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Some are, some aren't. The planning here is not great. I can think of some stoplights in Scottsdale and Tempe that are rutted so bad a car would probably touch down if you had your wheels in the wrong spot.
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Jun 27, 2021 19:36
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Same issue in TN, there's a few lights I can think of where the stock height VW would touch if I was in just the wrong spot. But who needs infrastructure!
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Jun 27, 2021 20:41
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Asphalt should only be use on windy back country roads that see little traffic. Everything else should be concrete. It's so much more durable.
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Jun 27, 2021 20:50
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In Phoenix I am waiting for the rails on the light trains to start warp because someone somewhere made the expansion gap too small due to the gap being designed for somewhere cooler.
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Jun 27, 2021 20:52
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It's noisy as hell and horrible to drive on.
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Jun 27, 2021 20:53
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I remember there is a stretch of the M25 that they experimented with concrete with and it is noisy as is the main road from NYC along Long Island. It lasts longer at the expense of noise and comfort. Since there is a lot of Lise I expect it is less fuel efficient to drive on as well since more of the energy produced to go forward is turned into sound.
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Jun 27, 2021 20:58
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Phoenix also experimented with rubber coated concrete, which is really quiet for the first 6 years and fails entirely before its 10 year advertised lifespan. Then they had to grind it off, and it's back to concrete now.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:01
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cakesmith handyman posted:It's noisy as hell and horrible to drive on. You know what else is noisy as hell and horrible to drive on? 2ft deep potholes. Only difference is that they actually damage your car and require yearly disruptions of traffic to fix. Highways around here we're originally built concrete and barely needed touched for 30 years. Then they milled and paved with asphalt. Now it's dodge potholes every spring, get the front of the car torn up with debris, and endure 6 months of road construction every 2-3 years as they tear it down and repave. Asphalt.Sucks.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:01
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heffray posted:Phoenix also experimented with rubber coated concrete, which is really quiet for the first 6 years and fails entirely before its 10 year advertised lifespan. Then they had to grind it off, and it's back to concrete now. Reminds me of whatever the hell they pave the 202 where it runs next to Tempe Town Lake. The thing comes apart every every time it rains and puts micro chips all over the car and windshield. BigPaddy posted:In Phoenix I am waiting for the rails on the light trains to start warp because someone somewhere made the expansion gap too small due to the gap being designed for somewhere cooler. Haha.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:03
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Another reason why asphalt sucks, tar and chipping. Gee, our road surface isn't durable enough to last even 18 months so every other year we dump a bunch of gravel and waste oil on it to fill up all the cracks. What's this about environment, road safety, and vehicle damage? I can't hear you over the noise of literally every exposed surface of the vehicle getting peppered with rocks.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:07
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Then people don’t follow the speed limits when it is just laid and throw up tons of crap on your car when they pass you. It is just a cheap and quick way to fix problems that shouldn’t exist to start with.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:10
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bull3964 posted:You know what else is noisy as hell and horrible to drive on? 2ft deep potholes. Only difference is that they actually damage your car and require yearly disruptions of traffic to fix. Or something about your local weather / ground conditions / politics makes asphalt fail earlier than normal? Oslo has hot-ish summers, wet ... everything, and freezing winters, but we definitely don't need to re-asphalt the big commuter roads every spring.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:10
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Computer viking posted:Or something about your local weather / ground conditions / politics makes asphalt fail earlier than normal? Oslo has hot-ish summers, wet ... everything, and freezing winters, but we definitely don't need to re-asphalt the big commuter roads every spring. It doesn't look like Oslo has quite the weather variability that southwestern PA has. Today's high is 89F (going to be 95F on Tuesday), but it's not uncommon for us to have nightly lows in the winter below 10F for a week or so at a time. It's also not unheard of to go from like a high of 20F on Monday to a high of 50F on Tuesday and then back down to 20F on Weds in the transition months. Weather extremes are only going to get worse as time goes on. But I also wouldn't discount them using the cheapest materials possible either since infrastructure in the US is an absolute poo poo show. Every time they repave they promise that it's some sort of revolutionary paving material that's going to last a decade and then we're back down to lane closures at the 5 year mark.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:18
