city to demolish median just constructed by the state

[Stephen Tashiro]

An interesting local comedy - the city intends to demolish a raised median that was just installed by the state highway department. http://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/2016/04/06/road-block-city-officials-vow-remove-concrete-median/82723472/

[Bert Kemp]

I can't tell you how many times I seen similar things happen. So many times I've seen the state come thru and resurface state roads passing thru towns and the following month the town digs it up to put in new water or gas lines. Such poor planing and big cost to the tax payers. On top of that the town doesn't bother to resurface they just put in asphalt patches and the road is back to junk again.:confused:

[Stew Hagerty]

I lived in upstate NY for about 12 years. During one snowstorm shortly after I moved out there, I happened to be directly behind a couple of of state trucks, a plow & a salt truck. Not unusual, except that the salt truck was in front and the plow followed immediately behind plowing the snow & the just applied salt off the road. I pull up next to them at the next light and, of course, had to open my mouth. The drivers said they knew it was stupid, but that was how they were instructed to do it. Over the years I never saw trucks do it any other way. I don't know if every region did it that way, but in the Utica/Rome area and north into the Adirondacks that's the way it was. Whatever their salt budget was every year, it was a 100% total waste.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Welcome to the wonderful world of "super streets and traffic circles." We refer to our super streets as STUPID STREETS. We no longer shop in nearest town to avoid "stupid streets." They built a bypass around this town, then converted it to stupid streets. At intersection, turn right and drive to next light, make U turn and then back to original light and turn right. This means to simply cross street you drive an extra two miles (round trip.) This means eight stop lights were added to bypass which was built to free way standards.

[Stew Hagerty]

Welcome to the wonderful world of "super streets and traffic circles." We refer to our super streets as STUPID STREETS. We no longer shop in nearest town to avoid "stupid streets." They built a bypass around this town, then converted it to stupid streets. At intersection, turn right and drive to next light, make U turn and then back to original light and turn right. This means to simply cross street you drive an extra two miles (round trip.) This means eight stop lights were added to bypass which was built to free way standards.

Let me guess, you are in Michigan.
My daughter went to school in MI and that is the only place I've ever seen them.

[Allan Speers]

An interesting local comedy - the city intends to demolish a raised median that was just installed by the state highway department. http://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/2016/04/06/road-block-city-officials-vow-remove-concrete-median/82723472/


This sounds a lot like my first few attempts at hand-cut dovetails. :p

[Brian W Smith]

This was years ago but......

Local hospital had expanded their facility,to include additional parking.A buddy comes by our shop one day to tell me to go check it out."Why"?

We were heavy into building traditional bows ( longbows,recurves) at that time,which was the inside joke to the above.So within a few days we were out that way.The contractor not only cut down one of the largest stands of Osage Orange trees,I've ever seen...but now had them in a humongous burn pile,subsequently lighting it.The pile was so big,had they known it was Osage....selling it to the archery industry would have paid for the parking lot?

Moral of this?Beats me.

[Jim Koepke]

Stupid happens everyday. That is one of the reasons I now live out in the hills.

My brother was in city government for a while. Some of the departments were unwilling to coordinate road rebuild efforts. If the water and sewer departments wouldn't do maintenance before a road surfacing job, the heavy equipment would usually make it necessary after a new surface was applied.

jtk

[Doug Garson]

Reminds me of an editorial cartoon in the Hamilton Spectator back when I was growing up. Picture an excavator on one side of an intersection digging a hole and dump trucks dumping the fill on the other side building a hill. The caption read "The city planner is planning an overpass and the regional planner is planning a tunnel".

[Steve Peterson]

The street I grew up on had brand new asphalt put down by the city and it was ripped down the center for a new sewage line less than 6 months later. The patch job from the sewer company was horrible and the road has been in bad shape ever since.

Steve

[Bruce Wrenn]

Let me guess, you are in Michigan.
My daughter went to school in MI and that is the only place I've ever seen them.


North Carolina is home.

[Stew Hagerty]

The street I grew up on had brand new asphalt put down by the city and it was ripped down the center for a new sewage line less than 6 months later. The patch job from the sewer company was horrible and the road has been in bad shape ever since.

Steve

The city where I live did two very stupid things a few years back (ok... they do LOTS of stupid thkng. I am just picking out these two as an example).
First they decided in their infinite wisdom to tear up and resurface the two most heavily travelled east/west streets at the same time. (They have also done this with north/south streets since then) They spent an entire summer working on those streets. This forced all east/west traffic in our city of a quarter million people to drive through the winding residential streets with stop signs at every corner.
Second, the larger of those two streets (State Street) was amazing when finished. Smooth as silk. They finished the street in late September /early October. Just a short two weeks later, they closed it again. The very same city crew would just finished resurfacing it came back out and dug trenches every 20 feet or so all the way across the street. The city engineer in charge had forgotten to include drain tile under the street! They spent several months putting in the tile before filling in the trenches before putting down asphalt in those areas. They put down the asphalt in January! In northern Indiana! Well the street was a washboard fro. Day one and by spring 75% of the asphalt they put down in January had come out. So the had to come out and repair the gazillion 8" deep potholes. Within a year Lloyd the repairs had failed and had to be redone again, and another year after that they closed off the street and completely resurfaced it again.
The kicker is, the planner and city engineer both still have their jobs!

[Harry Hagan]

Here’s another good one:



The state announces that the widening project that had taken place over the last 18 months has been completed. The previous two-lane road is now five lanes and no longer has 20 ft. ditches on one or both sides of the road. Safer, but much more traffic and noise due to the added interchange to a busy bypass.
Two weeks later I notice crews jackhammering out newly poured curbing. Hmmm, it must be defective—I hope taxpayers aren’t paying for this added expense. This work lasts a few weeks and activity ceases. Are they done? Nope.
About two weeks later jackhammering commences again on every intersection: Handicap cutouts seem to have been overlooked and are now being constructed. Curbing poured during the initial construction phase is being removed and replaced as well as curbing that was replaced just a few weeks ago!


Thank you for spending my tax dollars wisely—i didn’t need the money anyway.

[julian abram]

Yep, just saw it here. I-49 runs through NW Arkansas. About three years ago the state installed several miles of cable barrier in the median. A few months later they received some federal funds, went back and ripped out the cable barriers, widened to 3 lanes in some areas and installed concrete barrier walls. Our government at work.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Like all living organisms, government's are driven to grow (aka 'spend, spend, spend'). ...like weeds!
And occasionally you have to get out the weed-whacker.

[Brian Elfert]

I hate it when a road is paved and then weeks or months later private utilities tear it up and then patch only the holes they opened up. They should be required to repave the whole road at their expense. I don't necessarily think the private utilities are not planning ahead. Things might break, or they get a big order for new service that requires new fiber or cable be installed.

A town my grandparents lived in did things right in the 80s. They rebuilt basically every road in town over a decade or so. They also replaced all of the underground utilities at the same time. Modern materials are better so they probably won't have to do it again for 100 years for more.