Maybe roads would last longer if we weren't all being forced to buy super heavy SUVs just so automakers can skirt emissions and fuel economy requirements.
Typical meme. Passenger vehicles of any type cause negligible road wear. The weight of a sedan (say, 4000lbs) versus a light truck (say, 6000lbs) is just not significant, further the ground pressure will be close due to tire sizing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_pressure)
We do the same here in Indianapolis and my read is that it's about cost containment. Our tax base here really doesn't fully support city services. And then more people move to the high-tax-base suburbs for better services, and the cycle repeats and gets worse.
A lot of city governments no longer really focus on the day-to-day living experience in their city. Instead, they focus on property value and the discovery of increasingly palatable ways to limit or justify raising property taxes in order to stay in power.
> Mozee went into detail comparing slow concrete curb accessibility work to the faster asphalt street work. Per Mozee, “there’s approximately 14 ramps in a mile.” So for “one crew to build out those 14 ramps will take approximately three months.” In contrast, he said, “a paving crew on a good day … could pave that same mile in a weekend or one week, at most.”
Why don't they asphalt curb to curb for a mile and then come back and do the ramps one at a time?
Because you need to build a form for concrete, and to build the form after paving means you'd have to cut then patch that new asphalt, which will just end up forming potholes.
> Why don't they asphalt curb to curb for a mile and then come back and do the ramps one at a time?
As someone who did a stint in this kind of construction: not possible, you'd still need to re-pave about 30-50cm worth of road, because curbstones are (usually) suspended in a bunch of concrete to avoid them getting dislocated by cars hitting or driving over them. The result will be a faultline from which you will get potholes in freeze cycles.
The proper way is to do everything at once, leaving one slab of contiguous asphalt without faultlines.
LA is fortunate in that it doesn't suffer from freeze/thaw cycles and can put down a lot more concrete without worrying about expansion/contraction and water ingress.
I've noticed that a fair amount of concrete sidewalk in Los Angeles appears to have been poured when the neighborhoods were first developed (as in post-WW2) and haven't been removed or updated since then (at least based on the date/contractor stamps). Again, the lack of freezing weather, wide streets that don't necessitate parking/loading on the sidewalk, and fewer tree roots to uproot/disturb the gutters and sidewalks means that the original infrastructure is still in use.
More to the point - creating curb cuts is more than just customizing concrete forms. Oftentimes you'll need to regrade the surrounding area to reduce slope, move any in-ground utilities, and revisit any other updates to building codes (such as the bike lane stuff mentioned in the article). Not everything in/under the streets is owned by the same city/county/state/federal department/private org so that further complicates the work.
If only the real estate speculators that settled this swampy valley had considered this stuff in the early 20th century...
I don't know what you mean, but I belive we're talking about "wheelchair ramps" at street corners
some of the laws mandating that type of thing specify "if/when you renovate something, you need to bring it up to code, otherwise you can skate on the code"
this affects a lot of the little tiny shops in NYC. if you change your facade or bathrooms, they need to be made accessible. however, it's not the cost of renovation, it's that accessibility can entail many many square feet of space that is now inaccessible-to-make-any-money-from, making the rent much more unaffordable. so, renovations are still done, but meticulously match what any previous plans on file would look like.
Around here real estate listings are starting to not do interior pictures because the towns are known to predate on them for "hey you didn't get a permit for that bathroom reno" type crap.
So the city can't afford to comply with its own regulations, and instead of fixing the regulation, they find loopholes. I wonder if there's a lesson to be learned, here.
The article says the city claims the biggest issue is federal regulations (the ADA) not city regulations.
My neighborhood in NJ just got those fancy ADA compliant curb ramps last year, along with a repaving. It did take them much longer to install the curb ramps (like a week or two?) than it did to pave (one day) so I can imagine there is a significant cost, even if it's a smaller amount of materials.
I looked up kerb cutting machines and it's interesting how much of the process is cutting through cast-in-place kerbs with special saws.
There are hardly any of these in the UK, for example, and kerbs are nearly always made of kerbstones that are sunk into the ground. They have their own problems with sinking when driven on, and I imagine frost heave in areas where the ground freezes seasonally. But it does mean that a dropped kerb installation is quite quick. Most dropped kerbs are simple tarmac ramps rather than concrete castings here.
The ones I saw didn't actually cut the curb - they had arms that held out the form and "built" them in place. I was surprised, as the still-recent but earlier curb cuts had very obvious examples of actual cuts. It was similar to this, perhaps https://www.curbmachines.com
I don't think there's a way to do this without casting something to connect the pre-fab to the surrounding concrete sidewalk. Like how do you precisely cut out the existing curb so the prefab just fits (including elevation/slope) without excessive gaps or something? And if you're pouring concrete anyway, might as well pour the curb itself.
Damn. I've been curious what the deal is with the rubber lego knob coverings on sidewalk ramps and here it is. I mostly notice because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing as I assume they're equally hard to navigate in a wheelchair, but apparently the idea is to provide a tactile warning that the street is nearby for people with vision impairments.
>I mostly notice because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing
"Be hell for skateboarding" wasn't likely considered a bonus by the disability people because it would rally "those sort of people" to their (otherwise legitimate) cause.
I do wonder if a little part of this is, they talk a big game, get into office and then see the details of full picture and realise they over promised.
It is a nice theory but then they bring out the same rhetoric when seeking re-election. So yeah, corruption may be abound.
Typically taxes need to go up 2x to cover the costs. Most infra projects get done with Fed money because cities can't afford it. Also why home developers build the road and then hand it over to the city for upkeep. Its too expensive.
In the UK we call this 'Surface Dressing' and is a typical money saving meaasure to avoid the full cost of paving the road properly. It looks terrible and doenst last very long, so peronsally I dont see the point.
I would prefer that over here in slovenia.... instead, we can't repave a street without digging a few meters deep, finding ancient roman remains, and delaying the repair for many months... heck, even without finding roman stuff, we had an 800m long road closed for 2 years...
So yeah, it's either potholes or road closure for a year++.
This is interesting for a completely different reason. It's the first time I see a web page disabling reader mode on my browser. When I enter reader mode, the page seems to recognize this and instantly reload, booting me back to the original page, which by the way seems unaffected by Dark Reader as well.
We pay 7.25% sales tax in California, the highest in the country. Plus, county taxes can go up to 3.5%, adding up to 10.75% total. It's not too much to ask for basic stuff like maintaining the streets when paying this kind of money. The roads in Orange County, where I live, are great though.
Whoops. If we're just comparing state sales tax, CA does seem to be the highest. However it's not dramatically higher than many other states, and when you throw in local taxes the combined rate seems to be just in the top ten or so.
That's not too far off from the total sales tax in -say- one of the largest metros in Alabama; Birmingham. Total sales tax in that city is 8.0%. [0] I can tell you from personal experience, that you get a lot, lot less for that money than you do in California.
Streets were only decades newer if they haven't been re-built since then. But when streets were new, they were built recently. That still provides evidence that is somehow possible to build streets. Did people want to pay for streets the first time they were constructed? Go ahead and say it's not mismanagement.
Yeah this seems like a failure at the federal level. There should be incentives for city street departments to implement the newest standards, not "follow these rules, or else" type of thinking. LA residents now to have to deal with outdated ADA standards and half-assed repairs.
> In a presentation at the Jan. 28 City Council Public Works Committee (audio, slides), General Manager Keith Mozee attributed the shift to large asphalt repair to cuts to StreetsLA workforce. In the current and past year, StreetsLA’s staffing budget was cut 26 percent.
At least they're admitting to the general public that the cause for the dysfunctionality is budget cuts. People can then vote accordingly for someone who campaigns on increasing the tax base.
Because it'll rain out next week and they'll fall apart again. Same problem in San Diego. Southern CA didn't really choose a great aggregate mixture for the winder rain we've gotten the past few years.
My experience is that once you get north of the city limits of San Diego, into either neighboring cities or unincorporated areas, the roads get a lot better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPm4de6-eTg
Road wear is a power law, and heavy trucks cause the wear https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share...
Why don't they asphalt curb to curb for a mile and then come back and do the ramps one at a time?