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Potholes suck but there is nothing as lovely to drive/ride on as a freshly refinished asphalt road. You just gotta take the bad to get the good.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:23
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Sagebrush posted:Potholes suck but there is nothing as lovely to drive/ride on as a freshly refinished asphalt road. You just gotta take the bad to get the good. You get the good for about six months and the bad for the following nine years. It's absolutely not worth it.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:29
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They splurged and got some big automatic concrete road maker thing from Germany here when they built a new highway, turns out when everyone runs studded winters, concrete doesn't last very long either.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:57
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bull3964 posted:It doesn't look like Oslo has quite the weather variability that southwestern PA has. Today's high is 89F (going to be 95F on Tuesday), but it's not uncommon for us to have nightly lows in the winter below 10F for a week or so at a time. It's also not unheard of to go from like a high of 20F on Monday to a high of 50F on Tuesday and then back down to 20F on Weds in the transition months. Weather extremes are only going to get worse as time goes on. I found an estimate of lifetime cost (over a century) for a Norwegian 4-lane cross country road, and they planned for resurfacing every 6 years - though I have no idea what sort of deterioration they expect at that point. I will say we just drove some 360 km (220 mi) and the roads were ... fine? A few slowdowns where they had to route around some new construction, no potholes or unpleasant ruts. It doesn't really take that long to scrape and re-asphalt a road, and they do a lot of the work at night.
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Jun 27, 2021 22:03
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Hahahahahaha if you think road crews work at night or any off hours when traffic is lower.
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Jun 27, 2021 22:06
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When I tried searching for something like a "look how nice we are, we work at night for your sake" article, all I could find were variations over "neighbours complain about noisy roadworks at night". People don't know how lucky they are.
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Jun 27, 2021 22:15
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bull3964 posted:Hahahahahaha if you think road crews work at night or any off hours when traffic is lower. seems like 880 necks down a couple lanes at night most of the time i want to drive through there. they totally do work at night i avoid the major freeways like the plague during "normal hours" so idk if those lanes are open during the day, tho
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Jun 27, 2021 23:02
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Nidhg00670000 posted:They splurged and got some big automatic concrete road maker thing from Germany here when they built a new highway, turns out when everyone runs studded winters, concrete doesn't last very long either. Yeah, there’s a reason why studded tires have been forbidden in Germany since I was a kid.
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Jun 28, 2021 12:18
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bull3964 posted:Asphalt should only be use on windy back country roads that see little traffic. Everything else should be concrete. It's so much more durable. Infrastructure projects always go to the lowest bidder (or your majors best buddy/ Cousin) if the expansion joint work on the concrete pads is not executed to spec, you can suddenly be greeted by concrete blow up in the summer.  You hit one of these at highway speed, that's instant death regardless of your vehicle.
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Jun 28, 2021 13:32
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Instant death seems like a stretch
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Jun 28, 2021 13:40
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Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:Instant death seems like a stretch don't watch this video then, INSTANT DEATH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLd5rx94qMU
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Jun 28, 2021 14:05
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Nidhg00670000 posted:They splurged and got some big automatic concrete road maker thing from Germany here when they built a new highway, turns out when everyone runs studded winters, concrete doesn't last very long either. On the other hand, the major interstate that goes through my town is concrete for a number of miles (basically the range where chain control is typically enforced in the winter). It does get noticeably more rutted up in the rightmost lane, due to 18-wheelers will full chains on, which isn't terribly pleasant to drive on. But they certainly seem to be able to let it go longer between repaving than they would if it were asphalt.
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Jun 28, 2021 15:06
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Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:Instant death seems like a stretch Fair enough. My memory is colored from the series of concrete blow ups in Germany a few years ago that cost several Autobahn drivers lifes.  this one claimed a biker in 2013.About 30 percent of our Autobahn roads are concrete and much of that has a speed limit now (specifically in the South) because of the danger of blow ups during the summer. E: I remember another case where the front axle of a car was pushed up and back into the passenger compartment and the steering column impaled the driver (which should not happen with modern steering columns but the weird impact angle forced it up and backwards) Combat Theory fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 15:10
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Just had this concrete highway blow up a few days ago: A few cars crashed and like 8 injured.
