disposables) are used on patients, who happen to end up at public hospitals. Now, apply that to most government fields and you’ve got Kuwait in a nutshell.

Mark, the Frecce Tricolori Air Show (organized by Italy in Kuwait) took place at Kuwait Towers yesterday and today, but there was no mention of it on your blog 🙁

Dude, most of those factories are in lower-income towns. You don’t know how the factories were being regulated or what kind of noxious smoke was being emitted. Though from your attitude I don’t think you would even care.

Don’t you have a thesis to work on instead of showing us how smart and better than us you are? Respectfully, as a recent civil engineering graduate I hope to god I don’t encounter people like you on the job.

It means what it means.
I could also say USA quality roads, but unfortunately that implies high quality, and the roads in Kuwait is not high quality.

You mean that Indian roads are not of high quality? It’s better not to comment without having proper knowledge of roads in India.

“In my 2 projects in Chennai and Goa, I can report, that I did not like the quality and labour skills.”
DON’T GENERALISE IT.
There are many roads/highways/expressways in India that have been built/are being built according to international standards.

“4) If road is build in Kuwait using Kuwaiti Firms we will asume that the Kuwaiti Engineers are the guys who dont really undersntand engineering, and we are relying on Indian Engineers. Indian Engineers are used to building Indian Quality roads.”

If this was an Indian quality road, it would have withstood this much rain. the rainfall in India every year is much more than what Kuwait faced. The road constructions in India is much more time consuming and methodical than in Kuwait. the poor condition of Indian roads is due to poor maintenance and corrupt people in power. the roads don’t see maintenance for years and years.

If the roads are bad in Kuwait, it’s got nothing to do with Indian engineers in Kuwait and their way of working. Don’t blame it on the expat workers.
It’s got to do more with corrupt companies looking to make money out of government contracts or with the whole road construction plan.

+1 on this.

It was such a weird backhanded remark. Indian Civil Engineers are among the most highly educated, and the amount of research that comes from there is staggering. TK should probably know that, since his PhD probably requires him to write a lot.

“TK should probably know that since his PhD probably requires him to write a lot.”

It depends actually. Not all Ph.D. programs are the same, in the USA at least.
Some Ph.D. programs don’t really push their students to pursue grants or publications. Especially the ones who accept many sponsored student from GCC countries. They are only after the out-of-state tuition fees, let the guy write and defend his thesis, gives him a piece of paper and that’s it!

from a traffic engineer to another that is a very nice answer, with very nice facts and references, good luck on your PHD and i really hope to see your thesis and more of your work one day when ever you come to Kuwait that is.

Is ur phd in engineering?
Whats your problem with indian engineers?
How dare u criticise anything from india?

Lab? What the hell r u talking about? You dont know if there is a lab or not? Get ur facts straight.

U r self centered

Actually, I have deep respect for India and its people. Most of my instructors, mentors and peers are Indian. But I keep reality real.

In my 2 projects in Chennai and Goa, I can report, that I did not like the quality and labour skills.

But my opinion of Indian as a people or race has nothing to do with it. I would actually prefer to work/befriend an Indian over a Kuwaiti anyday.

In India, this much amounts of rain is not even considered rain… If it would rain here, as in India, even for an hour, YOUR country would require a month to come back on course.. So Thank you but no thank you..we Indians we doing quite well for our self with all the local, natural and colonial inherited issues… and certainly not looking for excuses for free handouts and cradle to grave welfare just for breath in and breath out…

Cheap road material everywhere. It shouldn’t break with few rainfalls. It should last years. So the build quality is trash. Someone scammed when building the roads.

EXACTLY ! thank you mark ! that’s a question that I always ask, after every rain to be exact! my front shield has around 30 cracks I’m not kidding ! it looks like a teenagers iPhone 6 screen ! and I have noted that to a radio station 2 yrs back, and they retqeeted my complain and the entire country retweeted it !

even my headlamp cracked two yrs ago on my way to wafra !

my front shield costs 590 kd with labor !
and my front headlamps they come in pairs costs around 340 kd without labor !

This third world country gave you a good car and a decent job and house unlike your original country that you came from. Say a lil good word at least.

What are you talking about.

Kuwait is not the top 10 richest country. Its the top 10 fattest, top 10 unhealthiest population, top 10 diabetic, top 10 percent of mentally handicapped due to inbreeding, top 10 percent of population with cancer.

Top 10 richest is a fantasy that exists o ly in your delusions.

