21–30 of 327 posts
So the city can't afford to comply with its own regulations, and instead of fixing the regulation, they find loopholes. I wonder if there's a lesson to be learned, here.
What the city can't seem to do is rid itself of corrupt employees and corrupt practices.
These people talk a big game, but when it comes to basic office management, they're less than worthless.
I wish I could vote to leave the offices empty. I honestly think that would improve things.
Good infrastructure costs money. Citizens don't want to pay for it. The city workers have to figure out how to solve problems. Another fun one is talking about how much was accomplished decades ago when the streets were...decades newer. Go ahead and say it's mismanagement.
Yes. We do. We're literally screaming for it.
Good infrastructure costs money. Citizens don't want to pay for it. The city workers have to figure out how to solve problems. Another fun one is talking about how much was accomplished decades ago when the streets were...decades newer. Go ahead and say it's mismanagement.
> Citizens don't want to pay for it. Yes. We do. We're literally screaming for it.
Good infrastructure costs money. Citizens don't want to pay for it. The city workers have to figure out how to solve problems. Another fun one is talking about how much was accomplished decades ago when the streets were...decades newer. Go ahead and say it's mismanagement.
We pay 7.25% sales tax in California, the highest in the country. Plus, county taxes can go up to 3.5%, adding up to 10.75% total. It's not too much to ask for basic stuff like maintaining the streets when paying this kind of money. The roads in Orange County, where I live, are great though.
That's not too far off from the total sales tax in -say- one of the largest metros in Alabama; Birmingham. Total sales tax in that city is 8.0%. [0] I can tell you from personal experience, that you get a lot, lot less for that money than you do in California.
[0] https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/sales-use/tax-rates/?_ador-s...>
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One wonders if you could prefabricate kerb ramps and drop them in, rather than (I assume) casting them in place. Maybe they'd settle badly if vehicles drive over them, kick up in the opposite corners and become a trip hazard. The UK mostly skirts this by using tarmac and paving slabs instead of concrete.
Or make the asphalt "ride up" onto the sidewalk itself, so the complicated part is made of asphalt. Likely this won't be terribly faster, and I did see the company near us using a machine that was building curb cuts directly.
There are hardly any of these in the UK, for example, and kerbs are nearly always made of kerbstones that are sunk into the ground. They have their own problems with sinking when driven on, and I imagine frost heave in areas where the ground freezes seasonally. But it does mean that a dropped kerb installation is quite quick. Most dropped kerbs are simple tarmac ramps rather than concrete castings here.
Good infrastructure costs money. Citizens don't want to pay for it. The city workers have to figure out how to solve problems. Another fun one is talking about how much was accomplished decades ago when the streets were...decades newer. Go ahead and say it's mismanagement.
We pay 7.25% sales tax in California, the highest in the country. Plus, county taxes can go up to 3.5%, adding up to 10.75% total. It's not too much to ask for basic stuff like maintaining the streets when paying this kind of money. The roads in Orange County, where I live, are great though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article says the city claims the biggest issue is federal regulations (the ADA) not city regulations. My neighborhood in NJ just got those fancy ADA compliant curb ramps last year, along with a repaving. It did take them much longer to install the curb ramps (like a week or two?) than it did to pave (one day) so I can imagine there is a significant cost, even if it's a smaller amount of materials.
One wonders if you could prefabricate kerb ramps and drop them in, rather than (I assume) casting them in place. Maybe they'd settle badly if vehicles drive over them, kick up in the opposite corners and become a trip hazard. The UK mostly skirts this by using tarmac and paving slabs instead of concrete.
> Mozee went into detail comparing slow concrete curb accessibility work to the faster asphalt street work. Per Mozee, “there’s approximately 14 ramps in a mile.” So for “one crew to build out those 14 ramps will take approximately three months.” In contrast, he said, “a paving crew on a good day … could pave that same mile in a weekend or one week, at most.” Why don't they asphalt curb to curb for a mile and then co…
> Why don't they asphalt curb to curb for a mile and then come back and do the ramps one at a time? As someone who did a stint in this kind of construction: not possible, you'd still need to re-pave about 30-50cm worth of road, because curbstones are (usually) suspended in a bunch of concrete to avoid them getting dislocated by cars hitting or driving over them. The result will be a faultline from which you will get…
EDIT: I'm assuming the difficulty here is the pedestrian ramps at intersections. NOT the curb that spans the entirety of a road section.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or make the asphalt "ride up" onto the sidewalk itself, so the complicated part is made of asphalt. Likely this won't be terribly faster, and I did see the company near us using a machine that was building curb cuts directly.
I looked up kerb cutting machines and it's interesting how much of the process is cutting through cast-in-place kerbs with special saws. There are hardly any of these in the UK, for example, and kerbs are nearly always made of kerbstones that are sunk into the ground. They have their own problems with sinking when driven on, and I imagine frost heave in areas where the ground freezes seasonally. But it does mean that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We pay 7.25% sales tax in California, the highest in the country. Plus, county taxes can go up to 3.5%, adding up to 10.75% total. It's not too much to ask for basic stuff like maintaining the streets when paying this kind of money. The roads in Orange County, where I live, are great though.
California doesn't have the highest sales tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat...