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Jun 28, 2021 15:38
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Another reason they don't do concrete around here is that road salt obliterates it, and its rebar too. It just turns to poo poo in a few years and they end up patching it. They use it in a few places - usually state routes with a hill, a lot of truck traffic, and a traffic light that result in heavy washboarding - because it means they don't have to grind it smooth every few months and repave every year or two, but concrete highways as a general thing are not going to happen here anytime soon. You can make concrete resist that kind of damage but apparently it's more expensive per road-mile-year than asphalt.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:17
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There are a bunch of concrete and rebar bridges in the Boston area where the concrete has degraded back to the rebar which is just dust at this point. Worst one I can remember is in Cambridge where you slow drive by it in rush hour traffic watching it flex.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:28
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kastein posted:Another reason they don't do concrete around here is that road salt obliterates it, and its rebar too. It just turns to poo poo in a few years and they end up patching it. They use it in a few places - usually state routes with a hill, a lot of truck traffic, and a traffic light that result in heavy washboarding - because it means they don't have to grind it smooth every few months and repave every year or two, but concrete highways as a general thing are not going to happen here anytime soon. We use tons of salt every year around here and the highways lasted 30 years with minimal repairs necessarily. Halite is considered concrete safe. Refreezing can hurt concrete quickly though if there are any fissures for water to get into.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:43
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`Nemesis posted:don't watch this video then, INSTANT DEATH lovely roads are a big part of why SUVs and pickup trucks are so popular in the U.S.
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Jun 28, 2021 20:13
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90s Solo Cup posted:lovely roads are a big part of why SUVs and pickup trucks are so popular in the U.S. That's a fair assessment. Similar to "mountain" bikes vs. "road" bikes, even if one doesn't go off-road.
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Jun 28, 2021 22:52
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Darchangel posted:That's a fair assessment. I gave up on my racing bike with 23-26mm tires when I ended up with 2 flats and my buddy ended up with 1 flat, and we ended up giving up and calling for a car to come and get us that day. Went to a "touring" bike. I think they're called hybrids now? I"m happy with my 30mm bike now. Yeah our roads especially in the northeast suck.. there's no way to win.. I blew my accord tire due to a pothole, i've chased down my GF's wheel cover after hitting one and I was behind her etc. Ashphalt gets destroyed by freeze thaw cycles.. concrete gets destroyed by salt etc. there's no good solution that wouldn't cost more moneys. I'll pay my tolls, replace my tires and be happy because public transit sucks in anything other than BIG BIG city USA.
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Jun 28, 2021 23:56
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Topical:UP THE BUM NO BABY posted:https://twitter.com/wsdot_traffic/status/1409641786801197072
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Jun 29, 2021 02:17
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Not all infrastructure failure results are entirely bad. https://youtu.be/uowRh740aj4
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Jun 29, 2021 05:06
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Looks like asphalt is also buckling under heat. https://twitter.com/wspd7pio/status/1409353691287592970?s=19
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Jun 30, 2021 04:00
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That sure looks like an old concrete highway that's been asphalt paved over buckling. I bet if you scraped 3-5 inches of asphalt off you'd find a concrete pad under the section that's buckled up and a stress relief joint right at the spot where it buckled.
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Jun 30, 2021 05:32
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BigPaddy posted:There are a bunch of concrete and rebar bridges in the Boston area where the concrete has degraded back to the rebar which is just dust at this point. Worst one I can remember is in Cambridge where you slow drive by it in rush hour traffic watching it flex. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jul 3, 2021 |
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Jul 3, 2021 03:06
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RT 28 in Cambridge near Cambridgeside. Used to work near there and every day just sat in traffic watching it creak as I slowly drove by.
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Jul 3, 2021 03:52
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Nidhg00670000 posted:Might also be bad base prep on the road, we have lots of that here in my town in Sweden and we've got more of a Minneapolis weather. This actually happens in Minneapolis too, go figure. Definitely due to bad base prep. Happens most often where the asphalt was laid over cobblestone. You can usually see streetcar tracks embedded in the cobblestone when you look into potholes. Good stuff!
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Jul 3, 2021 06:01
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