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Broke Counties Turn Failing Roads To Gravel
To save money, more than 20 Michigan counties have decided to turn deteriorating paved roads back to gravel. Montcalm County estimates that repaving a road costs more than $100,000 a mile. Grinding the same mile of road up and turning it into gravel costs $10,000. At least 50 miles of road have been reverted to gravel in Michigan the past three years. I can't wait until we revert back to whale oil lighting and can finally be rid of this electricity fad.
Real shame about that. Nice people and beautiful country.
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I grew up in a rural area with a lot of gravel and dirt roads. Gravel roads aren't so bad. They're cheap to build, but they require a lot more maintenance that people think. They get rutting and nasty potholes pretty quickly if they're not consistently maintained (and they deteriorate a LOT faster than asphalt). So I think some of these areas may be jumping the gun on thinking this is a catch-all solution for their cash-strapped transportation departments, counties, and cities. They'll save a lot of money in the short term, but you've got to have a real solid maintenance plan in place or you'll pretty quickly end up with impassable roads. It's not expensive to maintain them (gravel isn't expensive)--but it is labor-intensive.
A well-maintained gravel road isn't so bad physically. Rain doesn't wash them out as bad as dirt roads and they stay passable in about any kind of weather. The main downside is that you just can't drive as fast on them as asphalt. But, then again, you can't drive very fast on poorly maintained asphalt either (because of the potholes). So it's probably a wash on most of these roads (particularly since a colder state like Michigan probably goes trough asphalt roads a lot faster than warmer areas). But, if they don't have a plan to maintain them any better than they maintained them when they were asphalt, this solution is going to be a wash-out (literally) pretty quickly.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Sure, that might save the state 90% of the cost of repaving, but how about the cost to drivers who use these roads frequently and will have to replace their tires more frequently? It might still be an overall savings, but it might not.
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
50 miles of country road (I'm guessing the pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with the roads actually converted) changed from paved to gravel, out of thousands in the state. Yawn. Gravel is actually better in little used roads, because it doesn't require nearly as much active maintenance, as in, driving over it with snowploughs when it snows, to be able to drive on it at all. These are, almost certainly, roads that didn't need to be paved in the first place.
This is complete non-news.
The reality is that this is just the beginning of cuts that need to be made in Michigan, and elsewhere.
Gravel roads are cheap to build, cheap to maintain, and represent an extremely sensible kind of cut that does not have a major quality of life impact. Arguably they also have a rustic beauty, and look much nicer than a pot-holed, badly deteriorated paved road.
The poster makes a silly connection between gravel roads and whale oil, but fails to understand that whale oil and *paved* roads have more in common: Both are unsustainable at this time.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Other big downside: the stones that get caught between truck dual tires. They tend to get loose in perfect timing to crash your windshield.
I imagine the biggest factor in reverting a road is the amount of traffic it sees. Having visited family in rural MI thirty years ago and recently a few years back there are a LOT more paved roads. A lot of these paved roads are lucky to see 10 cars a day.
In a relatively small state like Michigan with nasty freeze-thaw cycles that probably cause massive damage to roads anyway, this probably is not a bad idea. The distances are such that the lower speed limit required isn't going to mean it takes days to get across the state (like it would in, say, Montana). Plus, the freeze-thaw cycle means they'd be dealing with massive potholes every season regardless, and potholes are cheaper and easier to fix on gravel.
I certainly wouldn't want to try this tactic anywhere out west though, where vast distances make driving on gravel roads much more of a chore.
A well-maintained gravel road isn't so bad physically. Rain doesn't wash them out as bad as dirt roads and they stay passable in about any kind of weather. The main downside is that you just can't drive as fast on them as asphalt. But, then again, you can't drive very fast on poorly maintained asphalt either (because of the potholes). So it's probably a wash on most of these roads (particularly since a colder state like Michigan probably goes trough asphalt roads a lot faster than warmer areas).
The worst thing the county did with the roads around my grandmother's place (in Texas) was to pave them. Before the roads were paved, it was a bit dusty in the summer, but the road was always good. After paving, the road got potholes almost immediately, and required constant patching.
Winter was particularly tough on the road -- since we have a lot more 100+ days than 32- days, I don't think they're built like the ones up north. We only have a few days when the water in the cracks can freeze, but when it does, the potholes start all over again.
Paving rural roads without a plan to keep them fully maintained is like giving a school a bunch of unpatched Windows boxes. It's not long until you're spending more time working around the new problems than you would if you'd just stuck to the old way of doing things.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
In parts of santa fe, dirt (or gravel) roads increase you home value. Sort of perverse but Santa Fe is all about style and aesthetics over function. (and if you've seen it, you can see they have a point. It's very serene.) So home owners fight the city when they try to pave their roads.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
In Idaho and maybe other states, other issues also come into play. A gravel road does not get sampled which is good for the county because it means it won't be considered deficient. However, a gravel road also does not get state & federal monies (some exceptions apply). So, although they will be saving money, they won't be getting any for that road either.
Turning your roads from paved to gravel is like giving up on economic recovery or development. Gravel roads don't support commerce or industry very well. They are a good reason not to locate somewhere. I lived in West Virginia for 2 years before returning to urban life 2 1/2 years ago. Bad roads and gravel roads abound because the state is poor. But the state will remain poor in part because of bad roads and gravel roads. If a state cannot provide a modern infrastructure, it will not be able to compete. Now its not always a bad thing to de-settle an area and let it revert to a more primitive state, but don't count on being able to undo the damage if you later change your mind.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
This is why we need flying cars, if we all had flying cars we could save trillions on not having to pave roads and not having to maintain gravel roads. We could let roads go back to nature.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Its been well over a decade, but I recall seeing an episode of NOVA on PBS about road construction in the US and how hopelessly behind the curve we were. Their analysis was that our problems stem from corruption in the industry. That road construction companies are buddies with the various local politicians so that they are able to get contracts that don't require them to modernize. The end result being that our roads deteriorate much faster than they do in places like Europe, requiring much more frequent repair work for higher prices. Maybe things have changed in the intervening decade, but I doubt it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
True, no cuts in programs for illegal aliens. Mainly because THERE ARE NO PROGRAMS FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS There are also no cuts for programs designed to help 16 year olds boys have sex, programs designed to kill 80 old woman, or programs designed to provide tin foil helmets for nut jobs.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
You mean like in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nevada, etc where the majority of roads in rural areas and some of the state highways have been gravel?
I'm old, I remember when big stretches of Highway 63 in South Dakota were still gravel, as was Highway 73 south of Faith
I was reading the thread under the article and wanted to quote a couple opinions.
obamautopia wrote:
"Fact: Gravel roads are more dangerous because they are more slippery due to loose gravel and potholes. If gravel roads were superior for transportation safety - then why isn't the interstate and the autobahn merely gravel roads? Why not city streets?
