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> Interestingly, I expected cold places to have lower road quality in general due to things like freeze-thaw cycles and the impact of road salting, but there do

> Interestingly, I expected cold places to have lower road quality in general due to things like freeze-thaw cycles and the impact of road salting, but there doesn’t seem to be much correlation. Plenty of cold places (North Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota) have good-quality roads Not sure about those states in particular, but I have anecdotally noticed that some of the places with the harshest winters do some of the least road salting -- because salt is mostly usable for light to moderate snowfall and the people who live in the harshest climates are often better equipped to drive on hard packed snow.

hanniabu 2y ago
Also depends on where you're looking. Cities will have worse roads because they're always digging working on gas and water lines, some of which leak. That disturbance of the ground will make things a lot worse than some rural road where the ground hasn't been disturbed since it was created.
- softfalcon 2y ago
  This is the truth. They’re digging out under a massive overpass in my area right now to fix water main and gas piping issues as we speak. Road is all torn up and patched up. It has been a boondoggle of construction cones and heavy machinery for months now.
- bluGill 2y ago
  The new suburb I live in they put all that beside the road not under it. That is what the space between the road and sidewalk is for.
  - brewdad 2y ago
    This works well in suburbs with modern setback rules. It doesn't work so well in established urban areas where buildings often go right up to the sidewalk which goes right up to the road.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      It doesn't work well here either. It frees up the roads a little, but as someone who bikes on those "shared use" sidewalks there are regularly "yellow vest people" blocking the sidewalks.
softfalcon 2y ago
This is somewhat true where I’m at in Canada. In the city, half the people have proper winter tires, the other half “wing it” with whatever they can afford/put-up-with. Regularly see accidents all winter long from goofs sliding straight across multiple lanes of traffic or going off into the ditch. Only some of us are prepared. We don’t salt, only drop sand grit and gravel sparingly. Our roads become ice rinks or snow piles for a decent portion of the winter. Your comment about us being “better equipped” made me chuckle as I spent this morning watching my neighbours play slip-and-slide in the cul-de-sac cause they opted to not put their winter tires on. As someone who grew up in the mountains, their behaviour is downright dangerous in my opinion.
- kube-system 2y ago
  > opted to not put their winter tires on. Heh. At least they have them, and/or know what they are. I have been met with "they make tires just for snow?" when talking about snow tires in the US before.
  - softfalcon 2y ago
    Hah! Yup! Heard that one before from Californians, Texans, New Yorkers, and Arizonans in my travels. Ignorance can be the death of ya! Thank goodness most of them aren’t trying to drive up here!
    - eep_social 2y ago
      CA, TX, AZ yeah, yeah, yeah but hang on.. New Yorkers!? I hope these are the ones who live in NYC without a car.. otherwise that’s completely insane. Upstate NY gets tons of snow. Buffalo famously so.
      - ElevenLathe 2y ago
        I've lived in Michigan most of my life and only people in the remotest places have snow tires. City folk just use the same all-weather radials all year round and maybe keep some chains in the trunk for emergencies.
bell-cot 2y ago
> ... because salt is mostly usable for light to moderate snowfall and ... Perhaps more important - salt's effectiveness fades as the temperature decreases. Sand and gravel do not have that problem. So if you're running the Road Dept. in an area where serious cold ain't some rare event - why would you bother with salt? EDIT: I know the "melt to pavement, solar heating finishes the job" tactic. Which can work with heavier snowfall, if you plow/shovel before salting. Colder weather inhibits both halves of the melt-&-heat. (Plus the further north you are, the shorter & slantier the sun's rays get, even on clear days.)
- DCH3416 2y ago
  Because the goal is to get the road surface exposed so it'll heat up and melt off the snow during the day. And then the residual salt will leave a residue which will help prevent refreezing.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    That only works in places with relatively milder winter climates. In harsher climates, salt stops melting snow, and the surface temperature of even exposed road may stay below freezing even during the day.
    - DCH3416 2y ago
      Yeah. I'm familiar with the harsher climates aspect. The salt isn't really for the snow, it's for ice. Temperatures above like 10F, the sun will still cut through an untreated road surface and glaze over. Even with snow, because the top layer will still freeze, that nice crunch you get. The hazard is you have a smooth surface that your tires can't grip onto well when the sun goes down. I know it sounds counter intuitive but snow will still melt on very cold days because without wind you get a localized heating effect from the sun. The nice thing is, ice gets increasingly grippy the further down you go. It's the around freezing temps that get you. And bridges since rather than the ground holding temperatures, now you've got an air conditioning going on under the road. That's why salt is so useful over say grit because it changes the freezing point of the water.
DCH3416 2y ago
> Not sure about those states in particular, but I have anecdotally noticed that some of the places with the harshest winters do some of the least road salting Salt isn't effective when it gets really cold so it tends to be applied more around freezing as opposed to below. It also depends on the road surface temperature as well, heat of the sun melts off snow and that freezes at night. So you'll find salt has to be applied intelligently to the conditions, on bridges for example, which I suppose would come from experience. I also observe southern states seem to use more rubber instead of rock in their road surface. So that might be a factor on how robust they are to wear.
- bluGill 2y ago
  0F is defined as the temperature that salt on ice reaches. Regular salt is used a lot in Minnesota because it works fine most of the time and is cheap. It doesn't work on the coldest days, so about 15F they start adding in salts other than NaCl. Below -15F they no longer have a salt that works at all - but those days are rare. My Grandpa worked for the MN highway department until around 1995 when he retied, so my information is a bit out of date, but chemistry doesn't change that much so I doubt it is very different today.
alwayslikethis 2y ago
The more obvious reason is that colder places do not get as many freeze-thaw cycles. It simply stays frozen for a few months. In contrast, much of the northeast experiences many more freeze-thaw cycles since even in the winter it is warm enough to thaw the ice on some days.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Cold places see a lot of freeze-thaw cycles in fall and spring - before and after the hard freeze. I don't know how they compare, but it isn't clear cut.
  - unstyledcontent 2y ago
    In the case of Minnesotan, I think the need to stay on top of maintenance has led to the adoption of higher tech monitoring and better processes in general, just out of such extreme need (and lots of practice).
wkjagt 2y ago
I've often heard the cold climate given as the reason for the terrible roads in Quebec, but you clearly notice the roads getting better as you cross the border out of Quebec into Ontario for example.
- lifeisgood99 2y ago
  The Quebec road industry has historically been corrupt. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-roadwork-industry-rife-with-corruption-report-1.977604 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-roadwork-indu... and many many other reports.
Congeec 2y ago
Yep, in New York the pothole season is early Spring rather than winter, for example.

