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WBNS 10TV wrote
ODOT To Announce Spring Construction Projects
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Ohio Department of Transportation will kick off its spring construction season Wednesday by announcing plans for 54 construction projects in central Ohio.
A total of 20 projects will take place in Franklin County, including two road-widening projects. ODOT will widen Roberts Road between Hilliard-Rome Road and Westbelt Drive, and widen Hilliard-Rome Road between Roberts Road and Scioto Darby Road, Connelly reported.
Closer to downtown, the South High Street Project was scheduled to begin in about a week.
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originally posted on: 4/7/2008
The Ohio Department of Transportation kicked off its $2.5 billion construction season Monday. While that sounds like an awful lot of money, ODOT is actually cutting back here in the District Three.
District Three Public Information Officer Brian Stacy says the rising cost of construction over the past four years and flattening revenues is limiting the dollars ODOT can spend on area road improvements.
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Anyone else think $11.4 million/yr for a streetcar sounds like a bargain? It would amount to less than one half of one percent of ODOT’s annual road construction budget.
I wonder what the return is on these projects? Oh wait…they don’t have to jump through hoops and justify these projects the same way as one that uses rails.
Hell…we could build the Ohio Hub if we just delayed ODOT road projects by 1 year.
I heard they’re going to tear down city center for an overpass.
Ultimately, the McAdams-style roads that we depend on in this country haven’t been improved much since the 18th century, which means they’re costly and inefficient. (Why improve anything when the government is more than willing to shell out billions every year for what you’ve got right now?)
The problem with roads as we currently build them is that they’re essentially guaranteed to need that maintenance every year. Therefore, we can’t delay those construction projects for a year; by the end of summer, some of those roads would be so pockmarked as to be unusable, to say nothing about what would happen after another winter of freezing and cracking.
I still think that someone, someday, hopefully soon, will devise a material that can withstand a few years without substantial degeneration and is cheap enough to be laid down in bulk (unlike, say, Roman-style roads … which definitely lasted a long time but were horrendously expensive, never mind too bumpy for cars). That would free up budget money for rail and other transit projects. I’m convinced that this has to be technologically possible with technology already extant.
Agreed gram, in fact my first ever business, way back in 86-87 was a company called Squeegee McGee. We offered a driveway resurfacing product that carried a lifetime guarantee you’d never have to reseal it again. The product actually worked too, it had been used on several B-1 bomber facility runways, etc. Now granted, we screwed it up beyond belief, but this was technology that was around over 20 years ago.
I don’t know if I buy that argument. While S. High St. is clearly in bad shape, I think it can withstand another year of patchwork before a major resurfacing. I think almost all ODOT projects fall into this category (i.e. they’re pretty bad, but still driveable).
Ever been to Michigan? That’s probably what our highways would look like if we neglected them for a year.
I don’t know what a McAdams-style road is. I’d be interested to hear more.
The problem with roads as we currently build them is that they’re essentially guaranteed to need that maintenance every year. Therefore, we can’t delay those construction projects for a year; by the end of summer, some of those roads would be so pockmarked as to be unusable, to say nothing about what would happen after another winter of freezing and cracking.
Roads don’t need maintenance every year, but they will need pothole patching every year after a few good years following resurfacing.
I still think that someone, someday, hopefully soon, will devise a material that can withstand a few years without substantial degeneration and is cheap enough to be laid down in bulk (unlike, say, Roman-style roads … which definitely lasted a long time but were horrendously expensive, never mind too bumpy for cars). That would free up budget money for rail and other transit projects. I’m convinced that this has to be technologically possible with technology already extant.
It’s called E-Krete polymer concrete micro-overlay. I went to a presentation about it a couple of weeks ago. It’s like a 1/16th of an inch thick rough covering that prevents water from permeating the pavement, freezing, thawing, and corroding the road. It drastically reduces life-cycle costs, but now is cheaper than an asphalt overlay too due to higher oil costs. They use it on NASA airfields. The biggest barrier right now is training contractors.
I think that’s probably similar to what we used way back when at the driveway company.
Why are they widening roads when study after study shows this will just induce more traffic and of course, more maintenance. All for only $2.5 billion. Where’s the outrage? :evil:
I don’t know what a McAdams-style road is. I’d be interested to hear more.
I guess it would have been easier to Google or Wikipedia if I’d spelled it right, so that’s my fault. It’s MacAdam, not McAdams. He was the one who basically designed the first of what we would today call blacktop roads. Not a whole lot about them has changed since then.
They had the advantages of being smooth, cheap, and quick to construct. However, then as now, they had durability issues.
Think of how there are remains of Roman roads after 2,000 years of exposure to the elements. Think of how much of our highway system would be left in 2,000 years if we stepped into a time warp and emerged in the year 4008 with no repair or maintenance of the roads in the meantime. My guess is you’d find forests and plains, not roads.
I’m not suggesting that we get something that can last 2,000 years of disuse. But it ought to be possible to get something that can last 7-12 years of real use, whether it’s that E-Krete or something yet to be developed.
I guess it would have been easier to Google or Wikipedia if I’d spelled it right, so that’s my fault. It’s MacAdam, not McAdams. He was the one who basically designed the first of what we would today call blacktop roads. Not a whole lot about them has changed since then.
Ah, I’ve heard or macadam, although it’s not called that anymore. The British still use the term tarmac (tar bound macadam) instead of asphaltic concrete or bituminous concrete, which is what we use here.
I’m not suggesting that we get something that can last 2,000 years of disuse. But it ought to be possible to get something that can last 7-12 years of real use, whether it’s that E-Krete or something yet to be developed.
Ten years is approximately the length of time between asphalt resurfacing projects. There is minor maintenance to fill cracks and potholes between years in order to extend the life of the road. Even the resurfacing is just replacing that top 2″ layer to extend the life of the road until it need major reconstruction down to the sub-grade (dirt/gravel).
+1
Ten years is approximately the length of time between asphalt resurfacing projects. There is minor maintenance to fill cracks and potholes between years in order to extend the life of the road. Even the resurfacing is just replacing that top 2″ layer to extend the life of the road until it need major reconstruction down to the sub-grade (dirt/gravel).
I guess I was thinking of a road that could literally go with no maintenance for a decade … one that had enough heat, cold, and pressure tolerance that it could resist potholes forming and so forth.
Columbus might be the pothole capital of the world due to the extreme number of freeze-thaw cycles from the weather. It’s the expansion, contraction, and water permeation that cause the damage. Cities in warmer climates have far fewer problems. So maybe ODOT is trying to minimize future costs by inducing global warming with more roads?
PS – Trucks and buses also do a lot of structural damage.
First off I want to say that I support the streetcars. But I don’t get the comparison to the ODOT budget. We are talking about maintaining and repairing roads all over the state compared to a 2.8 miles stretch of rail. I would think the budgets should be very different. On a per mile basis are they that far off? I really don’t know.
Ok then, compare the road-building budget for the whole state with the rail-building budget for the whole state.
;)
No, I think ZPIZZA has a good point. There are probably a thousand-fold more public-funded road miles in the state than rail miles. There are probably a ten thousand-fold more people that use roads than rails. While I also support the streetcar, but I don’t think ODOT’s spend is such an outrage. The streetcar will serve a limited slice of Ohio’s population. Roads serve nearly everyone.
They can’t be useful to many when the people of Ohio refuse to have them built.
Understood. But the money to build rails can and will come from another pot of money than ODOT’s $2.5 million.