July 29, 201014 yr "I'm no fan of traffic calming...." Speed bumps and speed humps are absurd. On the other hand, automobiles have ruined many public spaces. Driving is only one of the many uses for streets. Designing streets for high speed automobile traffic and excluding all other uses is not proper urban design.
July 29, 201014 yr NOT JUST QUAINT Brick streets coming back To many people, brick streets mean historic and quaint. In New Albany, engineers are attempting a modern take, tearing up a stretch of asphalt road and replacing it with brick. German Village and Whitehall also are working on plans to add more brick to their roads. In Knox County, the city of Mount Vernon has been going the other way, trading brick for traditional pavement - something other central Ohio communities have been considering, too. City engineers say brick roads look good, last forever and slow traffic. Some new designs are billed as environmentally friendly because they allow water to drain through rather than just run off the edges of the road.
July 29, 201014 yr I love brick roads except for biking. I'm sure new brick is easier on cyclists than old brick however. Speaking of old road material, who wants to see the return of the macadam? "Macadam is a type of road construction pioneered by the Scotsman John Loudon McAdam in around 1820. The method simplified what had been considered state-of-the-art at that point. Single sized aggregate layers of stone with a coating of binder as a cementing agent are mixed in an open-structured macadam." Here's the country's first macadam in Maryland: And here's the country's oldest macadam in Kentucky:
July 31, 201014 yr Why is asphalt getting so expensive? Coking refineries are turning it into gas and diesel: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/peak-asphalt-why-we-are-running-out-of-the-stuff.php
January 6, 201114 yr Road-salt sellers cheated Ohio out of millions, report finds Thursday, January 6, 2011 01:23 PM By James Nash The Columbus Dispatch Two salt companies cheated Ohio out of tens of millions of dollars by colluding on contracts for road salt and by representing out-of-state salt as being mined in Ohio, an investigative report revealed today. Inspector General Thomas P. Charles' report fingered Cargill Deicing Technology and Morton Salt Company for dividing up Ohio's salt market and inflating prices. The practice cost the state between $47 million and $59 million over the past decade, the report said Read more at: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/01/06/road-salt-companies-cheated-ohio-report-finds.html?sid=101
January 6, 201114 yr That's three years worth of 3-C operating costs -- just in OVERspending on salt!
January 6, 201114 yr Imagine if Governor Lausche would have refused the Interstate money over yearly salt costs in 1955.
January 20, 201114 yr Traffic Jams Cost U.S. $114.8 Billion in Time, Fuel in '09, Institute Says By Carol Wolf - Jan 20, 2011 Traffic congestion cost the U.S. $114.8 billion in time and fuel in 2009 as the average urban driver spent the equivalent of four work days waiting in cars, according a report by the Texas Transportation Institute. The cost of congestion increased 1.2 percent from a year earlier, excluding the cost of longer delivery times and missed meetings, the institute said in its annual Urban Mobility Report today. Chicago and Washington tied for the most congested urban area with commuters delayed by 70 hours a year on average because of traffic, according to the study. While congestion costs remain 8.7 percent lower than in 2007, the year the U.S. recession started, they may advance as the economy grows, according to the study. Congestion declines during economic slowdowns in the 1980s and 1990s were reversed when the economy improved, the College Station, Texas-based state agency said. Read more at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-20/traffic-jams-cost-u-s-114-8-billion-in-time-fuel-in-09-institute-says.html
January 21, 201114 yr AAR, APTA praise TTI report on easing highway gridlock A Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) report published Thursday underscores the importance of rail and other forms of transportation to ease highway congestion in U.S. urban areas, Association of American Railroads (AAR) and American Public Transportation Association (APTA) officials said in separate statements. TTI's 2010 Urban Mobility Report, which examined road congestion in 439 U.S. urban areas, calls for increased freight and passenger rail to alleviate traffic congestion on the nation’s highways. "By moving more people and goods by rail, we can relieve congestion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help consumers save expensive fuel wasted in highway traffic," said Edward Hamberger, AAR's president and chief executive officer. Read more at: http://www.progressiverailroading.com/news/article/AAR-APTA-praise-TTI-report-on-easing-highway-gridlock--25562
January 21, 201114 yr Author I think there should be a rule here against quoting a post that's one year old! :-D "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
January 21, 201114 yr I think there should be a rule here against quoting a post that's one year old! :-D Technically it was less than a year by a few days.