Fact: Gravel roads put more dust into atmosphere as anyone who has followed the choking dust of a vehicle moving ahead of you on a gravel / dirt road can tell you.
Fact: Gravel roads require more frequent oil changes - thus using more oil and dirty oil filters to dispose of. Also more air filter changes. Also more fuel filter changes. Also more car washing. Also more tires. Also more windshield replacement and fabricating glass requires a tremendous amount of energy.
Fact: Gravel roads are less fuel efficient. In one study in Bogota, Columbia, fuel consumption was reported to be 25% higher for a vehicle moving on a gravel or earth surface than on an asphalt pavement.
Fact: Gravel roads wear out vehicles faster meaning more consumption to replace the parts, many of them steel parts which take an enormous amount of energy to fabricate and "carbon footprint" for the idiots who think anthropogenic "Global Warming" is anything other than a Leftist Agenda."
And another guy wrote, goomygoomy writes,
"I don't understand the problem. Why would you complain about PAVED ROADS, being turned in to GRAVEL ROADS? It's just CHANGE. I thought you all VOTED for CHANGE? Well...You've got it. Michigan, the Great Liberal Basket Case, is leading the way. As goes DETROIT, so goes Obama Nation. Aren't you IDIOTS bulldozing your towns down? This is UNCHECKED LIBERALISM. This is Obama SOCIALISM."
stoptherhetoric wrote:
"Nothing like a page full of ignorance from gommygoomy to start the day! People don't even take the time to read, they just spew their garbage! The Story CLEARLY states that Michigan Counties have had to revert to gravel THE PAST 3 YEARS!!!!
Do I need to remind you the last 3 years, W was President!!"
If you keep reading, you'll notice it all boils down to a huge administration blame game. Reminds me of other discussion boards I've seen...
"Engineering. Where the noble, semi-skilled laborers execute the vision of those who think and dream." -Sheldon
That's what happens when you continual elect democrats to office.
Roads go to shit but I'm sure there's no cuts in programs for illegal aliens.
Quite. Tax revenue is insufficient to pay for essential services - let's blame the Democrats who want to tax everyone to death.
Hang on...
Drill baby drill - on Mars
This is precisely why it's such a genius plan. Save money up front and provide jobs for increased maintenance and auto repair. It continues a trend that in going from a production economy to a service economy the US has gone from an economy that grows by increasing efficiency and producing more goods to an economy that grows by decreasing efficiency to keep people employed. Good thing other countries depend on this fake economic growth for their own fake economic growth! If somebody ever figured out how to get people doing real jobs again we'd all be fucked.
mmmm...forbidden donut
Long ago - as someone who worked in a glass shop (in accounting) - no gravel roads aren't all that great unless you like replacing glass a lot or supporting your local glass shops.
Sure - there are people who will reply they've lived down gravel roads all their life and never had glass problems, but seriously - I created ran reports and found that well over 80% of our auto-glass business came from rural residents who lived down - gravel roads - I can still remember the most replaced parts too DW-1099 (Ford F series windshield) and DW-1117 (might be wrong on this part - its been ages, but its supposed to be a Chevrolet C series pickup truck windshield) - we had literally hundreds of these parts in stock at any one time and we made sure delivery trucks always brought more and more.
Anyhow from what I could tell many of these windshields were damaged by flying debris, and stress on the vehicles themselves.
Property on a gravel road is worth less than property on a paved road. So, by their actions, the government has reduced the value of a landowner's property. Usually this triggers a lawsuit - which, if successful, could easily wipe out any savings. Also, since the properties on the road are worth less, they will be able to collect less tax revenue.
Ripping up asphalt roads into gravel is not unusual when governments are trying to save money. I've seen this happen in Australia.
Years ago, Victoria elected a conservative government, headed by a gentleman called Jeff Kennett. Admittedly, he inherited a massive mountain of debt racked up by a previous Labour government, but he immediately made himself hugely unpopular by slashing and burning all public spending and picking fights with everybody in sight. Much of his brutal cost-cutting was ripping up the roads throughout country Victoria, which undoubtedly endeared him greatly to his rural supporters...
From my limited experience, ripping up roads to save money is a sign of extreme desperation. Things must be bad indeed in parts of Michigan.
Actually, the very points you bring out about gravel (cheap to build but requires more maintenance) also applies to asphalt as compared to concrete. That is why they're in this mess to begin with: a properly constructed concrete road costs more up front, but lasts for decades. The part the politicians hear is, "costs more up front".
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
that happens on paved roads here anyway... due to the gravel we use to grit the roads in winter
That's not entirely accurate. There are probably very few programs exclusively for illegal aliens, but illegals do qualify for many other types of programs. Remember Obama's illegal immigrant aunt? She's living in a housing project in Boston, which is a service funded by the taxpayers. The housing authority is not allowed to ask about immigration status. This is a very common practice with handouts in MA.
It wouldn't shock me if there were services exclusively for illegals in either MA or CA. MA did hold meetings with illegals to learn how their status affects them. To me, that's a bit outrageous. ICE should have been invited.
I just don't understand why more roads weren't (and aren't now) made from concrete, rather than asphalt. There are very busily travelled concrete roadways near where I live, that are over a 100 years old, are subjected to salt, heavy trucking, and all sorts of abuse - yet require almost no maintenance.
In comparison, the newer asphalt sections of those same roads just seem to fall apart within a few years of being refurbished. For a few dollars more in the beginning, a centuries worth of maintenance $s can be avoided. Seems short sighted to me...
The reason you have sky high taxes and are STILL broke lies in your definition of "essential" services.
You obviously don't mind chipped paint and increased erosion of your undercarriage etc. It's also painfully obvious you don't ride a motorcycle....
If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....
I live in north Canada and, actually dirt and gravel roads are at their best in winter. Once the soil get completly frozen it gets as hard as asphalt and it can get plowed like any road. With good winter tires you can drive 100-110 km/h safely. The problem is when everything melt in spring and then the water scrap the road badly. That's why big trucks are mostly forbidden on those road during april and march.
In the UK we had a series of ads on keeping your distance and the tag line was "Only a fool breaks the three second rule".
3 seconds.
If a stone is thrown hard enough, how high would it have to go to be at windscreen height 3 seconds later? About 12m.
Unlikely.
So if you're 3 seconds or more behind the car in front, you won't be hit by gravel.
They'll save a lot of money in the short term
You got me at "Save a lot of money," sailor!
I don't think they care about much more than that. Long term = somebody else's problem.
A part of the reason things are getting so f**ked so fast.
Oh, how I wish I had mod points.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Never mind having to travel at lower speeds their biker unfriendly. If you put even mild acceleration through them your back end goes all over the place and take you out if your not carefull. This happened alot on a 200cc trails bike with off road tyres, I won't go near gravel on my 600cc superbike.
The real issue here is grip, gravel provides very little grip while tarmac/cement provides a reasonable amount. While gravel might be cheaper I bet the social cost from the increase in accidents makes it more expensive over the life of the road.
I say this as a person from Somerset in the UK, Somerset a county where they seem to think running some a variety of silly social schemes which benifit dozens of people are more important than resurfacing major roads through towns (benifiting thousands). Yeovils main roads have been dug up and poorly filled in so many times they are nothing but potholes. Given the choice between that mess and gravel I'd still prefer the potholed, bumpy tarmac.
I pay 28% tax on the top bit of my income, but pay less - 25%, 22%, on down - for the rest of it.
My taxes really aren't sky high. They're perfectly reasonable. And I'd be happy to pay more "taxes" if it meant my health care wasn't tied to my employer, in lieu of the pseudo-taxes I pay in health care costs now.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
This is why we need to go back to Eisenhower-era concrete road beds meant for B-52's to land on. I'm talking foot deep steel reinforced concrete baby. Grew up with those bad boys in my little rural town in Texas. Of course we didn't have the freeze/thaw cycles people do farther north so I could be talking out of my backside, but these things appeared well-nigh indestructible.
As a commuter who travels almost every day on I-90 through Spokane, WA, I can attest to you that concrete does require expensive maintenance. The interstate has developed horrible grooves from wear and tear needing the surface to be shaved and overlaid with asphalt. Maybe repaving with asphalt is cheaper than shaving and resurfacing the concrete.
Exactly! If you drive fast enough, your tire only hits the high points of the ruts....BRILLIANT!
WTF? Over?
These roads are rural. Not in the city. Lots of people seem to think this will make life dangerous for people, or cause more expense in maintenance since the cars will wear them out faster, and on and on. Seems to me one major point is being missed: My driveway probably sees more traffic/day than these roads, and I don't even own a car. There are lots of roads out in rural farm country that are used for 2 reasons:
1. Shortcut when the weather is nice, since these roads don't get plowed anyway. Those taking the shortcut are driving pickup trucks, no exceptions.
2. Tractors, combines, and similar heavy equipment. They go from field to field on these back roads. It prevents farmers from having to drive over each others' crops to get to uncontigous fields. It also reduces the impact on fields, allowing for minimal driving over them (surprisingly important when it comes to field yield).
Neither of the above really requires a paved road. Stop acting like it's the end of the world. Ever since I got to know some farmers, and how this works, I've been wondering why a lot of roads are paved in the first place.
To live till you die is to live long enough. -Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
We motorcyclists just love gravel. What with the dust, the bad traction, it's just wonderful!
Really? If I had any idea it was so easy to get all the Harley's out of my neighborhood I would have proposed this years ago.
My state was introduced to a miracle material called asphalt several years ago. Recently they realized that they were repairing the roads constantly compared to the previous concrete; the worst case being a road that had to be repaved before it was open to the public. The normal crew of paving companies is up in arms because the state is bidding out new concrete-only bids to reduce maintenance costs and the work is going out of state because no one in the state uses concrete anymore for roadwork. The problem being that the state thinks that one type of material can build every type of road imaginable, and the officials can ride the resulting fame to godhood.
You probably remember when Old 16 was just 16. ;)
"You can't plow them for snow removal. Michigan gets some big snow, so this means isolating people until a thaw."
It's one thing to be ignorant, it's another thing to blow crap out of your ass. Gravel roads get plowed without any difficulty in Michigan. I've lived on gravel roads since the 60s so I know this first hand.
"Even the Amish will laugh at Michigan if they do this"
We don't have Amish in Michigan. We have Mennonites.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I live outside Lansing MI and have a few gravel / dirt roads around my family members. It's not a big deal really.
For all the people crying about plows, if your living in Michigan then you already know about driving in snow. They plow gravel roads just like any other road, just with a little higher gap of the blade to the road.
The biggest problem I see with the roads is the ice on gravel roads can become a pretty bad problem during the winter. The asphalt roads melt it much quicker, but the gravel / dirt roads become skating rinks for your commute.
In my old state of Wisconsin, we had semi-gravel back roads. Every few years they'd take machines and grind up the roads, add a little tar, and spit it right back down where to that same road. It was small gravel at first, but after a few months it was smooth enough to roller blade for miles. The benefit of that was during a really bad winter, you could just recycle the road you already had.
Michigan's budget has been pretty destroyed over the past few years. There's a lot of people who are gonna complain about their cars getting dirty, but changes like these are much better than laying people off.
Seems like most of the people here are just trolling on possible downsides, when they've never actually lived on dirt / gravel roads in heavy snow states like Michigan.
Was that just a reverse car metaphor? You just blew my mind...
That's the most optimistic post I've ever read. Seriously, by the end of it, I was thinking, "yeah, maybe gravel isn't that bad."
But not quite. Gravel is a lot slower, if you're going faster than 15MPH on a gravel road, then you are moving fast. On a paved road you can usually get at least 25mph, even if it's bad. That's a huge difference.
And that's not even beginning to mention the car damage and the fact that you'll never have a non-dusty car. As one other guy in this thread mentioned, a lot of cars get damaged windshields from gravel roads. In my experience driving on a gravel road is about the same misery level as sitting in a traffic jam. There better be something interesting on the other side.
On the other hand, if the population really is dropping fast in Michigan, no reason to keep them maintained.
Qxe4
A more complete article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-revertingroads,0,1719061.story
We've got some serious heavy duty concrete roads here in florida too. Just giant slabs of the stuff seperated by flexible spacers every so often. They're amazingly smooth rides, almost never seem to get potholes, and whenever FDOT decides to play musical chairs with the roads they can just pick them up and slap them back down again.
Problem is they're also apparently expensive as fuck to put down to begin with.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Agreed. With shitty weather and high taxes, there's really no reason for anyone to stay in places like Michigan or Upstate New York, for that matter. I left NY for the same reasons. No jobs, high taxes, low pay. I don't like to generalize about parties, but the fact is that a reason that I consistently do not vote Democratic is because of those programs.
Many people, including myself, actually believe that a well-managed and properly planned system could work, but that's the rub, isn't it? Look at Social Security. It's just a withholding plan that is supposed to gain interest until you retire. So why is it running out of money? Congress couldn't keep it's hands off of something as incredibly simple as that, what do you think the plan is for the largest, most complex health care system in the world? How is *that* going to work out?
The states are even worse in their own areas. They basically use taxes to transfer money to politically important urban areas, where there are tons of programs that cater to just about anyone who opens their mouth, including illegal immigrants. It costs a lot of money to keep the bread and circuses going in a modern metropolis.
That's not to say that I don't think the Republicans are a bunch of screw ups too. The only thing they have going for them is that they are saying "No", and while that's an incredibly crappy platform, at least they might slow down the process of spending more money than our grandkids could ever pay back in 100 years. Of course with the last eight years, I'm not even sure of that.
