So how are your roads?

Topic: So how are your roads? (Read 1976 times) previous topic - next topic

So how are your roads?

March 07, 2006, 09:02:56 PM

Inspired by Outlawz24's avaiator (which now seems more Canadian then the Maple leaf):

What are the roads like in your area? The reason I ask is that after a winter of constant freezing and thawing our roads are in the worst condition ever seen in the history of automobile travel in Manitoba. That is not an exaduration.

Most highways are riddled with frost heaves every 100 feet approx 1"-3" tall. It is getting so bad the highways department has reduced speed limits to 45mph. Somehow the freak weather this winter has caused this to happen everywhere. I drove to lake louise alberta last week and just about had the fillings rattled out of my teeth.
I guess the suspension repair places are gonna make a good buck this spring.

So how are your roads?

Reply #1 – March 07, 2006, 09:31:06 PM

Well the roads are covered with snow and ice here. We just got about 14 inches of powder over the course of the day along with freezing rain.

What sucks is the road that the sign is on...all of the fields around it are leveled off. so that area has changed a bit.

So how are your roads?

Reply #2 – March 07, 2006, 09:52:36 PM

Was 52 today... Sunny and reasonably warm.

63 tomorrow, thunderstorms though...

On the pothole side of things, there's only really one that I drive through on a daily basis... Other than that, things are good :) Course it helps that I'm quite a bit farther south than you guys.

So how are your roads?

Reply #3 – March 07, 2006, 09:57:36 PM

I'm in bc, the roads suck year round, dont think theyre any worse than usual for spring.

So how are your roads?

Reply #4 – March 07, 2006, 09:59:17 PM

I'm not saying this just because I live here but Maryland seems to have the best maintained roads out of all the states I've been in

All the states from Mexico to Key West
All the states from Key West to Quebec (not Maine VT, or NH)
And the rest not part of the gulf or east coast
Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Ill, Ind, Ohio, PA, WV, Wisconsin, Minnesota, S. Dakota, California

Maryland has it's flaws, believe me, but it seems to stay more ahead of its roads than the rest of the states I've been in. Maryland also seems to maintain a certain level of roadside appearance along its interstates - I guess to give out-of-staters a better impression of this state.

So how are your roads?

Reply #5 – March 07, 2006, 11:27:16 PM

Oh boy, have you ever opened a can of worms

[begin rant]

The roads in this province are absolutely shameful, and have been for several years. The road to my cottage is so bad that instead of fixing the pavement the DOT actually came in and tore the pavement up and brought the road back to gravel. This is pretty bad, but even worse, they only did it in places, so you'll be driving along on pavement and it'll suddenly end, then gravel for a few hundred yards, then pavement, etc. The pavement that's left is all broken apart and full of potholes, while the gravel sections are full of potholes themselves, and because of the mixed pavement/gravel they can't even run a goded grader down the road. I blew a tire in the Volvo about three weeks ago in one of the potholes in the pavement on this road - the hole in the tire was the size of a baseball. I reported it to the DOT (trying to get compensation for the tire) and they told me that since they had a "rough section" sign up about six miles away at the beginning of the road they weren't responsible. They also said they'd fix the pothole, but it still hasn't been touched.

This road is not just some back road, either - it is the road to the county landfill and is very heavily travelled. And while it is probably one of the worst roads in the province (if not North America) most of the other roads, even in the city, are nearly as bad. The yellow lines are only suggestions now, as one simpy drives on the best section of road, regardless of the side of the yellow line you're on. Speed limits are completely unnecessary, as anything over 40MPH is sucidal.

This winter has made it even worse - the temp has stayed right around freezing all year, going slightly below at night and slightly above in the daytime (instead of the usual going below freezing in December and staying there until March). This constant freeze/thaw has wreaked absolute havoc. The paved roads are heaved and cracked, and the gravel roads are more like mud pits (I described getting my T-Bird stuck on one of the gravel roads in another thread). The roads are so soft the government issued its annual spring weight restrictions an unprecedented four months early - they usually run from April 1 to May 30, but this year they came into effect in January. This has had really bad effects on both the trucking and construction industries. Because of this many truckers are ignoring the restrictions, taking chances on a ticket, leaving deep dual-wheel ruts in the pavement and making gravel roads impassable.

And the worst of it is that we have some of the highest road taxes in North America. We pay about $1.50/gallon on gasoline in road taxes, plus $250 every two years for license plates, $17/yr for "safety" inpsections (although what good a safe car is on an unsafe road I'll never understand), and $60 for a driver's license every five years. And to top it all off they even have the nerve to charge a toll on some roads and bridges.

[end rant]

So how are your roads?

Reply #6 – March 07, 2006, 11:32:17 PM

Eh the roads in Chicago aren't that bad. Winter has caused a few potholes but other than that they're good. We have so much traffic though that our paved roads get "ruts" in them about 2-3 years after they are paved. So as we in Chicago like to say we have 2 seasons :winter and road construction

So how are your roads?

Reply #7 – March 08, 2006, 12:03:07 AM

Tc: It sounds like we kinda have opposite problems:

Our bush roads (true gravel) are actually very well maintained. Even some of the logging and mining roads I take to go fishing / hunting up north are regularly graded and plowed.

Our problem is the main highways in Manitoba; being the trans canada and 75 South (the main corridor to Minneapolis and chicago) are nearly undriveable. Today the speed limit on 75 was lowered to 25 mph (40 km/h) for one wikidly bad strech. This is a major 4 lane highway regularly 110 Km/h, that connects us to US I29.

As I'm typing this, a story just came on the news (our nightly news is at 10:30) that a study reported fixing Manitoba's roads will cost 5 Billion dollars: but.... this year the provincial socialist government will only spend 200 million.

I'm sure things out east probably work the same way.

This negative prognosis is really discouragin my idea to buy a new(er) car this spring. I've always owned cars more than 10 years old that way when stuff breaks I don't really get that upset. So far this year I have had to change two struts and true up one rim on my car (due to potholes). Had it been a new car (not a 1990 tempo with 290,000km) I likley would have been furious: as I assume you were with you new Volvo wagon.

So how are your roads?

Reply #8 – March 08, 2006, 02:41:27 AM

Quote from: Cougars 2 go

I'm not saying this just because I live here but Maryland seems to have the best maintained roads out of all the states I've been in.

You don't have the highest taxes in the states for nuthin. as for Minnesota, 2nd highest taxes, our roads are always in a state of repair most major road projects takeing 10 years or more. Then they are left to detiorate in to junk. the county i live in has just been crowned with the title of the worst roads in the state. there are some dirt roads(whats gravel) that haven't been touched by a grader in over a year. Most of the problems with the paved roads is the over use of salt they never use sand here most roads here are white with salt untill June. I won't even get started on potholes on the freeways, it is fun to watch people swerve around them at 70-80mph though

I love my state though just not the taxes.

So how are your roads?

Reply #9 – March 08, 2006, 02:47:33 AM

The roads in my part of NC are pretty good. They don't use a lot of salt around here because we don't get a whole lot of snow or ice. Smooth sailing most of the way through.

So how are your roads?

Reply #10 – March 08, 2006, 07:49:48 AM

Usually, what merccougar50 said would go for here also. But this year we haven't had much frost and the frost we did have came after the snow so it didn't get down in the ground. Really, dispite having 3 foot of snow on the ground right now, we only had a couple days where the temp got down to -10. If I were to dig down through the snow right now I would say that the frost is no more than a couple inches in the ground if any.

I just drove 4 hours over the highway towing my snowmobile trailer. I don't recall any frost heaves and only a couple places where I looked back to see if the trailer was OK after hitting some potholes.

The roads here are much better than I've seen them in the past.

So how are your roads?

Reply #11 – March 08, 2006, 08:03:17 AM

I've been driving for 13 years and it seems that for the past 5 or so that the roads around here have just gotten worse and worse. Heck, now when things get "fixed" they are actually worse then before.

So how are your roads?