As someone who did a stint in this kind of construction: not possible, you'd still need to re-pave about 30-50cm worth of road, because curbstones are (usually) suspended in a bunch of concrete to avoid them getting dislocated by cars hitting or driving over them. The result will be a faultline from which you will get potholes in freeze cycles.
The proper way is to do everything at once, leaving one slab of contiguous asphalt without faultlines.
I've noticed that a fair amount of concrete sidewalk in Los Angeles appears to have been poured when the neighborhoods were first developed (as in post-WW2) and haven't been removed or updated since then (at least based on the date/contractor stamps). Again, the lack of freezing weather, wide streets that don't necessitate parking/loading on the sidewalk, and fewer tree roots to uproot/disturb the gutters and sidewalks means that the original infrastructure is still in use.
More to the point - creating curb cuts is more than just customizing concrete forms. Oftentimes you'll need to regrade the surrounding area to reduce slope, move any in-ground utilities, and revisit any other updates to building codes (such as the bike lane stuff mentioned in the article). Not everything in/under the streets is owned by the same city/county/state/federal department/private org so that further complicates the work.
If only the real estate speculators that settled this swampy valley had considered this stuff in the early 20th century...
EDIT: I'm assuming the difficulty here is the pedestrian ramps at intersections. NOT the curb that spans the entirety of a road section.
some of the laws mandating that type of thing specify "if/when you renovate something, you need to bring it up to code, otherwise you can skate on the code"
this affects a lot of the little tiny shops in NYC. if you change your facade or bathrooms, they need to be made accessible. however, it's not the cost of renovation, it's that accessibility can entail many many square feet of space that is now inaccessible-to-make-any-money-from, making the rent much more unaffordable. so, renovations are still done, but meticulously match what any previous plans on file would look like.
My neighborhood in NJ just got those fancy ADA compliant curb ramps last year, along with a repaving. It did take them much longer to install the curb ramps (like a week or two?) than it did to pave (one day) so I can imagine there is a significant cost, even if it's a smaller amount of materials.
Maybe they'd settle badly if vehicles drive over them, kick up in the opposite corners and become a trip hazard.
The UK mostly skirts this by using tarmac and paving slabs instead of concrete.
Likely this won't be terribly faster, and I did see the company near us using a machine that was building curb cuts directly.
There are hardly any of these in the UK, for example, and kerbs are nearly always made of kerbstones that are sunk into the ground. They have their own problems with sinking when driven on, and I imagine frost heave in areas where the ground freezes seasonally. But it does mean that a dropped kerb installation is quite quick. Most dropped kerbs are simple tarmac ramps rather than concrete castings here.
Include a built channel for injecting hydraulic grout a few months later once the settlements happened to correct it out.
"Be hell for skateboarding" wasn't likely considered a bonus by the disability people because it would rally "those sort of people" to their (otherwise legitimate) cause.
What the city can't seem to do is rid itself of corrupt employees and corrupt practices.
These people talk a big game, but when it comes to basic office management, they're less than worthless.
I wish I could vote to leave the offices empty. I honestly think that would improve things.
It is a nice theory but then they bring out the same rhetoric when seeking re-election. So yeah, corruption may be abound.
https://www.somerset.gov.uk/roads-travel-and-parking/surface...
So yeah, it's either potholes or road closure for a year++.
If it's cheap and fast, then there's no reason to wait to do it "properly" later. Do the quick fix first.
LA government is an enormous corrupt police department with a few measly services slowly decaying as their funding gets cut.
Another fun one is talking about how much was accomplished decades ago when the streets were...decades newer.
Go ahead and say it's mismanagement.
That's not too far off from the total sales tax in -say- one of the largest metros in Alabama; Birmingham. Total sales tax in that city is 8.0%. [0] I can tell you from personal experience, that you get a lot, lot less for that money than you do in California.
[0] <https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/sales-use/tax-rates/?_ador-s...>
Yes. We do. We're literally screaming for it.
At least they're admitting to the general public that the cause for the dysfunctionality is budget cuts. People can then vote accordingly for someone who campaigns on increasing the tax base.