hanniabu 2y ago

Also depends on where you're looking. Cities will have worse roads because they're always digging working on gas and water lines, some of which leak. That disturbance of the ground will make things a lot worse than some rural road where the ground hasn't been disturbed since it was created.

softfalcon 2y ago
This is the truth. They’re digging out under a massive overpass in my area right now to fix water main and gas piping issues as we speak. Road is all torn up and patched up. It has been a boondoggle of construction cones and heavy machinery for months now.
bluGill 2y ago
The new suburb I live in they put all that beside the road not under it. That is what the space between the road and sidewalk is for.
- brewdad 2y ago
  This works well in suburbs with modern setback rules. It doesn't work so well in established urban areas where buildings often go right up to the sidewalk which goes right up to the road.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    It doesn't work well here either. It frees up the roads a little, but as someone who bikes on those "shared use" sidewalks there are regularly "yellow vest people" blocking the sidewalks.

softfalcon 2y ago

This is somewhat true where I’m at in Canada. In the city, half the people have proper winter tires, the other half “wing it” with whatever they can afford/put-up-with. Regularly see accidents all winter long from goofs sliding straight across multiple lanes of traffic or going off into the ditch. Only some of us are prepared. We don’t salt, only drop sand grit and gravel sparingly. Our roads become ice rinks or snow piles for a decent portion of the winter. Your comment about us being “better equipped” made me chuckle as I spent this morning watching my neighbours play slip-and-slide in the cul-de-sac cause they opted to not put their winter tires on. As someone who grew up in the mountains, their behaviour is downright dangerous in my opinion.