Reply #12 – March 08, 2006, 01:14:26 PM

A lot of the roads around this area are pretty decent since they were just repaved in the last year or two. However we do get the frost "heaves" when it's really cold (some roads it feels like you're riding a bucking bronco), and some roads around here are just plain bad because they haven't been paved in a long time, and get salt used on them. Course then the DOH goes out and patches the roads and half the time that makes them no better. We get a lot of truck traffic on backroads here and that really tears em up.

So how are your roads?

Reply #13 – March 08, 2006, 01:25:27 PM

Quote from: Thunder Chicken

Oh boy, have you ever opened a can of worms

[begin rant]

The roads in this province are absolutely shameful, and have been for several years. The road to my cottage is so bad that instead of fixing the pavement the DOT actually came in and tore the pavement up and brought the road back to gravel. This is pretty bad, but even worse, they only did it in places, so you'll be driving along on pavement and it'll suddenly end, then gravel for a few hundred yards, then pavement, etc. The pavement that's left is all broken apart and full of potholes, while the gravel sections are full of potholes themselves, and because of the mixed pavement/gravel they can't even run a goded grader down the road. I blew a tire in the Volvo about three weeks ago in one of the potholes in the pavement on this road - the hole in the tire was the size of a baseball. I reported it to the DOT (trying to get compensation for the tire) and they told me that since they had a "rough section" sign up about six miles away at the beginning of the road they weren't responsible. They also said they'd fix the pothole, but it still hasn't been touched.

This road is not just some back road, either - it is the road to the county landfill and is very heavily travelled. And while it is probably one of the worst roads in the province (if not North America) most of the other roads, even in the city, are nearly as bad. The yellow lines are only suggestions now, as one simpy drives on the best section of road, regardless of the side of the yellow line you're on. Speed limits are completely unnecessary, as anything over 40MPH is sucidal.

This winter has made it even worse - the temp has stayed right around freezing all year, going slightly below at night and slightly above in the daytime (instead of the usual going below freezing in December and staying there until March). This constant freeze/thaw has wreaked absolute havoc. The paved roads are heaved and cracked, and the gravel roads are more like mud pits (I described getting my T-Bird stuck on one of the gravel roads in another thread). The roads are so soft the government issued its annual spring weight restrictions an unprecedented four months early - they usually run from April 1 to May 30, but this year they came into effect in January. This has had really bad effects on both the trucking and construction industries. Because of this many truckers are ignoring the restrictions, taking chances on a ticket, leaving deep dual-wheel ruts in the pavement and making gravel roads impassable.

And the worst of it is that we have some of the highest road taxes in North America. We pay about $1.50/gallon on gasoline in road taxes, plus $250 every two years for license plates, $17/yr for "safety" inpsections (although what good a safe car is on an unsafe road I'll never understand), and $60 for a driver's license every five years. And to top it all off they even have the nerve to charge a toll on some roads and bridges.

[end rant]

if your sick of paying money for tolls, gas taxes, licence plates and drivers licence why not just walk or better yet us the bus or transit system. If the temp stays below 0 and surpasses it slightly during the day that can take more of a toll on the roads then it being below zero, and if it stays like that for long they wont get work done on your roads tell summer, man that sucks

So how are your roads?

Reply #14 – March 08, 2006, 08:30:16 PM

Quote from: turbo88

if your sick of paying money for tolls, gas taxes, licence plates and drivers licence why not just walk or better yet us the bus or transit system. If the temp stays below 0 and surpasses it slightly during the day that can take more of a toll on the roads then it being below zero, and if it stays like that for long they wont get work done on your roads tell summer, man that sucks

I'm not sick of paying taxes, I'm sick of paying taxes for a certain thing and having the government spend that tax money on something else. The point I was trying to make is that with the extremely high road taxes we have, our roads should be paved with gold.

Besides, if I gave up my cars and started walking or using public transit (which, btw, does not exist in the rural area in which I just bought the house) I'd have to give up the Fox TBird/Cougar forum and join some treehugger sidewalk-walker or bus rider forum