4 ms·

Because stubbornly asphalt and concrete take time to pour. Plus, there is a significant amount of work just in repairing the subgrade, otherwise the newly-finis

Because stubbornly asphalt and concrete take time to pour. Plus, there is a significant amount of work just in repairing the subgrade, otherwise the newly-finished road surface will just heave and buckle. And we do have paving entrepreneurs, they open and operate paving companies.

m463 7y ago
Ok, I'll settle for computer-controlled pothole fillers. Like that putter in caddyshack.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  This exists, but it's only good for "cold patch," meaning temporary fixes.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    Dumb question: if you reduce the cost of temporary fixes enough, does that become a good permanent strategy? I'd imagine best practices are currently designed with a large per-issue overhead in mind. Getting men & material to a given location is expensive, so fixes need to last. If you have a robot that doesn't mind finding & resurfacing the same damn pothole every time it rains, would that compete?
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      At a point, the whole road will sink and break should the bottom layer give. Give it a few winters and it will be a unpassable big crack.
      - jjoonathan 7y ago
        > a few winters There's the assumption that per-crack overhead is too large to justify frequent visits again.
  - ansible 7y ago
    Gah. Cold patch. That stuff seems to be next to useless, with approximately the same effectiveness as just pouring gravel into the pothole. It just spreads out everywhere.
    - zrobotics 7y ago
      Overall it is slightly better than filling the hole with gravel, since gravel will tend to abrade the edges of the road surface and make the hole larger. It's still a crappy fix though, the only advantage is it's quick and cheap.
    - homonculus1 7y ago
      You're supposed to scrape the overflow back into the hole and tamp everything down. If you do it properly it's not as good as real asphalt but it's a hell of a lot better than gravel, or a hole. Unfortunately where I live the workers are incredibly lazy or incredibly mismanaged. They just dump it and leave it heaping up above the road surface. That degree of shoddiness is a mark of societal dysfunction...

m463 7y ago

Ok, I'll settle for computer-controlled pothole fillers. Like that putter in caddyshack.

reaperducer 7y ago
This exists, but it's only good for "cold patch," meaning temporary fixes.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Dumb question: if you reduce the cost of temporary fixes enough, does that become a good permanent strategy? I'd imagine best practices are currently designed with a large per-issue overhead in mind. Getting men & material to a given location is expensive, so fixes need to last. If you have a robot that doesn't mind finding & resurfacing the same damn pothole every time it rains, would that compete?
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    At a point, the whole road will sink and break should the bottom layer give. Give it a few winters and it will be a unpassable big crack.
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      > a few winters There's the assumption that per-crack overhead is too large to justify frequent visits again.
- ansible 7y ago
  Gah. Cold patch. That stuff seems to be next to useless, with approximately the same effectiveness as just pouring gravel into the pothole. It just spreads out everywhere.
  - zrobotics 7y ago
    Overall it is slightly better than filling the hole with gravel, since gravel will tend to abrade the edges of the road surface and make the hole larger. It's still a crappy fix though, the only advantage is it's quick and cheap.
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    You're supposed to scrape the overflow back into the hole and tamp everything down. If you do it properly it's not as good as real asphalt but it's a hell of a lot better than gravel, or a hole. Unfortunately where I live the workers are incredibly lazy or incredibly mismanaged. They just dump it and leave it heaping up above the road surface. That degree of shoddiness is a mark of societal dysfunction...