Graveling up roads due to either lack of money or lack of need is one sign that your state is speeding in the wrong direction. You're losing population and tax revenues and considering that industry started in these places, you can't simply blame the weather for it. Years of policies where everyone thought they could tax the crap out of "corporations" and "the rich" brought about the expected response: the rich and the corporations moved away. Short term gains in programs for long term losses.
Concrete would never survive the frost. Where I live, one routinely gets frost heaves up to 1'. For concrete to survive, one would have to prevent water from building up under the road. This is an almost impossible feat of engineering. The only reason bridges can use concrete is that they don't have to worry about frost heaves.
So I suppose Flat Tracking isn't your style, eh?
WTF? Over?
(particularly since a colder state like Michigan probably goes trough asphalt roads a lot faster than warmer areas)
Only if the asphalt was not built with the local climate in mind. This happens in Hungary a lot, due to corruption and incompetence. We know we've arrived in Austria not because of the border, but because the car stops shaking.
Gravel is a lot slower, if you're going faster than 15MPH on a gravel road, then you are moving fast.
Obviously, you've never seen The Dukes of Hazard.
As a former dirt road resident....25 was easily attainable even in poor weather. You've never lived until you've driven a '76 Caprice Classic (4300 lb rear wheel drive car) at 50 mph+ on a freshly raked dirt road.
That was the first time I had any idea how great a Rally driver must feel driving in Finland.
WTF? Over?
They also are oiled in front of properties to control dust (often something like Dustlock [soybean oil soapstock], since crude oil spraying is banned in many states). From what I remember this is done a couple of times a year (I lived on a gravel road from age 6 to 7, and then they paved it), but sometimes they will do an extra coat if extra traffic is expected (say, a county fair) or if some sort of festival uses the roads (e.g. something like Woodstock).
Alternatives blacktop requires yearly maintenance like seal-coating and has a lifespan of only about 25-30 years and concrete is expensive (especially in northern climates where it is prone to cracking and can deteriorate due to salt exposure.
Of course we didn't have the freeze/thaw cycles people do farther north...
You don't even need it to freeze. Here in Western Australia, the surface of a road can get to as much as 70 deg. C on a summer day, but cool to 15 degrees overnight. Even in winter the temperatures can vary from 3 to 30 degrees C. I suspect it might be a tall order to expect a concrete road to put up with that kind of stress unless you put in a lot of expansion joints.
we need to go back to Eisenhower-era concrete road beds
And just how much extra tax are you willing to pay to land B52s in Mitchigan?
It's all very well saying "build better roads" but are you willing to pay for them?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Hell he remembers when old 16 was 8!
. I love the sound of burning women and screaming rubber....
I certainly wouldn't want to try this tactic anywhere out west though, where vast distances make driving on gravel roads much more of a chore.
In many cases, there are multiple roads to a destination. Some will remain paved, other will be gravel. The paved roads are used for longer distances, the dirt roads are more for local access.
This was the case in rural coastal California in the 80s. And I've seen plenty of dirt roads in Nevada, Arizona & Utah. But the highways and major roads were still paved.
Some drivers might need to adjust their habits. I'm reading plenty of comments here about "increased breaking time", 'I can't go 50 mph on a dirt road', etc. In these cases, drivers just need to slow down-- it's what people used to do.
We don't have to pave every single remote rural road, especially at a time when we're closing schools.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Concrete would never survive the frost.
Why not? Concrete buildings survive in the Great White North. Significant parts of the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway are concrete, and some of the planned upgrades will also be concrete.
For concrete to survive, one would have to prevent water from building up under the road. This is an almost impossible feat of engineering.
To prevent frost heaving, the roadbed must extend down into the ground significantly below the frost line. This is not impossible. It is just expensive. The Roman empire build roads through cold climates. Roads that are in use 2000 years later without significant changes to the roadbed. Of course, the Romans had slaves, which cuts down on the expense.
In a relatively small state like Michigan with nasty freeze-thaw cycles that probably cause massive damage to roads anyway, this probably is not a bad idea. The distances are such that the lower speed limit required isn't going to mean it takes days to get across the state (like it would in, say, Montana). Plus, the freeze-thaw cycle means they'd be dealing with massive potholes every season regardless, and potholes are cheaper and easier to fix on gravel.
I certainly wouldn't want to try this tactic anywhere out west though, where vast distances make driving on gravel roads much more of a chore.
Michigan is the 11th largest state, and more than you might expected based on its absolute size living here required a ton of driving because the nearest place of interest is often hours away on I-75. However, I believe these poor counties are planning to remove pavement from rural roads with low traffic, not interstate or state highways.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
I'm not sure if you can see the irony here, bit if big trucks are driving too fast and the rocks are hitting your windshield, you are doing the same. The most effective counter to rocks flying from tires is to slow down and put some distance between the two of you.
On the unoiled roads around here, you pretty much need to set back almost 100 foot or more for moderate speeds just to see through the dust plume of the vehicle in front of you. Of course spaying oil on the roads dampen that effect quite a bit.
It's not expensive to maintain them (gravel isn't expensive)--but it is labor-intensive.
Sounds like the ideal solution for job creation: cheap but involves lots of labor.
Of course these aren't going to be jobs people will necessarily want to be doing long-term. But in this economy, a job is a job.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
You just get dirtbikes instead.
HTH.
Deleted
Wouldn't that be a typical intelligent use for stimulus packages? A complete overhaul is needed anyway. So instead of spending gazillions of dollars to rescue non-working companies and their dinosaur business models, wouldn't this public money be better spent in repairing public infrastructure (i.e. where it belongs)?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Of course we didn't have the freeze/thaw cycles people do farther north...
You don't even need it to freeze. Here in Western Australia, the surface of a road can get to as much as 70 deg. C on a summer day, but cool to 15 degrees overnight. Even in winter the temperatures can vary from 3 to 30 degrees C. I suspect it might be a tall order to expect a concrete road to put up with that kind of stress unless you put in a lot of expansion joints.
Which is why concrete roads are laid in slabs, not as a continuous surface. Also, concrete roads don't get as hot as asphalt. Also, freezing is a lot worse for concrete than an equivalent temperature change on a hot day because it means that any water in cracks of the road will expand. Freezing water turns rigid solids to powder through inexorable crack propagation.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Another big downside: Driving a motorcycle on gravel sucks. Motorcycles are vehicle too!
And it didn't turn out too pretty. Read Bryan Ward-Perkins' "The Fall Of Rome and The End Of Civilization"......
http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Rome-End-Civilization/dp/0192807285
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
The problem with our economy isn't that jobs are disappearing. It's that we've adopted laws that encourage corporations to ship them overseas.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
> Yeah, Democrats, I'm sure that's the reason. It had nothing at all to do with
> the auto industry and loss of jobs or anything like that.
Yea, it has everything to do with loss of jobs and the auto industry. Let me keep it simple enough someone with a government schooling should be able to follow along. Democrats destroy jobs. The greater tehir majorities and the longer the time they hold it the worse the damage. Go plot the demographic trendlines yourself if you don't believe me. The Bluer the state and longer it has been blue the more seats it has lost in the last couple of Census reallocations. The Red states have been picking up seats. People are voting with their feet. I just wish the fools would realize WHY they had to move and thus not bring the problem with them by electing Democrats in their new home.
There isn't much of a problem in the 'auto industry' if by auto industry you mean production of autos. They just aren't being made in Michigan anymore, they are being built in Right to Work states with lower tax structures in factories where the root of the corporate ownership tree is in Tokyo instead of New York[1]. Of course with the recession and all, they are all feeling some pain about now.
Now riddle me this: With an existing industrial base and lots of experienced labor available, why does a Japanese automaker decide to skip Michigan when locating a plant in the US and instead go to the South where none of those advantages exist? Why do they do a greenfield project along the Interstate in the middle of nowhere when they could buy a closed plant in an area with thousands of unemployed workers with exactly the skills they need? When you can answer that question you will have taken your first step towards enlightenment.
[1] Hint, the 'Detroit automaker' bankruptcies are being filed in NY.
Absolute nonsense. "Just look it up" is worse than anecdotal evidence. Here's some of that: California has been growing in population at an incredible rate. The blue parts of the state are overflowing with skilled workers. The blue parts of Colorado are growing the fastest and gaining the most jobs. The blue parts of New York are surging while the rest withers. That little blue dot in Texas, Austin, is the most successful city in the state and its center of skilled workers. The European countries that have made our economy look embarrassing in the last decade are economically bluer than any part of the US. Blue presidents always correlate (I'm not claiming a cause) with job creation. The blue man group is a hotbed of economic activity. Papa smurf has the richest beard in town.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Indeed - for concrete, the cracking is worse, and harder to fix - also, the sodium chloride in the road salt would speed up the deterioration in the winter months. This is why manufacturers sell alternative ice melt for your sidewalk that is based on calcium chloride, etc.
I'm talking foot deep steel reinforced concrete baby....Of course we didn't have the freeze/thaw cycles people do farther north so I could be talking out of my backside, but these things appeared well-nigh indestructible.
In my experience, there is a problem with concrete roads and freeze/thaw cycles. Concrete doesn't "flow" with temperature changes the way asphalt does, so it needs expansion joints cut into it at intervals. Water gets into these, freezes, and starts cracking the concrete. The result is, after a decade or so, a rhythmic kathunk-kathunk-kathunk sound as you drive over the joints.
Notice that I said "after a decade or so." I'm pretty sure they still last at least as long as asphalt, if not longer, before becoming rough.
That's really a great point - not all roads necessarily *have* to be paved. Maybe in very rural areas with few residents or businesses along such roads, there's simply not the money there to pay for paving. Maybe we shouldn't be spending money on paving every inch of road in the country. People can't seem to get their heads around the idea that governments (whether federal, state, or local) don't have unlimited access to funds. Sometimes, you have to find places to cut funding.
Would it be better to cut funding to emergency services like police, fire, ems? Maybe the schools? Personally, I'd rather grind up a few rural roads into gravel, than to cut funding for education or emergency services (although, that's probably happening too, unfortunately).
The "interstate highways designed for bombers to land on" is an urban legend - at least in the USA.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Why do you exactly think you can't steer a car while wheels are locked?
I grew up on gravel roads and I currently drive a lot on snow covered roads. In both scenarios locked up tires act like skis and handle pretty well. Usually not quite as good as rotating on clean dry asphalt, but in some situations, you get better traction locked up on gravel.
Above a certain speed on gravel roads you sort of skip across when locked up. Below a certain speed you actually dig into the road and carve ruts. I think the highest G-force braking I've ever experienced was locked up on a lightly packed gravel driveway... 15 to zero in something like 1 foot. It was rather like the feeling you get when you hit a speed bump when going fast except forward rather than upward.
I intentionally purchased a non-anti-lock car because I'm most likely to need the brakes in a rural area full of deer, or in low visibility snow storms, rather than cruisin the interstate at noon...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Newsflash: your healthcare is only tied to your employer because corporations get a tax break that you don't when they buy your healthcare. If the government leveled the playing field by making the taxes equitable between you and your company, then there would be no cost benefit to employer plans. You could join any pool of people you wanted, if you needed to be part of a pool.
Actually it's a monumentally bad idea. Also, there really aren't that many "gravel roads" in Michigan. Oh sure, they might start out as gravel, but unless you're dumping new gravel on them every year, they turn into "dirt roads" so that's what we call them here.
In the winter, a paved road can be plowed perfectly clear whilst a dirt road cannot. You need to spread a lot more salt (or more commonly, sand) to keep a dirt road safe in the winter. To keep a dirt road in acceptable condition, you also have to have it grated at least once a year, something that costs money and is therefore never done. Rain and melting snow destroy dirt roads through erosion and the creation of ripples and potholes. Cars have a short life expectancy in Michigan already, but dirt roads only accelerate their deterioration through vibration, dust, mud, and flying rocks.
Michigan weather does do nasty things to roads, but I've been in plenty of other states (and even Canada) with similar weather and the local governments have zero problem keeping roads properly maintained. For being the automotive capital of the world, Michigan has always been completely bass-ackwards when it comes to cars and roads. One of the main reasons I'm looking to move out soon.
If we're closing schools, the solution is to fund them properly from the appropriate source (those who use them) and not increase an already-high and completely-unrelated gas tax.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Yes, and driving a bike on gravel really sucks. You get flat tires that way.
I live in NW Washington State. When I drive down to Seattle, I dread the parts of the freeway that are concrete. Thump, thump, thump, thump, and the surface itself is loud so you get general roar behind the periodic thumping. Worse still, when you get to the north side of Seattle it gets really loud. I've been stuck in traffic there a few times, and the road bed that gets ground by tires has worn away to reveal the "gravel" -- the stones they used in the concrete are as big as a full size computer mouse. With the cement worn away, it's like driving on cobblestones. No wonder the freeway is so loud. The grooves in other areas really suck with a motorcycle. And then in other places, there are other types of grindings, 3 parallell strips about 3" wide and 12" long spaced in each tire well of the lane, each set about 12-18" from the other longitudinally. So here you get zipzipzipzipzipTHUMPzipzipzipzipzipTHUM.
I love blacktop.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
You should vote repub... , no wait demo...
Say, which was the small government party again ?
Where I grew up we ate gravel and were happy to have it.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
> California has been growing in population at an incredible rate.