January 22, 201114 yr 70 hours a year in Chicago...ouch. Though I rarely drive around the city. I've noticed the Eisenhower Expwy has been undergoing resurfacing. Probably will make next years numbers worse. Statistically, most of the blame is the Chicago Circle Interchange. Though I'd blame the Ryan/55 Connector Interchange. It's perpetually backed up. If I know I'm out that way, I bring the camera. Perfect opportunity to take skyline photos while you are pretty much parked.
January 22, 201114 yr "Commuter Buzz: Add a dash of rain, and the road can act like "a section of ice," Brian Beal told The Cleveland Plain Dealer, describing the hazardous pavement sealant that was applied to parts of Interstate 90 last winter." That was one localized section way out in the eastern 'burbs and ODOT has since ground down the sealant - the problem was they laid it down too wide which reduced traction. If you're in Cleveland and you think traffic bottlenecks are bad here, you need to get out and see the world. I can attest to #2 on the list (Honolulu's H1) This shot is about 8 miles west of the CBD of Waikiki - that outbound clusterf#ck of traffic on the left wasn't moving and went on forever - it also has a counterpart east of the CBD. As beautiful as Honolulu is, I couldn't imagine dealing with this day in, day out: When I left Hawaii about 12-13 years ago, they were talking about building a bridge over a narrow span of Pearl Harbor to help with the traffic on H1; a lot of that traffic is going to Ewa Beach & Kapolei, along with the traffic that would be going up the H2. Sounds like it wasn't built (yet)..
January 22, 201114 yr That's why Magnum is such good friends with T.C.; they get to just fly over all that crap in that Reese's Pieces-themed helicopter.
January 22, 201114 yr I'm astounded (in a good way) Buffalo, NY didn't make the list. But then again, traffic hasn't really known to be bad around Buffalo unless there's an accident or maybe an event going on downtown.
August 29, 201311 yr Texas can’t afford paved roads, replaces them with gravel Published time: August 20, 2013 20:43 Officials in Texas this week began converting 83 miles of asphalt road to unpaved lanes of gravel. Years of heavy truck travel has ravaged entire routes in south and west Texas, and going back to gravel is for now the only affordable answer. Representatives for the state’s transportation department told the Texas Tribune that construction would begin Monday on a project that involves tearing up over 80 miles of asphalt that has been severely damaged over the years due to heavy traffic brought on by even heavier machinery. An oil boom has caused an energy industry to emerge near the state’s southwest border with Mexico, but that extra business has also brought extra traffic. Now local roads ravaged by oil-industry trucks are far too damaged to be repaired by what resources the state has, and the solution officials saw as the most affordable involves serious downgrades. "Since paving roads is too expensive and there is not enough funding to repave them all, our only other option to make them safer is to turn them into gravel roads," Texas Department of Transportation spokesman David Glessner told the Tribune... Read more at: http://rt.com/usa/texas-gravel-asphalt-txdot-748/
August 29, 201311 yr Hah! I never thought I'd see the day when Texas would let something like this happen. I thought they had a permanent standing exception to their small-government principles for anything related to roads or oil, and yet this is both (roads for oil trucks) and they're letting it happen.
August 29, 201311 yr Hah! I never thought I'd see the day when Texas would let something like this happen. I thought they had a permanent standing exception to their small-government principles for anything related to roads or oil, and yet this is both (roads for oil trucks) and they're letting it happen. Seems they are doing the right thing. If they can't afford it they are using a less expensive alternative. If these are backwater west Texas roads going to oil fields those roads need to be gravel or Concrete. Asphalt can't handle those loads nor the heat. Any good quality distribution warehousing projects have concrete roads and parking areas for the trucks.
