Wednesday

[altivo]

As usual for a Wednesday, I'm wiped out. I owe several responses and e-mails but they must wait for tomorrow.

Weather was really springlike today, with temperatures in the 70s but gusty winds. Unfortunately the weekend is supposed to be cold and rainy last time I looked.

One other thing of note. The foxes appear to be resident under the far corner of the arena (NW) rather than the near corner (SE) where Gary blocked up burrows. We found a new spoil pile and tunnel there this morning and it smelled "foxy". Later today he found the clearcut evidence: a disembodied chicken wing lying by that burrow. We're not sure where the chicken was from though. It's the wrong color for the Brit neighbors' hens.

The state and county are doing a hurry up job of resurfacing our road. It's all ripped up just since Monday. Why? Because they are going to work on a bridge on a state highway 2 miles south of here, and plan to divert heavy truck traffic over our road for as long as six months. This is incredibly stupid. The new surface will be destroyed by the trucks before autumn. They might better have waited and resurfaced next spring, after the detour is finished.

It's going to be very hard to get out of our driveway safely, but of course no one cares about that.

Comments

Roads and adventure.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider.

Yesterday after work I met Bear in Sturgis, a town about thirty miles SE of us, to give him a ride home after he dropped off his truck for a third transmission.

Hit Wal Mart for a few groceries and then, headed up 131 FSH! a blowout flat and no spare. Only took us two and a half hours to walk the six miles home. *sore feets*

Got the old Rabbit running and went back with the original spare for the van. It is one of those narrowthin type emergency only spares I hate (was leaking at the bead due to the fact they hang those under the rear end of the van or pickup or SUV and it rusts out so bad the rim actually rusts through and leaks and so I did not have it in the van because it would have been flat anyway) and, of course, it also blew out on the way home so it was another hour averaging fifteen mph with stops.

So we finally got the van home both of us beat tired. The tire that blew was due to the bead failing and it was almost new btw so gonna talk with the dealer that sold these front tires to me today. The tread is almost worn out after EIGHT MONTHS and it is a neverheard of brand. I want Brigestones or Goodyears or Pirelli, etc.

ANYWAY we got a good look at the local roads and they are a mess of potholes and crumbling asphault. Not even easy to WALK on. This has been a hard Winter on the roads and the crews are everywhere patching as best they can.

The walk, btw, was not bad other than sore feet. Pleasant, sunny afternoon with no bugs and a breeze. Good visit with Bear and checking out the local horseys and deer, etc. Of course the Rabbit is not insured nor registered so we lucked out the cop that immediately pulled up as we were unloading the spare and jacking up the van did not notice. But we had no other option other than having it towed (huge hassle and expense). We seriously need a third vehicle in good shape and ready to go - the Rabbit is a junker parked in back of the shed and the old Ford won't run at all.

Fun with vehicles. Today we are gonna drive the unregistered and uninsured Rabbit to Marcellus and get a tire for the van so I can go to work and take Bear to work since his truck will not be done in time. Time to get the motorcycle registered and insured, too. Can't afford to miss work and they are now insisting I do a full 40 hours each week.

Sigh. But all I can do is grin.

Imperator

Re: Roads and adventure.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Well, at least the weather was the nicest we've had in months, and it wasn't a long road trip somewhere. Get those tires fixed OK? I need both of you safe at least.

Roads here are bad too, some of them that were just repaved in the last year or two. The weather hasn't helped, but the quality of work being done is crap too. Scraping to save money, cutting corners everywhere while Bush just keeps sucking up all the money there is for his stupid war and to line the pockets of the oil cartel. Gas prices here have been going up ten cents a week for the last five weeks. Jumped again yesterday.

[hrrunka]

Ugh! Diverted heavy traffic's no fun. Had that once, while they were repairing some drainage channels under a nearby road. The diverted traffic included double-decker busses. There's a slow-bump on the road outside my house. Every time a heavy vehicle went over the slow-bump the shelves in my kitchen rattled. Thankfully the diversion only lasted a few weeks...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

In this case it's a road that's already a serious problem for other reasons. The scofflaws ignore speed limit, passing rules, and everything else along that stretch. Make them go around a detour and they'll just be in that much more of a hurry and ignoring everything.

The irritating part is that they could choose some other detour routes that have wider and heavier roadbeds, but all of them are a bit longer by a mile or two, so they are choosing the shortest possible even though the roads are narrow, light traffic roads and the traffic they will divert is high speed and includes a very high percentage of heavy trucks.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

Actually Tivo, we do care about the safety of motorists during construction. Traffic Control is one area that the engineering community really opens itself up to liability from the public. We try to do everything we can to ensure the safety of motorist but bad situations do occur and are often inevitable due to local conditions.

I sort of get the resurfacing in a sense that it may be part of the overall construction scheme. It is possible that they felt that your road was in poor condition and that a heavy detour would make a bad situation worse. It is entirely possible that they have plans to come out and repave after the bridge work is over.

Then again who knows, we engineers do crazy things sometimes. ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

There is not a chance that the county or the state will repave this stretch of road twice. I live here, I know how they do things. Some of the stretch they are redoing right this minute was in decent shape, some needed work anyway. But after six months of excessive load that exceeds the rating of the underlayment (Is that the right word?) or what the road was ever intended to carry, it's all going to be wrecked again. Better to have waited and fixed it afterward.

