3 ms·
I've lived in Illinois my whole life (Im in my 40s). I've heard how the potholes are terrible and getting worse as long as I can remember. They aren't particula
by sophacles 4y ago
I've lived in Illinois my whole life (Im in my 40s). I've heard how the potholes are terrible and getting worse as long as I can remember. They aren't particularly bad, nor do they seem to be getting worse.
Observations I've made:
* Snow plows have 2 functions: moving snow and making potholes. The frequency of pothole complaints starts climbing in November and peaks around April (when construction season gets started).
* "that pothole has been there 20 years" typically actually means "that pothole is near where a different one was located at some point in the last couple decades", or "that's a spot where the plows often can tear up the road"
* The people who often complain about potholes on some stretch of road tend to suddenly be the people who complain about how re-doing that stretch of road is a waste of money because "it was just fine before".
* 10 years after a re-pave when some street gets it's first new pothole - "ugh they just redid this road and it's already got potholes? typical $city_name"
- Ekaros 4y agoI wonder if this is more correlation than causation. The pot holes are result of freezing/thawing cycle. And this happens when there is need for snow plows. Though snow plows certainly can make them worse.
- sophacles 4y agoThe freeze/thaw cycles put cracks in the road. The snowplows (basically a fast bulldozer) excavate those into potholes (when the blade catches the crack, it tears up a chunk of asphalt with it, starting a feedback loop because theres more space for freezing to exert force causing more cracks...).