August 29, 201311 yr After years of traveling on the backroads, I'm seeing the same trend develop in the midwest and elsewhere. Here are some instances I've come across: * Athens County, Ohio and other rural counties have resorted to turning some paved one-lane and narrow two-lane roads into gravel. Where the road travels by a house, the asphalt layer is left and maintained as such to keep down the dust. Many asphalt roads I remember were patched with gravel that soon became all gravel. * Chip sealing is prevalent in many more counties, which can be a precursor to graveling. It's generally loose (small) gravel bonded together with hot bitumen or asphalt. It doesn't last long on higher traffic roads but can extend the lifespan of pavement for quite some time. It also lends itself to being converted to gravel pretty easy. * Some Kentucky state roads that are still gravel will now remain gravel. There was a quote from a friend who works for the state that went along the lines of all Kentucky state roads are now graveled, but he may have meant primary routes. Most of the gravel routes I've encountered are on mountain crossings. The state thankfully pegs its gas tax with inflation, so the state isn't hard hit for money and can afford to keep its pavement in generally good condition. * The Little Shepherd Trail runs along the spine of Pine Mountain in southern Kentucky. I came across articles about a project to asphalt all of it - bear in mind that it is an extremely isolated road with a handful of connections, has no services, is one lane and has over a hundred curves and bends for 30+ miles. When I drove it last fall for the first time, about 70% of it was asphalted, some of it fairly recently, but the entire center section was gravel. I came across only one vehicle the entire evening/night. That didn't stop the county judge/executive from saying that automobiles have preference over cyclists, hikers and horseback riders who frequent the road. A lack of money was cited as a reason why the center section hasn't (and most likely will not) been paved.
August 29, 201311 yr Texas can’t afford paved roads, replaces them with gravel Published time: August 20, 2013 20:43 Officials in Texas this week began converting 83 miles of asphalt road to unpaved lanes of gravel. Years of heavy truck travel has ravaged entire routes in south and west Texas, and going back to gravel is for now the only affordable answer. Representatives for the state’s transportation department told the Texas Tribune that construction would begin Monday on a project that involves tearing up over 80 miles of asphalt that has been severely damaged over the years due to heavy traffic brought on by even heavier machinery. An oil boom has caused an energy industry to emerge near the state’s southwest border with Mexico, but that extra business has also brought extra traffic. Now local roads ravaged by oil-industry trucks are far too damaged to be repaired by what resources the state has, and the solution officials saw as the most affordable involves serious downgrades. "Since paving roads is too expensive and there is not enough funding to repave them all, our only other option to make them safer is to turn them into gravel roads," Texas Department of Transportation spokesman David Glessner told the Tribune... Read more at: http://rt.com/usa/texas-gravel-asphalt-txdot-748/ Hey now, you gotta watch posting RT articles; some people can't handle the truth.
August 29, 201311 yr Texas can’t afford paved roads, replaces them with gravel Published time: August 20, 2013 20:43 Officials in Texas this week began converting 83 miles of asphalt road to unpaved lanes of gravel. Years of heavy truck travel has ravaged entire routes in south and west Texas, and going back to gravel is for now the only affordable answer. Representatives for the state’s transportation department told the Texas Tribune that construction would begin Monday on a project that involves tearing up over 80 miles of asphalt that has been severely damaged over the years due to heavy traffic brought on by even heavier machinery. An oil boom has caused an energy industry to emerge near the state’s southwest border with Mexico, but that extra business has also brought extra traffic. Now local roads ravaged by oil-industry trucks are far too damaged to be repaired by what resources the state has, and the solution officials saw as the most affordable involves serious downgrades. "Since paving roads is too expensive and there is not enough funding to repave them all, our only other option to make them safer is to turn them into gravel roads," Texas Department of Transportation spokesman David Glessner told the Tribune... Read more at: http://rt.com/usa/texas-gravel-asphalt-txdot-748/ Hey now, you gotta watch posting RT articles; some people can't handle the truth. Yep, Russia's federally funded news source is a bastion of truthfulness. It's the first source I turn to for news on American domestic affairs.
