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Tallinn has less money than last year to fix holes on the streets

19.03.2009, 13:31

Currently Tallinn has EEK 86 mln in its budget for fixing holes on the streets. It is about twenty millions less than last year and the state’s saving budget can decrease the amount even more, ERR News reports.

The main reason for that is that the government gave less money to the local municipalities for road maintenance, Deniss Boroditš, the Deputy Mayor of Tallinn said.

“Since it was EEK 70 mln, then it’s EEK 40 mln this year and we have information that number will fall twice,” Boroditrš said.

Boroditš said that the state can’t jump over its shadow.

“We try to use the amount maximally,” he said.

“We try to fix the holes on the streets. But inevitably we have to halt some bigger projects,” Edgar Savisaar, the Mayor of Tallinn said.

The amount of money the city gives to the road maintenance will be clear after the city government gets ready their negative supplementary budget.

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Most countries have duty on fuel and road tax.
I do believe that there has been a attemt to introduce road tax in the past (15 years or so ago based on kW, only in Tallinn) but was abandoned shortly after possibly because all new cars were registered outside Tallinn.
Charging road tax would also bring obligations that the goverment will never be able to keep, think of claims due to damaged roads.
The biggest problems with the roads in Estonia are the foundations and the fact that they are not drained.
A good road needs 70cm of underlayment, a very good road needs 70cm of concrete on top of the underlayment.
Because water cannot drain from the aspalt it seeps through and causes pockets which become potholes.
I find it quite funny to see the signs that are placed over potholes, they appear quite quickly, but the repair takes forever (or never).

~Nitram [19.03.2009, 18:04]

Ameeriklane.
Thanks for the insight, I didn't know about the excise tax on fuel.I did understand about the nails and weather conditions, and was maybe a little harsh on Mr Bizzare.

~scotsman [19.03.2009, 17:29]

scotsman: I believe that is already in place, in the form of excise tax on fuel. In some ways, this does "scale" so that people with flashier cars pay more tax, since bigger cars tend to be less fuel-efficient (mass and engine size).

To compare with the UK is not quite fair, as the climate conditions here cause the road conditions to deterioriate at a much faster rate, and the spiked tires that many people use in winter don't help the problem.

However, I'm not defending the poor conditions of the roads as I have the unfortunate experience of driving on them nearly every day. The two solutions I see would be to increase the excise tax, and ban spiked tires. The spiked tire ban has been proposed for Tallinn as of next year I believe, but I'm not sure if it was finally agreed to.

~Ameeriklane [19.03.2009, 17:03]

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