It’s number 7 on the list according to Fortune. Also, a country can both be obscenely wealthy and rampant with problems.

Per capita!!!

I am assuming you dont understand what that means. But it just means to you that you are the top richest.

What ever, live in your top richest country then.

Delusion!

I’m assuming you and I aren’t reading the same comment because Joe didn’t make reference to anything beyond “the top 10 richest country in the world.”

You’ve also failed to explain how being in the top richest country list is mutually exclusive with being in the top “fattest/unhealthiest/diabetic/etc” in the world?

Little Mubarak, its funny that you try to act like you have mastered the art of logic by attacking my statement about Kuwaits top 10 status.

Would you be able to show me where I stated that Kuwait’s top 10 is mutually exclusive with top 10 richest?

Yeah, you can’t because in your rush to attack my logic, you used your flawed thinking processes.

Further I was making a Point that OP is confusing Nominal GDP or GDP PPP, with his statement using per capita GDP.

Im just saying that instead of patting your own shoulder , Kuwait should wake up and smell the garbage dump, because Kuwait needs to fix up.

Just look at the schools, do you think these are the quality of schools of the top richest countries? Do you think rich people from USA Canada or Germany would want their kids in Kuwait’s embaresment of a school system?

Hello you need a reality check.

Why you are so nagging citizen, you are one of the outputs of the same educational system at least in the early stages. Calm down PhD man.

There is something little people know about it that they (contractors) stopped using the Kuwaiti Slaughter (صلبوخ) before 15 years, which they used to bring it from North Kuwait (Khazmah), because the Environmental Agency (EPA) is not allowing it anymore.

All rain in the world is acidic.

Not acidic in the sense of the acid rain you read about when you were 8 years old and thought acid rain and quick sand were going to be major issues you will encounter as an adult. No, acidic in the sence that it will “filter” the air, and pick up all the pollution, weather its from the shisha cigarette session you smoked when talking about air pollution, or smoke from asphalt factories, or cars. Especially cars in a country where most young men want to race their cars on the public road, endangering families, but they decided to remove the catalytic converter, which is there to prevent pollution, but they remove it because they think they will gain speed as if they installed a turbo. This removal of the catalytic converter is usually done by the same people who end up cleaning the beach over the weekend, while the weekend before they threw trash on the beach even though Mark showed you how many orange trash cans there are on the water front.

Anyway I digress, yes all rain is acidic because the pollutants.

Also fun fact, most bottled water you drink does not have an absolutely neutral pH.

Also, did u think that if you figured out that the rain is acid you solved the mystery?

What the fuck are you on about? You ramble a lot. I asked a simple straight forward question and my point was if the acidity of the rain is high enough to cause/increase damage. Whether it’s to roads, buildings, etc.

“Also, did u think that if you figured out that the rain is acid you solved the mystery?”

No, that’s only in your head.

The water itself (not the acidity of it) is what causes the chemical reaction that causes the poor quality adhesive to dissolve.

The “acid rain” that most of us know causes the most harm to lakes and forest life. It can harm infrastructure but not at the level that we are seeing as far as the roads are concerned.

In other words – if the rain was so acidic to dissolve roads, then it would be harmful to humans and everything else as well.

Due to lax environmental controls, most rain is acidic as there are plenty of pollutants in the air; but it has not reached a level *yet* that it can dissolve materials like asphalt.

I think the quality of the roads in Kuwait is so poor because who ever laid the plans for the road made it based on the fact that Kuwait doesn’t experience a lot of rain.
This is become a recurring issue now. every year the roads get screwed, they contractors or whoever it is who maintains the roads scrape the road and put on fresh tar and then it goes back to square one when it rains again.

i think they need to come up with a better solutions and start renovating the roads with better and durable material.

Even when everything is good, you would see a huge difference between the roads in Kuwait and UAE. it’s not like Kuwait is any poorer than UAE and can’t afford to make and maintain roads as good as that of UAE.

Typo error Mark;

“Can an engineer with experience explain…”

should be

“Since you all are smart asses, can someone explain…”

He’s educated. That doesn’t mean he’s smart. Smart people don’t need to be condescending to validate themselves, and they don’t use half assed similes to justify why they’re allowed to express themselves. Stop gassing the guy up just for having time on his hands. The reasons he gave were fairly standard and was basically a regurgitation of what every civil engineering student learns about paving materials.

