Broke Counties Turn Failing Roads To Gravel 717
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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Winter? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Extremely Sensible (Score:5, Informative)
Gravel roads have an increased stopping distance over asphalt or concrete ones. They also contribute much more to vehicle wear and tear - not only as far as nicks and dings, but also tires and shocks. (though the later part is just as true of badly potholed roads) They are significantly dirtier than asphalt or concrete roads, both for the vehicle (small concern) but also for the surrounding homes and businesses. When I lived on Middle Bass Island, it was quite common for neighbors to band together to pave their section of road just to cut down on the fine dust which accumulated inside their homes.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why is it $100K per mile in the first place? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Winter? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not the only cost... (Score:4, Informative)
This has nothing to do with planning or investment- these municipalities are just plain out of money and cannot afford to repave.
Try keeping your distance (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Michitucky? (Score:3, Informative)
"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.
Living in Michigan (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Concrete isn't that great (Score:2, Informative)
More info
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/i90/spokanerutrepair/
Better link (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In Santa Fe NM you pay extra for a gravel road (Score:3, Informative)
"Santa Feans have unique tastes"
Santa Feans -- at least the imported ones -- are flipping crazy, and will pay top dollar prices for anything that looks broken, old, and rusted out. (It's can't actually *be* broken, old, and rusted out. It just has to *look* it.)
This drives up the taxes for properties which actually *are* broken, old, and rusted out. That's where people who were actually born in Santa Fe tend to live, and that's how they get shuffled out of town. Nobody who was born there can afford to live there any more.
The New Mexico state capital has more Californians, Texans, and East Coast turquoise fetishists living there than actual New Mexicans. The community's "character" is valued far more than the community is. It's sad.
Re:Yeah, it's the end of the world (Score:5, Informative)
> When it snows a small amount, sure, you don't have to plow, but when there are more than
> a couple of inches you have to plow the road anyway. The problem then is that the plows
> also take layers off the roads when they plow them, meaning that through the winter, the
> roads become less safe as the gravel disappears and the dirt below is left.
I live on a gravel road. This is nonsense.
Re:Michigan is fucked (Score:5, Informative)
A fine example was Benton Harbor, when there was cameras for her to look into she was all about helping poor Benton Harbor but as soon as the cameras were gone so was she.
She needs to GO AWAY and the rest of them as well. The state banked put all their eggs in the auto industry basked and can't figure out where they went wrong.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:5, Informative)
They also are oiled in front of properties to control dust (often something like Dustlock [dustlock.com] [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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Try keeping your distance (Score:5, Informative)
Having been on my fair share of gravel roads, it's the oncoming vehicles that tend to throw up stones at you, not the vehicles in front of you.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Michitucky? (Score:3, Informative)
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...
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:financially sound (Score:4, Informative)
> 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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:5, Informative)
Soon we'll all be fucked... Re:Michigan is fucked (Score:3, Informative)
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/ [wral.com]
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:3, Informative)
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 [sacog.org]
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.
Re:Road-ploughing in Victoria, Australia (Score:3, Informative)
Most of Michigan is in the dumper right now. The Grand Rapids area has unemployment about at the national average, but the state is at something like 13% overall right now. A town not more than 30 minutes from me (Muskegon Heights) has an unemployment rate around 24% last I heard. They just halved their local police force too. In a town there they always have a crime problem, that's not good!
The road thing is one of the few moves we're making that I 100% agree with though. A coworker of mine just had his road go from paved to gravel and it doesn't bug him at all. It was gravel a few years ago, went paved for a while, and they they reverted back to gravel the driving conditions improved.
Michigan's known for bad roads, but I'm not sure people realize just how bad they get. Drive too fast down a country road and you might knock your ass out from bouncing around so much, and I drive a damned SUV!
I remember tooling down an interstate in Illinois about, oh, 6-7 years ago with my younger brother. A sign came up, "DIP IN ROAD!" so I put two hands on the wheel and got ready for it. It was a tiny bump by Michigan standards, we wouldn't even bother marking it. We have pot holes so big around here that you'll seriously fark up your car if you hit them doing 35 sometimes.
Hell, big ran came through this spring and US-31 near me washed out. 30 foot of road, gone, with a drop off multiple feet high. Just saw a lawsuit today over a section of road in Allegan county that washed out and killed somebody that drove into it. Yep, we got holes in the road big enough to kill you 'round here.
Re:Michigan is fucked (Score:3, Informative)
A few years ago I ran EMS in Monroe County. Depending on where the call was, your choices were either (poorly maintained) paved road, gravel road, or dirt road. In some cases, it was actually preferable to go down the gravel or dirt roads... if you weren't 100% sure on an address, you could just look for the dust clouds from the first responders' vehicles. Some of the "paved" roads actually rode worse than the other roads, it got to the point where if you were trying to start an IV while going down the road, you had to time the bumps in the road with your needle stick.
Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score:1, Informative)
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.
yeah, except for two problems. Oil and loose stone, both of which are in abundant supply on a macadam road.
I'm sorry, but when you put oil and loose stone down, that isn't a road, that's a roof.
Driving on it causes all kinds of dings and mess of your undercarriage unless you're doing 5 MPH, and I still bear the scars where i wiped out on my bicycle, and had to have the doctor scrub that crap out of the wound before he could suture.
Macadam? Hell no!
Either pave it, or don't bother building it in the first place.
Re:financially sound (Score:2, Informative)
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.