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OT--Paved Roads Going Back To Gravel???

N

noncompos

Well-known Member
There're numerous stories on the net about financially pressed rural counties grinding up paved roads--asphalt, don't know about concrete--turning them back to some kind of pressed conglomerate or to gravel, to reduce road maintenance costs...
Is this widespread, going on in your area???
Sounds like pushing road maintenance costs off on the users, in the sense semi-pavement/gravel wears tires, and the rest of the machinery, faster, to say nothing of paint and windshields...
 
Happening in mid-Michigan. Have seen some roads already reduced to gravel. Article in nearby newspaper today regarding changing out some of the roads, after failure to pass a acessment for roads in their county.
 
Yes. Isn't it interesting that basic government services are being cut while tax dollars are laundered into corporate profits. Generally under terms such as "economic development", "tax credits", "tax incentives, "tax abatement", "government subsidies". Also, tax dollar support to private business organizations and government services being contracted to commercial business.
As long as corporate business controls our government, it will only get worse.
 
They started doing this by the farm about 25 years ago. That makes for a fun ride with a truck full of grain on a chattery mess.
 
I think it depends on the state or the county/township or what not. Here in Virginia they are paving dirt roads, its nothing fancy i tell ya its still the same narrow road only after they are done paving it, it has 6 inchs of pavement on top.
 

I think we have maybe a few paved roads going north and 1or2or so going east.all else are dirt desert wash board ,dusty,with big wash outs and huge rock tops sticking up to jog around which passes for a road maybe. North bound Az89=US 60=US93=I17=US70 and east bound I10=AZ74-I 8 and that is about it for here in Central Arizona.I might have missed several which I have never tried to find.
 
Looks like I need to install knobby tires on my big bike or I need to check in a lot at some B&Bs on the way because of the reduced speeds or there goes the tourist money. I've been through that on back roads with a 850# + bike and it ain't fun riding doubles speeds at 45mph or less count me out bro.
 
We have so few paved roads in Manitoba that if they turned them into gravel the whole country would come to a standstill.I was amazed when I was in misouri how many or how close together the paved highways were
 
County just repaved about 4 miles of poor asphalt road with recycled asphalt, the kind they grind off state highways when they repave. The gvt. belt tightening is only getting started. Lots of these services are just going to have to go away as the Federal $$ that started them are cut off. They passed all these mandates and now they can just as well repeal them cause the moneys gone.
 
Two years ago the town redid my road. Was horrible broken pavement. They ran up and down it with the scarifier teeth on the grader probably a foot down, just repeatedly until it was mush rolled the heck out of it and finally rolled stone chip and tar on it. Came out pretty good. Unfortunatly instead of doing 25 or 30 the yahoos now drive it at sixty.
 
It is an emerging trend that will spread.

The country is broke and cannot maintain the infrastructure that was build decades ago before government sucked the life blood from the private sector.

See article below.

Dean
Coming To A Town Near You
 
Your congressman must have missed the "shovel ready" stimulus funds. Either that or the paving isn't done by union labor there.

Around here they're resurfacing roads that don't need it, always with a big sign that says "TARP Funds in Action".
 
Helping a lot here in central Illinois - recycling/remilling an old road and then putting an oil and chip coating that rivals new asphalt.

Check out DunnCo.com for more information on recycling.

Jim
 
Tom - agree completely.

Our junior senator from Illinois questioned the cost of those signs as a cost savings and got SHOT DOWN!

Aaron Shock from Peoria, IL (by the way)
 
Wait until the EPA 'dust regulations' take effect, and they will need to coat or tar all the gravel roads to comply....

So much for any savings....


Now, what are the 'savings' of taking a tar road & returning it to a gravel road? I heard a couple years ago tar was kinda expensive, are they selling off the millings and this is the 'savings' they have?

Gravel needs a grader & replacement gravel about every year, tar road doesn't need much for 10 years, then just crack sealer every 3 years or so. Perhaps a skim coat every 20 years or so. When rebuilding, just grind up the tar there, remelt it, and relay it - not terrible expensive don't need new materials. Seems if it's already tar, it's cheaper to leave it tar. The expense is in getting it layered down the first time.