August 30, 201311 yr Well, to be fair, it is a better news source for American domestic affairs than most of the stuff out on American networks these days. Case in point lately: Miley Cyrus. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
August 30, 201311 yr Author OK, here's some followup news from a news source not in Russia........ State puts gravel road plan on hold BY PEGGY FIKAC AUGUST 20, 2013 : Updated: August 21, 2013 6:26am AUSTIN — A plan to convert some drilling-affected roads in rural areas, particularly the Eagle Ford Shale zone, to gravel is slowing down after lawmakers raised serious concerns. Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, said Tuesday that Texas Department of Transportation officials had signaled a 60-day delay in some of the planned conversions of 83 miles of paved roads to gravel. State transportation officials approved the conversion plan last month. Heavy equipment used in energy production has marred the roads, and limited funds have left transportation officials unable to afford the needed repairs, said John Barton, the state's deputy transportation director. READ MORE AT: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/State-puts-gravel-road-plan-on-hold-4747473.php "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
August 30, 201311 yr State transportation officials approved the conversion plan last month. Heavy equipment used in energy production has marred the roads, and limited funds have left transportation officials unable to afford the needed repairs, said John Barton, the state's deputy transportation director. READ MORE AT: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/State-puts-gravel-road-plan-on-hold-4747473.php LOL -- "Gravel roads make us look bad with our campaign donors, we can't have that!" Strange to see Republicans complaining that more money isn't being spent to keep roads looking pretty for industry. The problem is, where is the money going to come from? I don't see Texas raising taxes, so prepare to see school or welfare funding cuts. But wait, there's more, the state is also looking to unload some of its maintenance obligations: TxDOT officials announced last month its plan to convert 83 miles of asphalt road in rural areas to gravel, though more recently they put it on hold for 60 days. The measure is cheaper than repairing the roads, significantly damaged by the influx of truck traffic caused by the state's energy boom. Then, last week, the agency sent letters to city and county officials, announcing the proposal to hand over control of 1,897 miles of state-maintained roads to them so TxDOT could save $165 million. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/TxDOT-takes-flack-for-plans-to-cut-back-on-roads-4772725.php Meanwhile, an adjacent news article reports that road expansion in other parts of Texas continue... Starting later this year or early 2014, work will begin on converting Loop 1604 between Bandera and Culebra roads into a controlled-access highway. The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday awarded the Loop 1604 design-build contract to Williams Brothers Construction Co. for up to $126.2 million. Williams Brothers also built the Loop 1604-U.S. 281 interchange. When completed, Loop 1604 will have continuous access roads and overpasses at Shaenfield, New Guilbeau and Braun roads. That project is expected to cost about $82.2 million. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Loop-1604-between-Bandera-and-Culebra-to-expand-4772526.php No indication of whether Texas will have the funds to maintain the newly expanded Loop 1604....
August 30, 201311 yr Well, to be fair, it is a better news source for American domestic affairs than most of the stuff out on American networks these days. Case in point lately: Miley Cyrus. Sometimes you need a news source that isn't funded 100% by corporations and isn't a subsidiary of the entertainment industry.
August 30, 201311 yr Well, to be fair, it is a better news source for American domestic affairs than most of the stuff out on American networks these days. Case in point lately: Miley Cyrus. Sometimes you need a news source that isn't funded 100% by corporations and isn't a subsidiary of the entertainment industry. I found RT news on Roku and watched a bit of it around the time Zimmerman was acquitted a couple of months ago. Let's say that RT is about as balanced in its own direction as Faux News. (The piece about Zimmerman made it sound like the US was one huge KKK enclave.)