Not quite. California is starting to experience net negative population growth, even allowing for illegals to make up some of the losses. California has gained house seats in every Census from 1930 forward... but probably won't in 2010 and will more than likely lose one.
And then you start making my point for me while thinking you are disagreeing.
> The blue parts of Colorado are growing the fastest and gaining the most jobs.
Yes, and a good many of that growth is coming at California's expense as people and jobs flee from the asylum. And as I said origionally they are bringing the problem with them in that they are still voting blue team. Because bluntly, THEY are the problem. Classic case of the problem with intellectuals. Yes you need them but if you get too many of them they cause Socialism and ruin for reasons which have been explored in enough depth in the literature that I won't bother with a Cliff's Notes summary here.
Democrat delenda est
I'm (almost) a civil engineer and so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.
Concrete roads aren't indestructible. In fact, roads with rigid and semi-rigid pavements (concert layer without and with a gravel layer between the road bed) have only a slightly longer life expectancy (40 years) than regular flexible pavements (asphalt and bitumen-based rolling layer) (30 years). Just because concrete is seen as an artificial stone it doesn't mean it is eternal. Far from it. It does degrade and it degrades even faster when structures are designed to last just a few decades or so.
To make matters worse, rigid and semi-rigid pavements are much more expensive and labour-consuming than their flexible counterpart not only when building but also maintaining. They are also more prone to erosion due to water circulation in the road bed and all those regular problems related to concrete structures (carbonation, steel corrosion, those pesky freeze/thaw cycles, other nasty buggers).
So you may believe that concrete, just because it is concrete, ends up being an excellent solution but hey, there is a reason that it's only applied in very specific roads such as airport runways and parking lots (they withstand the forces from the landing impacts and don't degrade when in contact with fuel). It's a solution that is far too expensive and suffers from far too many problems than regular flexible pavement solutions, which means it is only used when it is absolutely necessary.
On the other hand, macadame roads are a time-tested technology. Although they don't make it possible to run around in high speeds they are one of the best road technologies developed up to this day. They are extremely easy to build, they are low-maintenance, they are cheap and sometimes they can even be built from the materials mined exactly from the construction site. In fact, flexible pavements are basically nothing more than macadame roads with an extra layer made out of some fancy material such as asphalt, bitumen, concrete or some other "glue" such as plaster. They may look "old school" but don't believe for a moment that them old time folk weren't smart or couldn't develop great stuff.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Most of the schools in California are closing because they have few students. Yes, there is less money being spent on fewer students, but claiming that the schools are closing because of improper funding is a strawman at best. Heck, the single largest line item in the California budget is education. One of the schools here in my town has a damn water slide. Yes, a three story amusement park style water slide in a public school. That is NOT a problem with underfunding.
You know, I like to help you here guy. I'm sympathetic, I really am. But you've got to understand my position. It's just not possible to recognize motorcycles as legitimate road vehicles.
I mean sure, no ones got a problem with big Harley's. But lets think for a moment about where this is leading us. Plastic exteriors motorbikes, dirt bikes, scooters ?! Jesus! Sooner or later, someone is going to stand up and argue that electric bikes be allowed on public roads and form there it's one small step to honest to Gods pedal powered bicycles! This is how slippery the slope is right here.
I mean, the dangers of the road are bad enough. People cutting you off, lane changing, bodywork scratches, stop signs, pedestrians just throwing themselves under the wheels, spilled coffee, etc. Now you're asking be to accept those heathens on their clacking, greasy, hell spawned bare metal contraptions as legitimate road users?! You expect me to slam on the brakes so I can have the privilege of crawling along behind these slugs for five miles until they get another puncture? Because I sure as hell can't pass their wobbling asses without another "incident" occurring where their either wobble off the embankment and I get a ticket or else their spoked hate mobiles eviscerate my paintjob and get irreparably tanged up in the undercarriage. I swear the assholes just do it on purpose.
No. No, I'm sorry. I'm not going back to that. Never again. My hands are tied. I'm sympathetic, I really am, but my hands are tied.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'm (almost) a civil engineer so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.
If your asphalt roads need to be repaved less than a couple of decades after they were built then the problem doesn't lie on the technology (flexible pavement roads, asphalt) but instead due to being poorly built by incompetent construction crews. A flexible pavement road needs to have a impermeable rolling layer, a thick, tightly compacted gravel layer that must be at least a couple of feet deep and an impermeable bedding. The people building the road also need to make sure that everything drains perfectly, which means that the entire road and sometimes it's surrounding must be a drainage system.
So having that in mind, flexible roads only present problems if the road bed suffers from draining problems, if the macadame layer isn't thick enough or properly compacted and/or if the top layer isn't thick enough nor impermeable. If it's built with those problems in mind then it can easily be problem-free for around 30 years. On the other hand, if it's experiencing problems a few years after it's inauguration then you must take a good hard look at both the people building the road and the folks verifying that it's up to code, because they obviously didn't do their job properly.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Classic case of the problem with intellectuals. Yes you need them but if you get too many of them they cause Socialism and ruin for reasons which have been explored in enough depth in the literature that I won't bother with a Cliff's Notes summary here.
Intellectuals cause socialism?
During the revolution in Russia, intellectuals (Intelligacia I think in Russian) were quite literally lined up against the wall and shot or sent to Siberia. What happened in the following decades was some of the most extreme examples of socialism. Government wasn't anywhere near democratic either.
Unless I am missing something obvious, I would say it is the lack of intellectuals that fuels socialism.
"That's why I'm a big proponent of doing our best to avoid unwarranted wealth transfers to areas that do not generate wealth......The problem is mostly politics, and that's why, in the long run socialized programs will fail."
And the problem with arguments like this, is that they almost universally fail to account for the cost to society of not having that 'socialized' program, especially when you add in moral obligations that society has deemed necessary to be considered a civilized nation.
For instance, tax payer money funding programs built from research here: http://www.nectac.org/topics/quality/effective.asp#longterm in an inner city where parents would not be able to afford pre-school by themselves.
How many children will grow up to become productive with the program or without?
How many children will avoid joining gangs saving prison money/lives?
There are tons of studies showing that in some cases, preventative social programs, preventative healthcare, etc.. saves society tax money in the long term.
But usually people are so short sighted, that they say things like "wealth transfer", not realizing that they are saving money in the long term. I know the exact news sources and philosophies that you subscribe to because you used the term 'wealth transfer' (My father is firmly in your right wing viewpoint). It is a loaded term that seeks to distort the reality that social programs can and do save society money, and raise our overall prosperity.
And saying "why I'm a big proponent of doing our best to avoid unwarranted wealth transfers to areas that do not generate wealth" completely ignores any moral obligations.
The hospital that I worked for had to, by law, care for any seriously sick or injured person regardless of their ability to pay. That "wealth transfer" from the hospital into a service for someone with no money, was deemed morally correct, enough so that it became law.