Anyways, the Jumanji guy who posted below is probably more of an expert than he is, so

Road 40 on the way to Ahmadi after 6th Ring Road exit, there were 3 holes on the second lane.

All are fixed now Thanks Mark and 248am team for posting this and making the authorities aware.

However road 212 while getting on Road 30 is very bad and we have a lot of traffic issues @ 3:00 PM while leaving from the K Companies.

I’m in no way a subject matter expert, but I have to put my two cents in.

1) These torrential rains in a short period of time are considered flash floods (Flash floods are distinguished from regular floods by having a timescale of less than six hours) and are detrimental to any infrastructure, just a quick google search will show the extent of damage that are associated with flash floods in the past!

2) Weathering is the main factor of erosion of the asphalt in my opinion because of the extreme shifts in weather (temperatures can have a variance of up to 40 degrees Celsius in a day, which make any material contract and expand on a daily basis). This extreme weathering is not prevalent in Lebanon or UK or India.

So in my opinion, a myriad of factors affect the roads.

I am a civil engineer working in the Roads and Transport department in the Ministry of Public works, that PHD guy Typical Kuwaiti is right about a lot of the road and asphalt information he provided. What i have to add is that up to this year, all road projects in Kuwait were using a specific asphalt mix called MARSHAL, in which contractors can easily cheat and use cheaper materials, leading to the loosening of the bitumen adhesion from the cheaper quality aggregates. Starting with the new Jaber Bridge, and now the 7th Ring Road expansion, we are starting to use a superior mix called SUPERPAVE (SUPERior PAVEment). This new superpave mix has certain quality checks along the entire mixing process, eliminating possibility of contractors cheating. Theoretically, it should help fix the process, and help avoid degradation in roadways, BUT, this is only in the projects that use SUPERPAVE mix, all maintenance contracts for existing roads STILL use MARSHAL pavement, and that is because the new SUPERPAVE mix is more difficult to produce, and only one or two factories have the ability to produce this mix. Upgrading a factory requires time and costs money, and upgrading maintanence contracts to require SUPERPAVE only, can get some big whales upset because KUWAIT. So the road degradation can be blamed on asphalt quality, but the lack of upgrading and updating asphalt mixing methods can be blamed on the difficulty required to get the gears moving on anything in Kuwait.

Jumanji – As far as I’m concerned, out of all the comments, yours was the only one that actually answered the question. It was clear, thoughtful and succinct 🙂

No no i insist, you MUST be thanked first! otherwise, the universe falls into chaos! more so than the state it’s in already!

LOL, love how you used LEBANON as an example.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, dont make an argument with lebanon.

YOU BARELY HAVE STREETS 🙂

since you glorify it so much, LEAVE KUWAIT FFS

LOL, why don’t YOU leave the world?

The guy didn’t say anything negative about your precious Kuwait and even if he did, that’s his opinion. He can glorify Lebanon or Zimbabwe or Alaska or wherever else, all he wants. Why are you taking it personally? You can’t just tell people to LEAVE any time they ask ask a question about Kuwait or make a comment about Kuwait. Kuwait is far from perfect. Whatever the platform, bringing Kuwait’s issues to the forefront can sometimes start a conversation about those issues which sometimes can maybe even lead to resolving those issues. At the very least, it brings awareness to those issues.

You telling people to leave, doesn’t solve anything. What did you think was going to happen when the guy read your comment? You think he was going to read your comment telling him to “leave Kuwait” and just go “Ok!” and pack his shit and leave? You know that’s not going to happen so what’s the point of telling people to leave? All it does is make you look like an asshole and by extension reinforces the stereotype that the majority of Kuwaitis are assholes. If you truly cared about Kuwait, you’d stop being an asshole and telling people to leave.

Do it for Kuwait!

World over, citizens want to do something for their nation… here it is opposite…the elitist attitude they have, always asking what the Govt is doing for me… dude, look in the mirror and ask if you deserve whatever you are getting just for breathing…

I know why some people tell others to leave, it’s because that’s how their seniors in race treat them and tell them to leave their country if they don’t like it. So they love using what was dished out to them on regular basis. Gits.

@LuLu, this guy claims he was born and raised here and all he does is criticize the country that puts food on his table and a shelter over his head.

If he can make it anywhere else, he would’ve left by now, atleast back to his beloved country.

If he also sticks to just informative posts instead of comparing every issue in Kuwait to a warzone of a country everytime, he wouldnt be getting this backlash, so dont make it seem like there is no basis.

Why doesn’t he bring to light his own country’s issues?

