elfman

So I've been living in the USA for ten months but I've only been driving for one month. I have two questions about the roads here:

1. Why are so many roads (at least in NJ/NY) in such appalling condition? Some of the roads in NYC remind me of sub-saharan Africa.

2. Why don't they have roundabouts here? Yes I know there are one or two around but as a rule they have traffic light-controlled crossroads which just cause huge traffic backups or (on the freeways) enormous spaghetti junction-like cloverleaf interchanges, which must cost a fortune and take up enormous amounts of land.

Any ideas?

Lion in Winter

In theory the state of the roads is due to extremes of climate being very hard on the asphalt. All that expansion and contraction.

Don't get me started on roundabouts. Since they don't really have them here (don't know why not) nobody has any idea how to use them, so when you do come across one (we have one near us) it's like Piccadilly Circus only with everybody drunk and with Hurricane Isabel going at the same time. It's completely random - makes Place D'Etoile seem like nothing. Just learn to live with spaghetti.

Pulaski

Yes, many Americans have no idea how to drive properly, and are therefore treated like idiots because they drive like idiots. Hence the plague of STOP signs when Yeild would do nine times out of ten.

By having free-flow "clover-leaf" and "trumpet" junctions the chance for one idiot to collide with another is reduced. And as for the land usage - that's not exactly a prime concern in a country the size of America.

I've wondered about the state of many of the roads, and I think that it is because they are old and nobody is prepared to (pay to) strip the roads back to the "foundations" (see below), so they are forwever (at best) skimming asphalt on the top of a "failed" road surface.

Part of the problem, here in NC at least, is the bizarre way they build interstates. I have seen the work they are doing here each day on the way to my job.

First they skimmed off the top soil down about a foot or so, they then used graders, heavy compactors (with knobbly rollers), and road rollers to level and pack the subsoil. Then they put down a fabric/ fiber membrane and lay a couple of inches of asphalt, followed by about ten inches of concrete slab (cast in-situ), which is reinforced with steel re-bar. It looks like the finshed surface, but I'm not sure as work is still in progress.

Anyway, from what I have described above you will see that there is no drainage under the road surface. I read in the local paper what happens next. One way or another cracks or holes eventually appear in the surface, followed by water penetration, frost damage, and then more water gets down through the road surface but has nowhere to drain away, so it washes out the subsoil. This then allows the weight and shock of heavy trucks to crack the whole surface, making it uneven. Now the road is damaged, but rather than repair it properly they start skimming on the asphalt.

BrigieDarling

The most annoying drivers have got to be the 'soccer moms' dropping off their kids at the school every morning. They hang everything there kid ever made in art class from their rear view mirrors (even if it's the size of a dinner plate) then they stop for no better reason than to see if little johnny has left his book nag in the back seat, completely without warning.

I have my own designated parking spot because I have very little patience with them and the school knows it (they love me really) I have been refusing to park with the hoards of sweat panted snobs for 4 years. They are mostly too lazy to get out of their cars letting their kids out in the parking lot.

I've told the principal and the school board that the day a child is hit I hope they will all be able to forgive themselves. But in the meantime I'll park in a safer spot and walk my children the 100 feet or so to the door.

Just like they always said... "You can't teach common sense!"

JerseyBoy

You mean "circles"?

Pulaski - if you watch people building roads outside your house in this much detail, you really need to find better things to occupy your time. Isn't being a retired colonel highway-naming car program presenter enough for you?

Patrick

If you’re preparing for your US DMV driving exam there are a few rules (apart from driving on the right) that you will need to know

10. The posted speed limits are just a suggestion

9. Using an indicator (blinker) will only confuse other road users

8. Rules for Traffic lights
- Approaching on green –do nothing
- Approaching on amber – accelerate
- Approaching on red – accelerate even faster and close eyes
- Sat at a red light that turns green, pray then move off slowly

7. When changing lanes – mirror, signal, manoeuvre is for amateurs. Change lanes by merging slowly. Statistically there is a 50% chance of a car being there.

6. You must be able to drive with a cell phone in your right hand and a cigarette in your left hand and still be able to give the finger when needed (not applicable in California)

5. Old people can drive with their right foot on the accelerator and their left foot on the brake – thus burning the retinas of the driver behind

4. The most aggressive drivers have “my son/daughter is a honors student�, "my boss is a jewish carpenter", "life is short, pray hard" or “God is my co-pilot� bumper stickers

3. Snow chains are for girls (New England states and Canada only)

2. The faster the speeds, the closer to car in front you should be

1. He who has the biggest truck wins

bubbadog

I've always thought so, yes

You mean it's not like that everywhere?

jaytee

1. The idea is to get an SUV or big car with a nice suspension so you don't feel the bumps

2. Roundabouts, they thought, were not necessary and costly. They saved money by not building them and now some realize that they work and are much superior to 4 way stoplights. The proof is in the pudding, yet yanks are just not accepting of it. They put some small ones ("traffic calming circles") where I lived in the community in Houston and there were tire marks straight through the island.



US ROUNDABOUTS: http://www.alaskaroundabouts.com/USroundabouts.html


btw US Roads are very dangerous. 48,000 died on US roads last year. I advise you to learn defensive driving, if you haven't already.

Pulaski

I'm thinking of training as a civil engineer!

Pulaski

..... and be able to balance your monster-burger, with extra pickle and extra ketchup, on your lap.

elfman

what really amazes me about the state of the roads in New York City is the way that in many streets they seem to have dug up the road at some point way back when, and never backfilled it but simply covered up the holes with enormous sheets of 1" thick steel plate. In some streets (eg 9th Avenue in Midtown/Upper West Side, if I remember right) these areas of steel plate go on for several blocks. This strikes me as a waste of steel and maybe also dangerous - surely the steel plate is slippery when wet?

And it's all very well getting an SUV to bounce over the potholes, but I drive a 1992 Mazda 626 with 155,000 on the clock, and the only reason we can afford that is because my father in law gave it to us for free.

Pulaski

Try visiting Wall Street - the street famous around the world for its association with money and wealth has a trench covered in steel plate running from one end to the other! (I assume that it hasn't been fixed in the past year)

nathan barley

Believe it or not, the steel plates are temporary to cover the humongous holes beneath them. Canal street used to be covered in them, but now it's been re-tarmaced and is as smooth as a babys arse. One of the problems is finding a way to repair the roads in a city that is always on the go without causing massive disruption to traffic.
To give credit to Wall St, there has been a massive amount of work going on relaying pipes, etc, that lie beneath that road over the last year.

The roads are generally in bad condition because of:
1) heavy traffic, heavier vehicles (SUV's, trucks).
2) shoddy union workmanship; guarentees them a reconstruction contract in a few years.
3) extreme weather; freezing winters, scorching summers, a lack of drainage.

elfman

Hmmm
last time I was in Canal Street it looked like downtown Kampala.
Yes I do realise the steel plates are MEANT to be temporary, but most of them have clearly been there for years - in some places they have been partially tarmaced over. London is also "a city on the go" and the roads are always being dug up there, but in the years I lived there I never saw steel plates thrown haphazardly over excavations with traffic driving over them. Extreme weather? Poor excuse - hot summers shouldn't have any effect at all - all the highways here have expansion joints, and if the cold is such a problem, why aren't scandinavian/alpine roads crap?

Gosh aren't those union people evil, eh? I've heard they eat babies too. Yada yada yada.

The real reason I suspect is simple straightforward lack of investment. NYC has apparently been on the brink of bankruptcy for ages.

nathan barley

Investment is an issue, certainly, and my union comment wasn't meant to imply that unions are OMG EVIL!, it's just a fact that some construction crews do a substandard job to ensure repairs will be needed within a few years. Construction standards simply are not high enough here.

The last time I was on Canal street (around Center St) was in August, and it'd been fully retarmaced. Was actually nice to be able to walk on the sidewalk without fist-sized lumps of loose gravel flying at your head.