August 31, 201311 yr Us city folk might not see that kind of stuff much, but it's something that's still very real in backwater parts of the nation. Anyway, um, gravel roads?
August 31, 201311 yr Would want to spray the car's fender walls with a coating that resists chipping.
September 10, 201311 yr Periodic maintenance should include undercarriage washes - regardless if you drive on gravel roads frequently or not.
October 15, 201311 yr Author I think this is an awesome website. It's set for Cleveland right now, but you can select from from numerous cities throughout the USA..... http://www.sigalert.com/Map.asp?region=Cleveland#lat=41.4627&lon=-81.69185&z=2 The Ohio cities are.... Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus Dayton Toledo I especially like checking this during rush hours and clicking on the cameras to see if they match up with the color coding for the roadways. Often times they do not, suggesting that one resource has a lag time. I think it's the color coding of the roads that lags. So at about 8 a.m. today, there was a lot of orange and red on the Cleveland highways. While not as much as on Chicago, New York or Boston highways, it actually did compare with Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis and some others. Several miles of highways within the interchange of I-77 and I-480 had a lot of red this morning, as did the Shoreway due to a serious accident at West 25th. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 15, 201311 yr Is that related to the <a href="http://www.ohgo.com">website</a> that ODOT runs?
October 15, 201311 yr Author Looks different. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
November 12, 201311 yr Author Well, the date 11-12-13 wasn't a good morning for traffic in these Ohio cities (below). The others had mostly green (free-flowing) roads. Red indicates heavy congestion at speeds below 20 mph. Diamonds indicate accidents.. AKRON CLEVELAND COLUMBUS "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
December 27, 201311 yr Burkhardt is not the same road as 5th St. It does change its designation from "avenue' to "road" for some reason.
January 16, 201411 yr Not quite the same situation, but in Clifton Heights (Cincinnati), Clifton Avenue runs parallel to itself (West Clifton) for one block.
January 29, 201411 yr Hmm I guess it's the metro's fault for not investing in snow removal equipment. Atlanta is still backed up at 4am in the morning. No I do not feel sorry for them except the kids. http://www.sigalert.com/Map.asp?region=Atlanta#lat=33.75924&lon=-84.39307&z=1
February 19, 201411 yr Toronto is embarking on an anti texting / distracted driver campaign by issuing police officers hearses to pull over scofflaws. Dunno if Ford was behind it... In a week-long campaign called “That Text or Call Could End It All,” police will be pulling over distracted drivers in a funeral vehicle. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/02/10/being_pulled_over_by_a_hearse_sends_a_message_dont_text_and_drive.html
February 19, 201411 yr ^this is wonderful. I wish it could be enacted in New York...for pedestrians! :whip: :whip: :whip: http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/
February 19, 201411 yr Yes - because texting while walking is just as deadly as texting while driving... (I grant you that there is a greater chance of walking in to traffic while texting, but I'm guessing you were referring to annoying peds who text and walk and have no sense of their surroundings and get in everyone's way. I've been to NYC enough to know they're definitely a nuisance.)
February 19, 201411 yr I'd be a fan of adding a software layer to all smartphones that only allows them to be unlocked and used when moving less than 15 mph. That also solves the problem of the industrial strength A-hole who carries on the loudest conversation ever on mass transit.
February 20, 201411 yr This article from Wired Magazine says it all. The problem with texting and driving isn't the texting part. It's the driving part.
May 25, 201411 yr Too slippery, prone to breakage, insanely expensive to install and maintain. Did you see that guy crawling through a tunnel with all the support wires etc? Your basically building a road and adding a concrete tunnel, lots of wiring, and placing tempered glass solar panels on top. Asphalt and concrete highways take insane amounts of pummeling. I just don't see it holding up except in light usage areas.
May 25, 201411 yr I think it's further proof of the insane lengths we'll go to in order to think that private automobiles for everyone, all the time, can be an environmentally sustainable transportation system.
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