That hospital, and my job, disappeared due to the large amounts of illegal aliens and/or poor folks that knew that going to an emergency room, having waited until they were very sick = free healthcare.
If instead, we had provided preventative healthcare for free to those illegal aliens/and or poor people, and offered other free healthcares, the overall cost to provide service to those people would be LOWER.
That means I would still have my job, and the hospital supporting 4,000 employees would have still been in business.
That is a micro example of course, but extend that to the entire healthcare system as a whole, and you can see the impact it can have on America.
We've been slipping in terms of education compared with other European countries for quite a while now. Would you consider tax payer money used to provide teachers a "wealth transfer" to those that cannot afford private tutors? Most likely not. We know that having an uneducated population is bad for everyone. Why can you not see other, proven, socialized programs in the same light?
Just drive on the roads until they crumble.
That's what they do, but unfortunately the roads don't have the decency to crumble uniformly, with some parts turning to potholes and others staying sound.
The obvious conclusion, gentlemen, is that we need shoddier workmanship so it all goes to hell simultaneously. DOWN WITH QUALITY!
I am a licensed civil engineer, and I think your statement (and the one prior) bears qualifying. The choice between an asphalt road and a concrete one should always be analyzed by a life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA), which takes into account the up-front cost of the road plus the maintenance costs. In Southern California, concrete will most often come out ahead in said analysis, especially given our traffic volumes and the traffic delay costs associated with the more frequent maintenance activities required by asphalt. We have concrete pavements here that are 50+ years old. In areas of high freeze-thaw cycles, an LCCA may produce different results. However, it should also be noted that the thump-thump of many concrete pavements today is due to a load-transfer failure between the slabs, something that in new pavements has been addressed with the inclusion of steel dowel bars between slabs.
"The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right." - Henrik Ibsen
That is an old and poor scam that schools use. Even if the waterslide was installed by a fundraiser, the maintenance and upkeep including heating the pool is not. Besides the fact that the school spends significant resources paying for the management of many of these fundraiser that pay for crazy stuff like waterslides and stadiums.
>Yes, we are. If everybody would just go out and buy a goddam new car (from one of the Big 3, of course).
By "Big 3", do you mean Toyota, Honda and Fiat?
I am a licensed civil engineer, and I think your statement (and the one prior) bears qualifying. The choice between an asphalt road and a concrete one should always be analyzed by a life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA), which takes into account the up-front cost of the road plus the maintenance costs.
Yes, as any civil engineering project.
In Southern California, concrete will most often come out ahead in said analysis, especially given our traffic volumes and the traffic delay costs associated with the more frequent maintenance activities required by asphalt. We have concrete pavements here that are 50+ years old.
The thing is, that's not quite right. Flexible pavements, such as those with asphalt or bitumen-based rolling pavement, don't require any more maintenance than rigid and semi-rigid pavement roads. The only reason that may lead to premature repairs is if they suffer from draining problems or if the foundation suffers from excessive settlement, which is caused by poorly designed and/or built roads.
Moreover, there are also quite a few flexible pavement roads out there that are 50+ years old. In fact, there are flexible pavement roads built by the romans that are still being used up to this day. That doesn't mean all flexible pavement roads last for millennia but is a nice way to show that properly built roads do last a very, very long time.
In areas of high freeze-thaw cycles, an LCCA may produce different results. However, it should also be noted that the thump-thump of many concrete pavements today is due to a load-transfer failure between the slabs, something that in new pavements has been addressed with the inclusion of steel dowel bars between slabs.
Well, as you may know that "thump-thump" phenomenon is caused by the erosion of the road's foundation/base layer, which is caused by drainage problems. That is a sign that that road's drainage system was either poorly thought out/built or wasn't even implemented, which is seen by some people responsible for building them as irrelevant as they believe that the rigid concrete top-layer is more than capable of withstanding any action that may be thrown at it. The fact that the prescribed solution for a drainage/erosion problem, something that is fixed if you add a gravel bedding to the road, is more steel bars, which are comparably very expensive, leads to believe the people behind that solution are a bit out of touch with that problem, as they are trying to throw money at the symptom instead of simply fixing the problem to begin with.
That way of thinking starts to be the source of real trouble when you rely on the same people to build a semi-flexible or flexible pavement road. When that happens then you have entire design and construction crews not caring about stuff such as draining, subsidence, settlement, water movement or even making sure the rolling layer is water-proof, with the added inconvenience of, this time, not being able to fix it by throwing more expensive steel to make up for their poorly thought out design. That leads to all sorts of problems including, such as this case, blaming the technology in itself when the blame is solely in the incompetence of those being paid to do the job. After all, it's the technology that must be wrong instead of the people spending the money and failing at their job, right?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
The thing is, that's not quite right. Flexible pavements, such as those with asphalt or bitumen-based rolling pavement, don't require any more maintenance than rigid and semi-rigid pavement roads. The only reason that may lead to premature repairs is if they suffer from draining problems or if the foundation suffers from excessive settlement, which is caused by poorly designed and/or built roads.
Like I said, LCCA required. Asphalt does not answer all pavement woes (neither does concrete). Your defense makes it sound like you work for the asphalt industry.
"The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right." - Henrik Ibsen
I'm laughing so hard at the "40 year life expectancy" that I'm about to fall out of my chair.
PLEASE show me two contiguous miles of pavement in the U.S. that's 40 years old. Heck, show me one that's 20!
I've been all over the U.S. and if the roads have one thing in common it's that they're utter crap. They're being repaired / replaced every ten years or less everywhere in the country that I've seen.
I'm sure your textbooks give you that four decade number but I've never seen it out here in the real world.
They've decided that Flint Michigan must SHRINK 40% to survive.... So the answer is to bulldoze parts of flint and let it return to nature. 49 other cities to be targeted. Is yours next?
http://www.wral.com/golo/blogpost/5358258/
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Again, please show me two contiguous miles of asphalt anywhere in the country that's two decades old.
I understand that if they're built CORRECTLY that they have an estimated lifespan of two decades. What I'm saying is that I haven't seen a single road crew anywhere in the United States that has that level of skill.
True true, but in Singapore, part of the East Coast Parkway (ECP) on the approach to Changi airport can be used as an emergency landing strip by moving the potted plants out of the way...Granted that 747s aren't B-52s, but still pretty cool. Or maybe I don't get out enough.
Michigan weather does do nasty things to roads, but I've been in plenty of other states (and even Canada) with similar weather and the local governments have zero problem keeping roads properly maintained. For being the automotive capital of the world, Michigan has always been completely bass-ackwards when it comes to cars and roads. One of the main reasons I'm looking to move out soon.
I've only heard of the legendary poor condition of Michigan roads--from a friend who lived in part of Quebec where potholes are already horrendous.
