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> Interestingly, in all cases urban roads are worse quality than rural roads, presumably because they see higher traffic than rural roads. There's more infrast
by rconti 2y ago
> Interestingly, in all cases urban roads are worse quality than rural roads, presumably because they see higher traffic than rural roads.
There's more infrastructure under urban roads. Crews come in to fix some utility, shred a section of a lane, patch it poorly with dissimilar materials, and leave.
- bluGill 2y agoRural roads are often unpaved. The local authority has to come by regularly with a grade to redo things or they become unusable quickly. Overall this is by far the cheapest way to have a road, but it doesn't scale to high use and city folks demand something that makes less dust. Rural roads also includes minimum maintance roads which demand 4wd (real 4wd, many SUVs will have trouble) when the weather is nice and a winch is a must when things get rainy or snowy. Though given his definition of quality I expect he is actually ignoring all the real rural roads and only talking about major roads which while they get less traffic than urban roads are maintained to similar standards.
- rwiggins 2y agoMaybe area-dependent? I grew up in an extraordinarily rural area in Tennessee. Most roads were paved (asphalt). Even ones out in the middle of nowhere. The conditions of some of the remote roads might not have been great, mind you... and some seemed "thinner" almost, maybe paved a long time ago?
- nemomarx 2y agoI think it's a snow thing - asphalt seems to wear down really fast in rural PA, probably from freezing at nights and snow and ice, so you can't do paving as cheaply out in the mountains or so on. The county dumps gravel down once a year and let's passing traffic wear it smoother over time, but it sucks to drive on fresh.
- shkkmo 2y agoAbsolutely. The freeze thaw cycle is brutal on asphalt in many ways. Surface cracks expand, frost heaves distort and the material itself weakens. This is before any additional damage caused by plowing or ice scraping.
- wombatpm 2y agoFreeze thaw and Temp range. MN may experience air temps from -20 to 100 over the course of a year. And you might experience 50 degree swings in a week (-20 to +30).
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoA lot of that is the road profile. Western NY has notably better county highways than PA because they tend to have wide shoulders that mitigate plow damage and frost heaving on the he edges.
- wnc3141 2y agoOf course there are political factors. I have always heard that in Wisconsin many rural roads were paved to better serve dairy farmers beginning in the 1890s - and continued through the WPA program. While in Minnesota, similar rural roads remained unpaved. Best link I could find to substantiate such a claim https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/biking-in-the-driftless-region/#:~:text=Just%20a%20few%20miles%20away,Wisconsin%20to%20serve%20dairy%20farmers https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/biking-in-the-driftless-regio.... Of course in contemporary times the high maintenance cost has many Wisconsin towns/counties considering returning to gravel. https://www.wpr.org/economy/taxes/small-wisconsin-towns-paved-roads-return-gravel https://www.wpr.org/economy/taxes/small-wisconsin-towns-pave...
- ensignavenger 2y agoChip and Seal is a technique used in a lot of rural areas that comes in with less maintenance than gravel but not as expensive as asphalt. It is basically a a top thin layer of tar with gravel pressed into it.
- pkaye 2y agoMy city in SF bay area resurfaced some residential streets that way. So far it held on well for 10 years probably because we don't get much truck traffic. Meanwhile the near freeway is a major route for big trucks so after the winter rain its all full of potholes.
- engineer_22 2y agoIn my area the rural roads are typically asphalt. This part of the country receives a lot of precipitation and cold weather and our soils are pretty soft. They stay in good shape for years, with little maintenance. There aren't many patches because there aren't many utilities. Truck traffic tends to gravitate to the highways, and car and ag traffic are low impact.
- jmspring 2y agoLiving in a rural northern CA county, the roads are paved, however many are failing. The funny this is, one county over has much better maintained roads (by the state) because they are in a different district.
- nozzlegear 2y ago> Rural roads are often unpaved. Like the other replies have indicated, I'm not so sure this is the case? I live in very rural northwest Iowa, and while there are certainly plenty of gravel roads around here, I'm only driving on them if I'm intentionally trying to go "off the beaten path." You'll take a gravel road if you live on a farm, or you're trying to get to somewhere secluded such as a lake, campground or maybe a county park; but (imo) it's rare for the average person to drive down a gravel road just going from Point A to Point B on their daily commute.
- dboreham 2y agoMontana here. Most of the dirt roads (county roads) have been paved in the 25 years I've been here however there are some left where you can drive 20 miles unpaved. Also recently in Iceland I found a few unpaved roads (or rather "the Google Lady" did. Sorry whichever rental company I used there..
