These thousands and very expensive road holes
Ralitsa Kovacheva, March 24, 2011
There are traffic jams everywhere in big cities. A fact. But a problem occurs when the reason is the extremely inadequate decision a specific hole to be filled in the middle of a working day at a key juncture - in this case on Nikola Vaptsarov boulevard in Sofia. On top of it, the filling of holes seems to be an expensive pleasure - I judge of that from the fact that the company, selected who knows how to do the repairs, has sent six whole workers to fill a not that gigantic hole. Each of these people will be paid a certain wage. And as practice shows with hole repairs in Sofia, and road construction in general in Bulgaria, the same operation will be repeated just in a few months time when the hole will open again and the taxpayers will pay again.
Besides, the consumer/taxpayer will lose more money in the form of more fuel 
or a bigger check for taxi, not to mention time. This calculation does not take into account the "missed benefits" which you and the state could have had if you did not hang in a traffic jam. And the long-term loss of capacity for work and motivation after the everyday battle with Sofia traffic is impossible to be assessed.
How many workers are needed to fill a hole with dimensions metre by metre? And how many officials are necessary to understand that this simple operation could be realised, let's say, on a Sunday afternoon? And how many mayors need to change so that we stop being hostages of our own city?