The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: franksolich on July 22, 2010, 05:07:44 AM
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=268x3801
Oh my.
pscot (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-10 09:03 PM
Original message
Disappearing asphalt
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304...
SPIRITWOOD, N.D.—A hulking yellow machine inched along Old Highway 10 here recently in a summer scene that seemed as normal as the nearby corn swaying in the breeze. But instead of laying a blanket of steaming blacktop, the machine was grinding the asphalt road into bits.
"When had lots of money, they paved a lot of the roads and tried to make life easier for the people who lived out here," said Stutsman County Highway Superintendant Mike Zimmerman, sifting the dusty black rubble through his fingers. "Now, it's catching up to them."
Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls......In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as "poor man's pavement." Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel.
The moves have angered some residents....but higher taxes for road maintenance are equally unpopular. In June, Stutsman County residents rejected a measure that would have generated more money for roads by increasing property and sales taxes. "I'd rather my kids drive on a gravel road than stick them with a big tax bill," said Bob Baumann, as he sipped a bottle of Coors Light at the Sportsm...
tularetom (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-10 09:30 PM
Response to Original message
2. False economy
The assumption is that there is little or no maintenance required once a road has been turned back to gravel.
I have years of experience with the maintenance of rural roads, paved and unpaved. Gravel roads need to be regraded and recompacted two or three times a year depending the volume and type of traffic.
Roads that are used to transport heavy farm equipment and harvested crops may need even more maintenance.
And spot repairs are required after almost every significant weather event (blizzard or heavy rainstorm).
I feel for Mr Zimmerman but I'd be amazed if he can maintain what appears to be a heavily traveled road for $2,600 per mile per year. And elected officials really need to think twice before they take this step. Number one, they can anticipate a deluge of phone calls from irate farmers and other residents, and they'd better be able to explain the situation to them. And number two, once they realize they've made a mistake, they will have to pay even more to upgrade the road to what is needed (repaving).
Unless they are just trying to get the citizens so pissed off that they will vote to tax themselves for improved roads. That can be hazardous to their future employment.
pscot (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-10 09:42 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. We can afford to lay asphalt in Afghanistan but North Dakota is beyond our reach
tularetom (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-10 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Of course you have correctly summarized the entire problem in 14 words
But as a veteran of many years of the county road battles (as a public official AND a owner of property on a sparsely populated and lightly traveled county road) I assure you that point is lost on my neighbors out here.
Between the politicians trying to grab the road funds to pay for god knows what and the oil companies gouging for the price of asphalt, the road commissioners out in these cow counties are getting squoze to death.
The crap will hit the fan, someday. And people will finally wake up and realize you get the government you are willing to pay for.
RKP5637 (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-10 09:48 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. I have no road maintenance experience, but I do recall years ago as a kid that rural gravel roads always seemed to have lots of ongoing problems... mud holes, washouts, severe crowning, all sorts of maintenance issues.
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I thought all the enviros hated pavement of any kind?
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NO OIL FOR ASPHALT...sounds like a good DUmmie slogan to me
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I thought all the enviros hated pavement of any kind?
Only on roads they don't use, of course.
Our counties have been removing asphalt from back roads for more than 10 years. I like it. Doesn't bother me a bit. Don't know anyone it does bother. Might be an added benefit of keeping more folks from racing around, too.
Might keep some of the bicycle folks off them. The ones who ride down the middel of a paved road, and who like one man (after I told him cattle trucks where coming behind me and wouldn't be able to stop or swerve quickly) said, "Oh! We didn't know anyone used this road."
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No mention of the demographics involved (Typical half-truth muckraking), the real facts here are that rural population has been in a steady decline in a lot of those areas as well as the level of commercial activity they support, and so the tax base to pay for the blacktop isn't there anymore.
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Many of the roads in the county/rural areas here are considered to be "gravel" roads. Every couple of years they lay down a new layer of a thick oil/thin tar like junk and then lay down gravel over it. The oil is a bitch to get off of cars or bare feet.
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The donks really are turning the USA into a third world shithole.
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I travelled a road in Delaware County in NY last week that was being "repaved" with fine gravel. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't one of the twisty sorts of roads that required one to go reasonably slow on, and if the gravel paving crew wasn't spread out over 10 miles of the road.
It was getting to me. :banghead:
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Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa!!!
Didn't the jug-eared Kenyan just spend ONE ****ING TRILLION TAXPAYER DOLLARS on "shovel-ready" economic recovery projects?
Now you furry-fag-DUmmys tell my they cannot pave the road in front of my "inner-city" home?
I find it increasingly difficult NOT to post rhetoric pertaining to sniper rifles and DUmmys...
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NO OIL FOR ASPHALT...sounds like a good DUmmie slogan to me
Sounds like your advanced VRWC PsyOps studies are paying off! :-) :tongue: