I have a 14 or 15-year-old vehicle that has been well-maintained and is regularly serviced.

We drive quite a bit to keep our eye on how things are progressing in various parts of Darwin. We also visit Palmerston, Darwin‘s nearby city neighbour.

Buildings are going up everywhere and houses are being constructed at a rate of knots.

However, one of the things becoming painterly obvious is the state of our roads, both major and minor in our two cities. Driving along many roads is now like driving on a corrugated gravel track. It may look smooth but reflects the underlying surface of the road breaking down.

Potholes do not help, but they are repaired in time. In many places, the surface bitumen is  breaking down and patching makes the roads look like a web of striations.

However, it is the subsurfaces of our roads that are breaking down giving more and more impact to one feeling as if driving on corrugations. The only way this is going to be fixed is for the road to be taken up and rebuilt at sub-surface levels.

Whether or not that ever happens, I do not know I do know that the fixing would run to many, many millions of dollars.