I figured the massive potholes in Michigan are left there deliberately to a) wear down regular cars faster so residents have to buy new cars sooner than should be necessary, and/or b) drive up sales of expensive trucks and SUVs.
Are we supposed to be shocked and horrified by that or something? If so, it's not working.
It seems like a perfectly reasonable solution to me. They're not taking inhabited property by eminent domain, instead they're targeting abandoned houses and demolishing them to create open space. Net result is fewer abandoned buildings -- which are a safety hazard, and create lots of extra work for fire and police departments -- more open space, and healthier communities in the nicer sections of town instead of a few people spread out and squatting amongst the ruins.
The only people who should be appalled by this are American exceptionalist, growth uber alles neo-"conservatives." In other words, morons.
"Negative growth" is something we're going to have to start dealing with in a lot of places in the near future, and as a society in general within a generation. The United States managed to get very high on the hog by growing continuously throughout the 20th century, which is getting increasingly unsustainable and simply cannot continue. The 20th century (arguably the 19th as well) as experienced in the US was very probably a singular event, built on cheap energy, rapid population growth, industrialization, and coming out on the winning side of two World Wars. The party is over.
We need to look forward, and unflinchingly and without nostalgia analyze what's likely to work in the future and what isn't. Trying to force some sort of return to the "good old days" is doomed. The things that aren't going to work need to die. That means industries that aren't profitable need to be wound down, rotting, unwanted houses need to be bulldozed, and government programs that depend on or assume never-ending growth to function need to stop.
I am glad to see that Flint is at least making some attempt to move forward, rather than sit and wait for some sort of salvation that's plainly not going to come, as other cities seem hell-bent on doing. I have some minor issues with the way it sounds like they're doing things -- my geo-libertarian sensibilities would be less offended by an "abandoned buildings tax" that attempted to stick owners of vacant structures with the costs they're externalizing on the community, than any use of eminent domain -- but these are issues of implementation rather than overall intent.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's a tough situation.
There's really no "good" answer to the problem. Large-scale deportation isn't terribly effective, and requires heavy-handed tactics that will inevitably infringe upon the privacy of law-abiding citizens, and cause a great deal of pain and suffering to those being deported (children in particular).
Xenophobia and racism complicates the issue even further. Many people in my area have the unfortunate tendency to label any dark-skinned individual without a perfect command of English (or a full-time job) as an 'illegal,' despite the fact that census data indicates a large legal immigrant population, while the various "crackdowns" that have been attempted have yielded virtually nothing.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Emmm I worked with one of the largest asphalt companies in Southern California 'All American Asphalt' and when oil prices rose; it was almost cheaper to use concrete at one point during the last few years. Although if your company owns an oil well in a foreign country like they do, you almost have a monopoly on the asphalt business because you can lowball everyone else with your cheaper asphalt oil prices.
Concrete lasts for a very long time and gets stronger over time; the problem is when you have to fix a crack you cannot just fill it and that is awful in a lot of Norhtern colder conditions. You have to sawcut a huge section out and repour it; if you just filled in the crack the two slabs would act like hammers smashing the fill patch to pieces.
Most of Los Angeles and the interstate highway are paved in concrete and just covered in aspahtl, a lot of it was poured in the 50's when concrete was cheaper. Guys used to stand by their work and be proud of it by stamping their name/company into it; they stopped that after awhile because whenever something went wrong with it they would refere to the stamp.
What they do with a lot of these older roads is pave ashpalt on top of it, so you will see like 3-4 layers of asphalt one on top of the other. So it allows for flexibility on top while protecting the concrete and remove the damaged top layer.
More money is unfortunately the only answer to get holes patched faster and maintanence, the government would probably save the Americans overall in repair damage done to their cars, shocks worn, tires worn and other damage.
Here's a link to give you an idea of what it costs to maintain roads especially in metropolotin.
http://www.sacog.org/mtp/pdf/MTP2035/Issue%20Papers/Road%20Maintenance.pdf
Factors Affecting Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation
-Âf Texas Transportation Institute studies conclude that it costs less in the long run to have good
roads than bad roads â" if you keep up with preventive maintenance continuously.
-Âf Deferred maintenance drives up long term cost; it shortens the cycle for rehabilitation,
which is four times as costly. Deferred rehabilitation compounds the problem, often leading
to pavement failure and the need to reconstruct the whole roadbed, at ten times the cost.
Routine preventive maintenance, particularly to seal cracks, patch potholes, and keep
drains open, on a continuing basis takes on average of $20,000 per mile of road per year
to do right.
Regular heavy maintenance, meaning a slurry or chip seal coat, adds costs in the range
of $50,000-$80,000 per mile for residential streets, on about a seven year cycle.
For well-maintained roads, the pavement rehabilitation cycle, meaning an asphalt
overlay, comes due in 15 years for arterials and 30 years for local streets, costing
$300,000-$400,000 per mile; rubberized asphalt can last longer and cuts road noise but
costs about 25% more up front.
Reconstruction of poorly-maintained roads, which entails removing the pavement and
repairing the gravel base underneath, costs as much as $2 million per mile.
We still have a lot of brick roads here along the Mississippi river. It gets hot and cold here and I've never seen any maintenance needed for them. In the summertime a lot of green grows out from between the bricks which I guess could be a problem if they get too big. Personally I've always really enjoyed driving on them.
*DrugCheese rants*
Comprehension fail.
No-one said that taxes on fuel should pay for schools. Taxes on fuel should pay for roads. But you should not earmark _more_ budget for the roads when there are other more important issues, like schools to deal with. People can only pay so much tax. It makes more sense to reduce the burden in one area, allowing you to use what funds you have more efficiently.
Do you really think that the tax you pay on fuel pays for all the road building and maintenance ? If that were true, you would be driving gravel roads already.
The sad thing is that although school enrollment is going down, education taxes are going up. So the schools are getting more money to teach less students. While I do understand that many of the costs of education are a fixed cost, (i.e. the incremental cost of teach 1 extra child is much less than the funding money received for that 1 extra child), I still find this a little alarming. There has to be a place to cut costs. Administration, I'm looking at you.
You know, it's easy to demonstrate you're a moron. California stats since last census:
Total people gained from international migration: 1,825,697
Total people lost to domestic migration: 1,378,706
Just counting people moving in and out of California, California has population growth. And that's not counting the fact that 2,549,081 more people who were born than people who died died.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Education costs are bound to rise over time, in comparison to everything else. Certain sectors of the economy cannot make productivity gains in the same way others do.
When you compare 12 years of education to a the price of a car over time, education looks more expensive over time but really may not have changed in absolute cost.
Think of it this way: the time required to build a car (or most any other widget) keeps dropping, and bankers can make more money with the same staff than before, but it still requires the same number of musicians and minutes for an orchestra to play a symphony as it did when that symphony was written; police officers still walk and drive the same speed when patrolling a neighborhood; and it still takes 12 years to educate the average student.