I totally agree with bringing up Kuwait’s issues to the forefront but all we get from his blog is negative comments and a venting platform for Kuwait “haters” without any constructive discussions therefore losing all credibility and respect.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, DONT SHIT WHERE YOU EAT MARKA.

So you’re upset with the guy because of his posts that criticize Kuwait and lead to negative comments without any constructive discussions, and your solution to THAT, is to criticize the blog, make snide, negative and baseless comments about the guy who runs the blog, and forget suggesting or even discussing, straight up DICTATE what the guy can and can’t post about? Got it.

Dude, you said it yourself… “born and raised here”. As far as I’m concerned, that more than gives him the right to question whatever he wants or “criticize” (as you call it).

lol @ “the country that puts food on his table and shelter over his head”. I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure he pays for his shit, just like the rest of us.

I wasn’t going to dignify your stupid assumptions with a response (because that’s just what they are… stupid… assumptions), but parroting the same old line “if they could’ve made it anywhere else, they would’ve gone by now”, is very old and tired, at this point. Lots of people live in Kuwait for lots of reasons. Also, I don’t know the guy, but I doubt he’s shared his thoughts with you, on wanting to leave OR stay in Kuwait, so unless you know the guy personally, don’t assume.

Also, who are YOU to tell him what he can and can’t talk about? It’s HIS blog lol He can talk about whatever the hell he wants on HIS blog, including the shit he sees around him (which happens to be in Kuwait).

If you feel so strongly about it, why don’t YOU start your own blog and post about whatever the hell you WANT to post about on there?

Also, also, also, like I said earlier, Kuwait is far from perfect. If you’re gonna’ cry about it every time someone says “it’s too hot in Kuwait”, or whatever else you deem offensive (and seem to take very personally, for some reason), well… you’re gonna’ be crying a lot! lol

@zagan every expat in this country earns his/her own food… they do not, repeat, do not get a fills free for being alive… now verify if that is the case with every localite…

@expat

Umm… THIS “localite” doesn’t take the free money. Every time I visit the bank, it shocks them, and they spend forever trying to convince me to sign up for it. Nobody understands why I don’t just take the money. That’s why everyone (including my own family) thinks I’m insane lol

However, it’s a matter of principle (I don’t want anyone to EVER say I took anything from this country). Also, as a 33-year-old female who doesn’t have kids/pets, who doesn’t have have to pay rent and gets at least 1 free home-cooked meal a day, the money I make is enough for me. It might not be a lot, but I’m content (and you can’t buy that).

However, the “free fils” that the average localite receives, is part of the country’s wealth. Generally, every country has the right to distribute its wealth as it sees fit (whether the country spends its wealth on this or that or the other OR just gives “free fils” to the “localites”).

Also, just know, that even if Kuwait stops giving out free coin to “localites”, that still wouldn’t make you any richer and the money still wouldn’t go to you. I felt it was necessary to stress this point.

Also, also, also, the “localites” might get free money but they have shit roads (as you can see), shit education (where kids are taught WHAT to think instead of HOW to think), shit healthcare (“whoops, we chopped off the wrong foot lololol”) and the list of shit goes on and on and on… so who’s REALLY winning here?

I am a civil engineer working in the Roads and Transport department in the Ministry of Public works, we are basically to blame (along with the roads maintenance department) for all that has happened recently.That PHD guy Typical Kuwaiti is right about a lot of the road and asphalt information he provided. What i have to add is that up to this year, all road projects in Kuwait were using a specific asphalt mix called MARSHAL, in which contractors can easily cheat and use cheaper materials, leading to the loosening of the bitumen adhesion from the cheaper quality aggregates. Starting with the new Jaber Bridge, and now the 7th Ring Road expansion, we are starting to use a superior mix called SUPERPAVE (SUPERior PAVEment). This new superpave mix has certain quality checks along the entire mixing process, eliminating possibility of contractors cheating. Theoretically, it should help fix the process, and help avoid degradation in roadways, BUT, this is only in the projects that use SUPERPAVE mix, all maintenance contracts for existing roads STILL use MARSHAL pavement, and that is because the new SUPERPAVE mix is more difficult to produce, and only one or two factories have the ability to produce this mix. Upgrading a factory requires time and costs money, and upgrading maintanence contracts to require SUPERPAVE only, can get some big whales upset because KUWAIT. So the road degradation can be blamed on asphalt quality, but the lack of upgrading and updating asphalt mixing methods can be blamed on the difficulty required to get the gears moving on anything in Kuwait.