- dullcrisp 2y agoDo most people in rural areas not live on a farm? Excuse my ignorance but genuine question.
- ssl-3 2y agoThe people of the United States are broadly free to build a home wherever they can afford to, comrade, including on land that would otherwise be used for farming. (Actual answer: I know a bunch of people who live in houses in the middle of seemingly-nowhere in rural Ohio, and almost none of them farm anything at all. They just seem to like the space and the quiet and the desolate isolation. The only farmer who I know is my parents' neighbor, who has a house few miles away from their place.)
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoDepends where you live. In my state you pretty much cannot build any kind of residence on land that is zoned for agriculture.
- margalabargala 2y agoAt the very beginning he separates into: - freeways - local roads - unpaved roads Obviously the high-clearance-only roads in the mountain West will score poorly here, but when trying to compare US roads to Netherlands roads, those are not useful as the Netherlands has no equivalent.
- EasyMark 2y agoI don't think so. I grew up only in rural areas. We had plenty of roads, the vast majority of public roads were blacktop. The only dirt roads I recall were on private property.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoRural around here in the PNW, the vast majority of rural roads are paved, except for forest service roads and the odd road here or there. I do a lot of countryside cycling and it's rare that I encounter a gravel road. What they don't always have is the smooth surface found on highways; it's paved but of a bit of a rougher type (don't know all the technical differences, but it's noticeable on a road bike).
- vel0city 2y agoYou're probably also going to have far fewer massive vehicles on those rural roads. More things like pickups yes, but probably considerably fewer semi-teicks and busses and fire trucks and cement mixers what not. Those big trucks passing through are going to stick to interstates far more often when going through rural areas.
- hparadiz 2y agoOn average yea but when a rural road is neglected it's far far worse than any urban road. I'm looking at you Pennsylvania.
- burnte 2y agoBorn and raised in Pgh, the highways are awful. Always have been.
- Loughla 2y agoWe have large farm machinery though.
- tcmart14 2y agoThere is large machinery. But does it go down the same stretch of road 20 times a day all days of the year though? May also depend on location. You ain't taking the combine down the road several times a day in the middle of winter. So you do get the wear and tear of large farm equipment, but its still probably less than an urban road and not year round.
- MisterTea 2y agoMy favorite are the leaky man hole and other infrastructure covers which allow rain to wash the road bed into the pit. Then a void forms and a pothole forms. Then the muni fills the hole only for it to reappear as more road bed is washed away. Then repeat ad nauseam. I sometimes imagine a snake of asphalt all the way to the sewer plant.
- burnte 2y agoThis happens CONSTANTLY in Atlanta. They'll spend a bunch of money fixing a road, then a month later Public Works digs a huge hole and leaves a steel plate on it for a year, then patch it with either concrete that is an inch or two below the rest of the surface, or they don't pack the earth they put back and in 3 months the patch has sunk into a new pothole in a brand new road. The city has been trying to force public works to go do those things BEFORE road projects, but it's an uphill battle.
- ASalazarMX 2y agoThis happens in other countries too. Some people theorize that it's done because of internal rivalries between dependencies/political factions, but I suspect local governments are just inept at logistics.
- jakjak123 2y agoIts also a difficult problem. They need the right digger and the right crew at the right time and possibly the right weather to get the job done. Many times there will be weeks of juggling around schedules and suddenly the digging started three weeks after the road was finished
- lo_zamoyski 2y agoLet me ask you: how many buildings collapsed during the reign of Hammurabi?
- Carrok 2y agoI.. I have no idea. I don't even know who Hammurabi is. Is there a point you're trying to make? If so, care to enlighten us without assuming we all have history degrees?
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoHe's a rather famous chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi Regardless, I suspect there's a point being made about the timeless ineptitude of bureaucracy (even if I don't agree with it—some cultures are notably more competent at managing logistics of public works than other are).
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoPart of it is funding. Highways are for the most part federally funded, and the feds can print money at will. Urban roads have to be repaired from the city budget, and user fees (fuel taxes) are nowhere near enough to keep them maintained properly.
- leetcrew 2y agoI thought the feds pay a large portion of construction but the states pay most of the maintenance. some states clearly do a worse job of highway maintenance than others. it's like night and day crossing the MD/PA border on I-95.
- salynchnew 2y agoHence why U.S. roads are not built to last in the long term.
