51–60 of 113 posts
This strikes me as a classic separation of buyer interests from vendor interests leading to misaligned incentives. The contractors have no incentive to update their equipment. In fact if this is scientifically proven to be a major solution they should want to avoid this. If the province could incentivize the vendor to pay them more for every year there is no pothole and punish them for every pothole they would totall…
This strikes me as a classic separation of buyer interests from vendor interests leading to misaligned incentives. The contractors have no incentive to update their equipment. In fact if this is scientifically proven to be a major solution they should want to avoid this. If the province could incentivize the vendor to pay them more for every year there is no pothole and punish them for every pothole they would totall…
And there's a snarky comment on page 163 about companies that have to fix roads after ripping them up ("breaking"): if they do condescend to cart anything away it is generally the metal, which they think will come in nicely for the repairs of the trench during their liability for such repairs.
TL/DR: your town engineer just needs to specify the right stuff in the contract, and the road paving companies will just have to adapt.
If you think about it, the same thing holds true for any large, bespoke contract. What you get at the end depends in part on the supervision you put in.
I've always wondered why we still have such crappy roads, given that roads are possibly the oldest technology there is, and every civilized place on earth has paved roads, thus making an enormous potential market for a better solution. Either: 1) Most people don't care as much as I do about the bone-jarring, car-ruining potholes that are ubiquitous in every cold climate on earth, and thus aren't willing to spend thei…
> 2) Engineering a better road is simply too hard of an engineering problem, so what we have is the best we can do at the moment. Or equivalently, any better roads we do know how to make are too cost-prohibitive. This is essentially the case. Asphalt roads as they exist today are basically a really good compromise of all the variables you care about in a road. They are farely durable, are easy to repair, can be laid…
This is a surprisingly big factor: we get bitumen from refining crude oil whether we want it or not, and the endless demand for the lighter fractions of crude means we're gonna do a lot of refining regardless, so the market had to find something to do with the left-over sludge.
Also pushing the price down, asphalt is almost completely recyclable: when a worn-out road surface finally gets dug up & replaced, the old asphalt doesn't go to landfill - it can be crushed up, melted down, and re-layed somewhere else. So much of the demand doesn't actually much reduce the amount on the market.
Compare to, say, concrete: we don't make concrete unless we want concrete, it's not a byproduct of an otherwise-useful process; and once you dig it up, you can only re-use it as ugly gravel, you can't turn it back into fresh concrete.
This strikes me as a classic separation of buyer interests from vendor interests leading to misaligned incentives. The contractors have no incentive to update their equipment. In fact if this is scientifically proven to be a major solution they should want to avoid this. If the province could incentivize the vendor to pay them more for every year there is no pothole and punish them for every pothole they would totall…
Or, the town engineer can simply add it in to the contracts. An example from the Project Gutenberg copy of [The Municipal and Sanitary Engineer's Handbook]( http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55935/55935-h/55935-h.htm#Pag... ), page 35, there's a considerable discussion of how to specify a road paving contract. And later on page 57 or thereabouts there's talk about specifying the machinery needed to break the stones for…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, the town engineer can simply add it in to the contracts. An example from the Project Gutenberg copy of [The Municipal and Sanitary Engineer's Handbook]( http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55935/55935-h/55935-h.htm#Pag... ), page 35, there's a considerable discussion of how to specify a road paving contract. And later on page 57 or thereabouts there's talk about specifying the machinery needed to break the stones for…
This is a dupe FYI.
I've always wondered why we still have such crappy roads, given that roads are possibly the oldest technology there is, and every civilized place on earth has paved roads, thus making an enormous potential market for a better solution. Either: 1) Most people don't care as much as I do about the bone-jarring, car-ruining potholes that are ubiquitous in every cold climate on earth, and thus aren't willing to spend thei…
Well... We have been engineering better roads. Compared to brick or packed earth, asphalt is high tech. New materials and mixes are researched and tried. Some recent roads seem to have lighter finish than traditional blacktop. You are right though, it is a cost vs durability issue.
Surprisingly, for as bad as roadway construction is in the states (and it's absolutely awful), the US apparently leads the rest of the world in the study of roadway materials.
I've always wondered why we still have such crappy roads, given that roads are possibly the oldest technology there is, and every civilized place on earth has paved roads, thus making an enormous potential market for a better solution. Either: 1) Most people don't care as much as I do about the bone-jarring, car-ruining potholes that are ubiquitous in every cold climate on earth, and thus aren't willing to spend thei…
Or (3) the paving companies are happy with planned obsolescence, and the deciding customers are politicians who will move on before the new roads go bad, and won't be criticized anyway for authorizing the same methods everyone else uses. No individual involved has a strong incentive to make things better. Unless, of course, constituents start making an issue of it with their local representatives :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> South of south America, more or less equivalent to Florida Are you calling North America "America", and then go on and call Florida "south America", as if there isn't such a place in the world as South America? I do not approve of this North America-centric view of the world at all.
> Are you calling North America "America", and then go on and call Florida "south America", as if there isn't such a place in the world as South America? Depending on the geography class you took, and where, there might not be a "South America". Some countries just call the whole continent America: Most North Americans are taught that there are 7 continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Eur…
Well, a pothole is not just a technological thing,
it's also a political entity. Usually we think of
European nations as steeped in governmental regulation,
and the United States as a free market, but actually
the opposite occurs in building roads. In the United States
the government sets specifications and asks contractors
to meet them. Once done with the road they have no
more responsibility.
Contrast this to France where the contractors must come
up with their own specifications and guarantee their work.
This means that if a pothole developers the contractor has
to fix it. But in the united States, once the job is done,
as long as it has met specifications, the contractor is no
longer liable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> South of south America, more or less equivalent to Florida Are you calling North America "America", and then go on and call Florida "south America", as if there isn't such a place in the world as South America? I do not approve of this North America-centric view of the world at all.
America refers to The United States of America. Same as we don't refer to Mexico all the time as Estados Unidos Mexicanos. I don't approve of getting upset over turns of phrase online. Principle of charity.
Well, that might be true for people living in the US but, and I might be going out on a limb here, it might not be so true for others.