--->Paul
 
I work for a paving company in Central Illinois and they are puttin as much as 20% of the RAP (Recycled Asphalt Product) back into the new asphalt they put down, but as far for the county roads and township roads, they are tearing them up and putting them back to gravel basically due to the heavy machinery and semi traffic on country roads, they were built for smaller tractors not these monsters on the road today there is hardly a base under these roads, I dont see the point of spending 90 thousand dollars to overlay a mile of road when there is no base underneath the road, sorry to go on but i dont think that it would be a bad idea to tear up some of these less travled country roads and put them back to gravel
 
Some of the townships in Oakland County, Michigan (NW Detroit metro area) are letting previously paved roads go back to gravel. Over the long term, it can be cheaper to maintain a gravel road than to keep resurfacing asphalt. Here in Michigan, paved roads don't last long with the freeze/thaw cycle.
 
Speaking of roads and wasted government money:
Most infuriating thing I've seen in a while is in the City of Detroit. For those of you out in the country, Detroit has tens of thousands of vacant houses, boarded up, burned out, etc. Many of the streets have NO occupied homes for a mile or so where there used to be maybe 100 homes on a street on 40 ft lots. What did I see the other day is a paving crew, repaving a street for about a half mile and there are NO houses on the whole street! There is absolutely NO reason for anyone to be driving on that street, other than as a cut-through.

Even sorrier fact: They are also redoing the intersections of these same empty streets to put in handicapped ramps in both directions with rubber mats embedded in the concrete. Those streets will NEVER see a pedestrian again, let alone a handicapped person in a wheelchair. Plus, the demolition crews that tore down the houses also ripped up the sidewalks, so the ramps lead from the curb to about 5' in from the street and then end at the dirt and weeds where a sidewalk used to be. Article in the paper confirmed this was due to a federal lawsuit that some attorney in Ann Arbor filed against Detroit. So they have to spend millions of dollars on putting in ramps to nowhere. Think the article said they are going to redo 10,000+ intersections in the city.

Don't care because it's in Detroit? A lot of the money is FEDERAL tax dollars which even you guys out in Iowa contribute to. I hear a lot of local politicians justify going after "Grant" money because it's FREE MONEY from the Feds. I just ask them where do you think it actually came from? All of our pockets, that's where.
 
I am a road commissioner in central IL. Alot of others are tearing up old oil-chip roads because of no base, poor drainage, etc. Add to the fact that farm machinery, semis, what have ya, keep getting larger and more numerous. Add to the fact that we have a few!! more absentee landlords that don"t give a you know what about the roads.(somebody elses problem). Farm Bureau was patting themselves on the back when they got the 80000# passed till I asked them if they lobbied anything for the road districts in funding to maintain the roads.. Let the scarifiers roll 10-4!!
 
It's happening here in Sw Okla to, they tear it up and lightly gravel it and then the grader guys see how fast they can grade it off in the ditch
 
Always got me that Livingston county roads were mainly gravel. Same road runs in another county, a lot of times, it is paved. Worst roads I have ever seen were in Oakland county. The richest county in Michigan, and some of the worst roads.
 
RodgeinIL,
Gotta disagree with you on the Farm Bureau letting 80,000 pound trucks run the township roads. SOME county/state roads are posted for 80,000 pound loads BUT some just abuse it!

Post and enforce weight limits!

Jim - Peoria, Illinois
 
WELCOME TO 3RD WORLD Status...sorry for the rude awakening ,,. RURAL AG feeds the inner cities and starves the rural worker that feeds the welfare state .. since I was a little boy, SOMETHING WENT TERRIBLY WRONG WITH the FREE ENTERPRISE System in AMERICA . Perhaps America Has gotten overly benovelent with
Foriegn powers ! Nafta was passed in 1993, Free trade with China , Then Followed by More trade with central America and so On , Take alook at the Factory Sites of Your Favorite American Tractor Equipment Factories on Google Sattelite Maps ,, most are Nothin BUT CONCRETE AND WEEDS or WORSE ,.Subsidized Housing For Welfare FOLX Whose Granpas Used to Work There 40hrs a week on the same spot ... ILLEGAL mexicans do not respect the Border and the Federal Gov'met will Not Protect AMERICAN Soverienty For These Folx on the Border , twice as many people have been killed on the mexican border since 2003 than in the middleast war !... without HEALTHY business paying taxes , there is going to have to be more roads going backwards .... and CASINO gaming IS NOT THE ANSWER !!! ....
 