As for safety, no. This county seems not to care about safety. Neither the road commission nor the sheriff do anything near what they need to be doing. Excessive speed, reckless passing, and other dangerous violations are the rule. Enforcement is nonexistent because it's unpopular and the sheriff is an elected official.

I live on the side of a hill. Under ordinary conditions it is dangerous to try to pull out of my driveway because traffic comes over that hill at 65 to 70 mph (even though the speed limit is 55.) Getting a horse trailer in or out is a deadly game of cat and mouse. The county refuses even to put up one of those signs that warns of "Driveway beyond hill" because "Conditions don't warrant it." Even when I offered to pay for it they refused. (I think they know I don't vote Republican.) Nonetheless, it's a blind situation.

When the traffic from the state highway is detoured here, which happens on average twice a year for about three days each time, it's a nighmare of heavy trucks and yuppies driving 80 mph. The truck traffic is 24/7 and horrendously noisy. They disregard the speed limit as well. The road is too narrow for that, but no effort is made to enforce anything. There are no shoulders, and the road is built up from the surrounding land by about four feet, so there's an embankment on both sides most of the time, without guard rails or even a three foot shoulder.

I say if they must use this route for a detour, then they should post a 45 mph limit all along it for the duration, and start handing out citations. Of course they won't, even if some child gets killed, or some old lady. God help the owner if a cow or horse gets into the road and truck hits it, which is quite possible. They'll be trying to sue the animal owner instead of asking why the truck was traveling so fast in an agricultural zone on a narrow road.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

How they handle things depends a lot on what agency is doing the project and where the money comes from. Depending on the source of the funds and agency behind it then Traffic Control standards will be different. To me it sounds like a county job and if that is the case then all bets are off. More than likely they may not even have an engineer directing them as to the proper procedures in a situation such as this.

It certainly sounds like your driveway is in a dangerous location to begin with and there is really no excuse for not having advance warning signs. I know for a fact that we often work with property owners to ensure they are able to enter and exit their drives safely. In fact, on a current project of mine, we re-designed a drive and added a left turn bay just to accomodate a property owner who regularly tows a horse trailer.

Reducing speed limits for construction is another sticky situation. Most agencies only allow you a maximum of a 10MPH reduction through a work zone but I don't think that would typically apply to a detour (a detour using an existing road that is). Such reductions often have to go before city governments and require a mound of paperwork that the agencies just don't want to deal with.

Sadly, there is little to nothing than can be done about teh stupid drivers. It would be up to the local law enforcement to do anything and they won't act unless they are low on quotas or there is a fatality. Your road was likely chosen since it was the shortest route but the wise would have picked a major road which was more suited to heavy traffic.

Underlayment is probably not the word I would use. Substructure is generally how I would think about material below the first level of asphalt or concrete but terms do vary wildy between states and even countries. Lupus and I had a good laugh one day about how engineering anacronyms mean vastly different things between the US and UK.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Part of the issue, I'm sure, is that there is NO money. The state is in the hole and so is the county. The whole thing is being driven by politics. This is an election year, and because the state road tends to flood at that bridge a couple of times a year, people who are used to zooming through there at 80 mph with no traffic enforcement keep bitching about the flooding and detours. So it's intended to make voters happy.

There's no city involved here. The entire detour route lies within an unincorporated township, so it's only the state and county. The detour is all county roads, to go around a bridge on a state road. A better detour route would have followed all state and federal highways but it's longer. They could also have done that trick where they build a temporary bridge alongside the one being repaired. Probably that wouldn't have cost any more than repaving eight miles of county roads, but it would take longer and more planning. There is room to do it at the bridge location, though.

Let's just say that road building and maintenance in Illinois is dubious at best, driven by corruption, politics, and greed rather than any sensible basis. About three years ago they repaired the bridge on another state route near here. After a whole summer of the bridge being first completely out and then down to one lane with those alternating signals at each end, the inspectors found the resulting repair inadequate and unsafe, so it all had to be done again. Two summers of work on one bridge, and god knows how much wasted funding, but some contractor made out like a bandit I'm sure.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

In my experience at least, temporary bridges are not generally built for a roadway project. This is a much more common occurence for rail projects where the train cannot be detoured and the lines cannot be shut down. Considering how expensive asphalt is these days it might have been a viable option to build a temporary structure. Sadly though, engineers often have blinders on but they are far more often constrained by the budget of the client. You can thanks G.B. and his cronies for that since they are diverting Federal funds from infrastruce projects to fund their war.

In some bridge projects they will actually build the new structure alongside the old one then re-align the road to meet up with the new structure. However, right-of-way and environmental constraints can also come in to play which would negate that option.

Tivo, the reality is that many states have corrupt, political or dubious practices when it comes to projects and who works on them. As an example, in Tennessee, we actually had a high ranking official of the DOT request Master's tickets as a condition for us to be awarded a job. o.O

[saythename.livejournal.com]

The road surface will be destroyed, but it'll give more jobs to
the local politicians family that fixes the roads. c.c

As for the fox...you smelled fox? Ewww! They stinky! XD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*wrinkles nose*

Yep, they sure are.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Just get a couple of tack strips, that should slow em down, or those movable speed bumps :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Jeez, no. I can just imagine one of those 60 ton semi trailers with a double blowout careening off the roadway into my yard, knocking down two or three large oak trees onto the house and tearing down the power lines too.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Silly horse, you put it away from your house :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

So it happens to someone else? If the road commissioner responsible for this stupidity lived along the route, maybe I would. But of course if he lived along the route, he'd never have approved.