kube-system 2y ago
> opted to not put their winter tires on. Heh. At least they have them, and/or know what they are. I have been met with "they make tires just for snow?" when talking about snow tires in the US before.
- softfalcon 2y ago
  Hah! Yup! Heard that one before from Californians, Texans, New Yorkers, and Arizonans in my travels. Ignorance can be the death of ya! Thank goodness most of them aren’t trying to drive up here!
  - eep_social 2y ago
    CA, TX, AZ yeah, yeah, yeah but hang on.. New Yorkers!? I hope these are the ones who live in NYC without a car.. otherwise that’s completely insane. Upstate NY gets tons of snow. Buffalo famously so.
    - ElevenLathe 2y ago
      I've lived in Michigan most of my life and only people in the remotest places have snow tires. City folk just use the same all-weather radials all year round and maybe keep some chains in the trunk for emergencies.

bell-cot 2y ago

> ... because salt is mostly usable for light to moderate snowfall and ... Perhaps more important - salt's effectiveness fades as the temperature decreases. Sand and gravel do not have that problem. So if you're running the Road Dept. in an area where serious cold ain't some rare event - why would you bother with salt? EDIT: I know the "melt to pavement, solar heating finishes the job" tactic. Which can work with heavier snowfall, if you plow/shovel before salting. Colder weather inhibits both halves of the melt-&-heat. (Plus the further north you are, the shorter & slantier the sun's rays get, even on clear days.)

DCH3416 2y ago
Because the goal is to get the road surface exposed so it'll heat up and melt off the snow during the day. And then the residual salt will leave a residue which will help prevent refreezing.
- kube-system 2y ago
  That only works in places with relatively milder winter climates. In harsher climates, salt stops melting snow, and the surface temperature of even exposed road may stay below freezing even during the day.
  - DCH3416 2y ago
    Yeah. I'm familiar with the harsher climates aspect. The salt isn't really for the snow, it's for ice. Temperatures above like 10F, the sun will still cut through an untreated road surface and glaze over. Even with snow, because the top layer will still freeze, that nice crunch you get. The hazard is you have a smooth surface that your tires can't grip onto well when the sun goes down. I know it sounds counter intuitive but snow will still melt on very cold days because without wind you get a localized heating effect from the sun. The nice thing is, ice gets increasingly grippy the further down you go. It's the around freezing temps that get you. And bridges since rather than the ground holding temperatures, now you've got an air conditioning going on under the road. That's why salt is so useful over say grit because it changes the freezing point of the water.

DCH3416 2y ago

> Not sure about those states in particular, but I have anecdotally noticed that some of the places with the harshest winters do some of the least road salting Salt isn't effective when it gets really cold so it tends to be applied more around freezing as opposed to below. It also depends on the road surface temperature as well, heat of the sun melts off snow and that freezes at night. So you'll find salt has to be applied intelligently to the conditions, on bridges for example, which I suppose would come from experience. I also observe southern states seem to use more rubber instead of rock in their road surface. So that might be a factor on how robust they are to wear.

bluGill 2y ago
0F is defined as the temperature that salt on ice reaches. Regular salt is used a lot in Minnesota because it works fine most of the time and is cheap. It doesn't work on the coldest days, so about 15F they start adding in salts other than NaCl. Below -15F they no longer have a salt that works at all - but those days are rare. My Grandpa worked for the MN highway department until around 1995 when he retied, so my information is a bit out of date, but chemistry doesn't change that much so I doubt it is very different today.

alwayslikethis 2y ago

The more obvious reason is that colder places do not get as many freeze-thaw cycles. It simply stays frozen for a few months. In contrast, much of the northeast experiences many more freeze-thaw cycles since even in the winter it is warm enough to thaw the ice on some days.

bluGill 2y ago
Cold places see a lot of freeze-thaw cycles in fall and spring - before and after the hard freeze. I don't know how they compare, but it isn't clear cut.
- unstyledcontent 2y ago
  In the case of Minnesotan, I think the need to stay on top of maintenance has led to the adoption of higher tech monitoring and better processes in general, just out of such extreme need (and lots of practice).

wkjagt 2y ago

I've often heard the cold climate given as the reason for the terrible roads in Quebec, but you clearly notice the roads getting better as you cross the border out of Quebec into Ontario for example.

lifeisgood99 2y ago
The Quebec road industry has historically been corrupt. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-roadwork-industry-rife-with-corruption-report-1.977604 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-roadwork-indu... and many many other reports.

Congeec 2y ago

Yep, in New York the pothole season is early Spring rather than winter, for example.