Jerry ,
In Pa the paved roads are the turnpike and interstates.-You Know where they plant barrels and those orange reflective square looking signs that don't have writing on them I believe their intentions is to self blind yourself on rainy nights.

I have always said the reason for this is to turn over the potholes and make humps out of them till the traffic mashes them down for next year barrel planting season.



Most of the old cement paved roads were covered at least once with tar and chips. then a couple years later they put a smooth top coat on and now to fix that they grind it off every couple years and re melt it and put it back on . Job security, with same materials
 
I live on a heavly traveled town road. 7 milk tankers a day, a short cut for local commuters, and heavy farm equipment travel. With this summers heat the tar and stone surface literally lifted up on hay wagon tires. 4WD tractor pulling them left tread marks and major gouges if a brake was applied. Our local highway dept. remounted a sander on one truck and started spreading nova chip stone heavily on the roads with problems trying to save the pavement.Gravel and CC works for me.
 
Jim, Harrison County has been letting casino money burn a hole in their pocket ever since it started flowing. For well over 10 years, I have been asking county officials--and even the local newspaper [funny, but they won't publish my letters on the subject anymore] WHY the county can't put back a percentage of casino gambling revenue every year, to set up an "endowment" sort of fund for various county government departments and functions. And every time I ask, I get blank looks, and once in awhile a mumbled "I'll look into it..."

Is there some state law prohibiting the county from putting away an amount to "endow" the highway department, for example? In other words, if a certain number of dollars could be placed on interest, with the interest specified to fund ONLY a certain department [never touching the principal, except to reinvest from time to time]...would that be legal? And if it IS legal, why the Sam Hill aren't we doing that?

The more county departments that can be endowed, the less money that has to come out of the general fund...and the LOWER the taxes can go! With property taxes rate increases being "frozen," YESTERDAY would have been a good time to look into this concept. County officials are afraid the State will take the gambling revenue away from them...so why aren't they doing something like what I sugest, so the county won't be hurt so badly if the State actually DOES take the gambling money away?

I can't seem to get a straight answer about this. All they want to talk about is the Community Foundation endowments, and that does NOTHING for the taxpayer. Wanny try to get me an answer on this, Jim? I almost went so far as to put my hat in the nnalert's ring for Bill Nichols' seat on the council last week just to try to get the council to discuss this, but I just couldn't hold my nose long enough to be a nnalert [of course, I feel the same way about the nnalert Party these days, too...and I doubt this county would elect a TRUE independent].
 
That's what I figured, they were selling the tar. They're selling the communties tax base.
 
Nope, SW Wisconsin is getting all the roads into some fake blacktop, peagravel and tar sprayed ontop of that then another layer of peagravel, drive on it for a while and it turns black.
 
Gravel works except when the frost goes out each spring and the roads become a sea of deep ruts axle deep and 5 ton limits at that time.
 
Don't forget the school buses! We have FOUR different school districts serving families on my two-mile stretch of road. Several trips a day for pre-school, kindergarten, etc. That doesn't help the condition of the roads any.

Think of how the size of farm loads alone has changed in the years since most roads were built. The strength of the roads just have not kept up.
 
With the political leadership and the economic hardships in Detroit it's a miracle anything is done to streets or anything else. That city is dying day by day. In the 1940's, 1950's, and early 1960's I used to enjoy going into that town to visit friends, now I'm so glad all the friends have moved out of there so I don't have to go there to visit them. I can't imagine any other city in America decaying as fast and as badly as Detroit has/is....even New Orleans.
 
I don’t really see where 80000# trucks make any difference. We run double that weight here, just have more axles / trailers…. individual axle weight doesn’t increase. Grain has to be hauled off farms, does it make any difference if it’s hauled in one semi, two tandems or four small trucks? Modern trucks with air suspension, lift axles, abs etc are easier on the roads than old trucks.
Chris
 
When I worked at the Road Commission a few years back, the maintenance cost was higher on dirt roads than a paved road. There is alot of time and money spent in constantly grading and adding to dirt roads. Same for winter with extra plowing since you can't use salt on them.
 
Grading? Adding? What are those things?

I grew up on a dirt road. If they drove the grader down it once every 5 years, it was a minor miracle. The only time they added any gravel was to bury the car parts torn off in the deepest potholes.

When I was in college, they finally put 2 layers of stone and oil on it. That was 14 years ago, and they haven't done a thing to it since.
 
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