WHATS the big deal it does not rain in Kuwait. so nothing will leak nothing will wash away.

CRAP it rained… someone will pay for this find the tea boy responsible for this….

But hey the places never looked so less littered and clean.

Delightful.

All that aside, Typical Kuwaiti, you might bring up some good points, but those points get lost due to your delivery.

In case you didn’t know, now you do. Also, no need to thank me 🙂

Rain, good! Ok? Rain, blessing from Allah! Ok? Mashaalah x 1,000 Ok? Rain, very nice! Ok?

But also, rain fuck up road, little bit. We just make asking, why like this happening? Here, there, all, rain come? Road, no problem. Kuwait, rain come? Road big problem. Now, we only make talking, why like this, ok?

mashaalah, mashaalah, ok?

I like rain. It means no school. I no learn. I no become engineer. I no get big bucks like TyPicAl KuWAiTi. But rain fun still.

Hey P.A.R.T .. yeah you guys in charge of our roads ..could you kindly get out from behind your desks in your fancy offices and get a move on and start fixing the roads already ???

I am sure you will have at least one or two decently experienced civil engineers in your your ranks who didn’t buy their Engineering Degrees from a canteen in Cairo and actually have some experience building and paving roads.

Regardless of the fact that we wont get fined for broken windshields by the MOI ; they still are getting cracked and we aren’t getting compensated for the grief.

Its really getting irritating that our cars are getting pebble spat on like we were driving on some back water dirt road in Afghanistan ..

They at least have an excuse being in a conflict zone and not enough money to go around .. YOU dont.. so get your fat asses moving and start fixing the roads already.

It’s clear that whoever is in charge is using the cheapest material to fix the roads, not realizing that they’ll have to do it all over again when it rains hard and the roads get destroyed. Their corruption = tons of traffic because everyone is trying not to get their cars busted on these unpaved roads. I was stuck on 5th ring road for almost 2 hours (not even rush hour time).
Where does that leave us? In an endless whirlpool of shit.
So sick of this happening EVERY YEAR.

Or maybe that’s the point? To rebuild, I mean.

My sister used to live in Dasman and over the years, I noticed that they were constantly rebuilding the reddish brick-like sidewalk near the Dasman roundabout. It seemed fine to me (not an engineer though) so I didn’t understand why they were constantly destroying it and rebuilding it (literally every year or so). Corruption or just the Dasman stank (eau de sewage)?

I’m a small time private contractor in Kuwait since 2002 and have done quite a few asphalt/earth works over the years.

From my point of view, the contract will go to the lowest/cheapest bidder, regardless of what compromises are being made. There’s no apple’s to apple’s comparison.

In the most recent example (Last mth), i had a quote from Galfar (Local asphalt company) of KD35.000/Msq for asphalt works. The contractor who took the job had quoted KD3.330 for it. . . no joke. KD 5000 for a 1500Msq area. It’s all washed off already with the recent rains.

So i’m not surprised at the condition of infrastructure here. Procurement will always go for the lowest bidder, quality takes a takes a back seat. Not only asphalt works, any civil works for that matter.

You can’t entirely blame corrupt government officials for this. I have worked with some of the most polite and well meaning government officials here (no kidding – they exist!).

They all tell me they are handicapped by the tenders law here. I might be incorrectly stating but the system is screwed up by one single line in the Tenders law:

“The tender will be awarded to the bidder who has the lowest priced technically compliant offer”.

This has caused a massive price war for all government contracts across all sectors causing a massive deterioration in quality and standards while bankrupting quality companies who can’t win contracts. When government officials analyze bids and refuse to award the project to the lowest bidder – it raises eyebrows that vested interests are at play when in fact its certainly obvious that there is no way the lowest bidder will execute the job correctly.

When the officials choose a 4th lowest bidder for example – the tenders committee often refuses. When officials protest that the others are not technically compliant – the committee asks the officials to draft a questionnaire and ask the lowest bidder to comply with all these points in a written statement. Fearing not to lose a project, the lowest bidder accepts. This is the method of ensuring technical compliance!!!

Even after this, by some miracle if officials manage to convince the tenders committee – parliament intervenes on the issue that state funds are being misused and the project is screwed.

One line – fix that and I assure you everything will be fixed.

Correction: The tender will be awarded to the bidder who greases all the right hands.

You have to bribe this guy and that guy and the guy across the street too.

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