- whatever1 2y ago2 huge pipelines with big enough diameter to fit smaller ones. One for utilities in (gas, electricity, cables, warm water). One for waste (sewage, trash etc)
- Spooky23 2y agoThat’s part of the reason. The other is that rural roads are mostly county or state funded (often through large Federal appropriations), and draw in a larger tax base and in-house professional engineering. That’s why you can drive around rust belt areas of Upstate NY on nice roads - NYC Finance bonuses pay for that. City roads are usually maintained by the city, which has much more limited access to capital. Because of that, in-house work is usually limited to mill and pave work and there’s not enough throughput for an appropriate staff of engineers. Big projects are usually task focus (safety, multi-modal) and are funded by Federal grants and use outside design and build contractors. For the shared utility work, there is some coordination. My wife worked for a municipal water utility and ran the metering and infrastructure division. They received notice of paving or other jobs and prioritized proactive maintenance to happen while the road was under construction. The city would fine entities for digging up the street for non-emergency purposes for 6-12 months after the project completed. It helps, but broken mains or transformers necessitate the street cut.
- potato3732842 2y agoThis trope that rich cities pay for everything needs to be taken out and shot. Yes, there is a cash flow there but it's nickels or dimes on the dollar, not a huge amount compared to variances in budget and expenditures. Buffalo would not turn into Mogadishu without NYC paying for the privilege of ordering it around by proxy of Albany.
- Spooky23 2y agoThat’s not a trope. In New York, 2/3 of tax revenue is personal income taxes, and about 40% of that revenue is for filers making over $1M. Pretty sure 80% of those filers, which include non-human entities domiciled in NYC, are in the NY Metro and Long Island, depending on how you measure it. The percentage of tax revenue just from NYC financial services is very significant, and is very volatile. Because it’s difficult to issue general obligation debt, most NY bonds are revenue bonds secured by PIT. So when there’s a market downturn that impacts bonuses, there is a very significant impact on the state balance sheet, as debt service has a higher precedence than government operations. Buffalo would not turn into Mogadishu without NYC, more like Mississippi with snow. You’d probably see a significant reduction in services, especially Medicaid, child health plus, and schools, and 30-40% increase in property taxes. NYC moderated the impact of western and central New York’s unfortunate rust belt state as industry was wiped out in the 80s and 90s. With respect to roads, every state or US highway outside of city limits is maintained at state expense. Most counties get state aid for county highways as well. That state revenue isn’t coming Erie county.
- salynchnew 2y agoIt's kind of maddening how often blogs like this will make motions towards developing an educated opinion (citing multiple reports, researching stats from public datassets, etc.) but don't seem to have bothered to actually talk to any of the people who are invovled in the practice they describe in their post (in this case, building roads).
- fckgw 2y agoI mean this isn't a research article, it's some data crunching and musings on a blog. I would not expect this person to start conducting interviews for a blog post.
- grogenaut 2y agoThey put in new pavement in my neighborhood explicitly to fix some sewer issues. They ended up redoing several sections as the contractors paved over 3 access points (manhole covers). I'm not sure how you pave over a man-hole cover when it's sticking up 6 inches from the rest of the street.
- merely-unlikely 2y agoIn New York, companies doing road work are required to leave a small plastic circle embedded in their patch that can be used to identify who did the work. They seem to most often be blue though I’m not sure the color is a requirement. Once you see it, you’ll notice them everywhere.
- xenadu02 2y agoFunny enough San Francisco Public Utilities coordinates with SF Streets to replace water/sewer lines prior to planned repaving work specifically to avoid this problem. They are clear that need and scheduling sometimes don't allow it but wherever possible they do.
- consf 2y ago[dead]
- gaazoh 2y agoNot only that, but underground infrastructure and surrounding buildings put a high constraint on pavement design by putting a hard limit the total thickness of the pavement: can't build too deep or you'll disrupt other infrastructure, can't build too high or the road will be higher than surrounding building entrances or sidewalks. Interstate construction don't have such limits are typically half a meter or more, not counting foundation earthworks, which can easily double that figure. In cities where telecom networks are 60cm deep and gas and electric networks 80cm deep, you just don't have the luxury of designing a meter-thick pavement that will have a decent IRI for decades to come.
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoThe problem is- that infrastructure is a scam. As in - its easy to build it, as its priced into the creation of a new house / suburbia. But maintenance is a piled up costfactor, not city and citizen has plans for. So everyone is constantly on the run from hoods were the infrastructure is decaying due to maintenance debt returns the road back to rubble.
- stuaxo 2y agoAll countries have more stuff under urban roads, do first world countries tend to have worse quality urban roads than country roads?