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Why isn't LA repaving streets?

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Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#111

Post by bmitc »

tonymet wrote: post #95
scoofy wrote: post #70

I have been a Strong Towns follower/member for about 6 years. I really don't think people realize the world of pain we're signing up for by not actually fixing the underlying problem of lack of density and walk-ability and their effect on the municipal budgets of American cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Towns I know municipal finance is about as exciting socks for Christmas, but if the Strong Towns thesi…

so the story is about a silly law requiring bike lanes and handicap curbs and your proposal is to kick everyone out of their homes and remigrate them into the cities? ADA code is insanely expensive. We did a couple blocks of those silly dimple ramps for $250,000 . You could hire every blind person in town a personal guide for less than it would be to ADA all the side walks.

Why does it cost so much?

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#112

Post by gizmo686 »

dralley wrote: post #69
deepsun wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that cars have negligible impact on roads. 99% damage comes from heavy haul trucks, especially those who violate weight restrictions. By the way, I've never seen SCALES OPEN sign for the trucks, it's always SCALES CLOSED, or maybe I'm just extremely unlucky.

The damage scales with weight. Cars cause less damage because they are lighter. Heavier cars still cause greater impact.

Damage scales with the 4th power of weight.

From what I can find, the standard weight limit for a truck in 20 tons per axle (less when multiple axles are close together).

In contrast, the average weight for a car is a bit under 4 tons (even for SUVs). Even a pickup truck is under 5.4 tons. Since these have 2 axles, that comes out to every class except loaded freight trucks having under 2.7 tons per axle on average. So a freight truck acting at the legal limit (without tandem axles) would be over 7.4 times as heavy per axle as a passenger pickup truck. Applying the 4th power law, this means a single maximally loaded truck causes about 3000 times (300,000%) as much damage as an average pickup truck; and 10,000 times (1,000,000%) as much as an average SUV. In contrast, the difference in damage caused by an average SUV and an average sedan is only about 40%

https://www.autoinsurance.com/guide/average-car-weight/

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#113

Post by scoofy »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #110
scoofy wrote: post #70

I have been a Strong Towns follower/member for about 6 years. I really don't think people realize the world of pain we're signing up for by not actually fixing the underlying problem of lack of density and walk-ability and their effect on the municipal budgets of American cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Towns I know municipal finance is about as exciting socks for Christmas, but if the Strong Towns thesi…

I think Chuck Marone and his group make good points but their admonition by ASCE is also deserved. He really went too far with disparaging the profession because of differences in purely value judgments. Furthermore, the type of infrastructure you get is a political decision. Civil engineers don’t tell your mayor or your highway commission what to build, their only job is to figure out how it can be built. The “what”…

Not liking Chuck Marone is irrelevant. The question is whether or not the thesis is correct, and it seems correct.

Everyone hates Nassim Taleb and he can be an asshole, but his math is impeccable. When your concern is with someone's personality because you don't like their math, then you've lost the plot.

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#114

Post by stevenwoo »

deepsun wrote: post #59
stock_toaster wrote: post #38

Maybe roads would last longer if we weren't all being forced to buy super heavy SUVs just so automakers can skirt emissions and fuel economy requirements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPm4de6-eTg

I've heard that cars have negligible impact on roads. 99% damage comes from heavy haul trucks, especially those who violate weight restrictions. By the way, I've never seen SCALES OPEN sign for the trucks, it's always SCALES CLOSED, or maybe I'm just extremely unlucky.

I’ve done a lot of trips on I5 from Central Valley to San Diego and those stations were open most of the time and I usually did it near holidays in November/December/January. Enforcement probably depends highly on location and amount of traffic.

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#115

Post by GorbachevyChase »

scoofy wrote: post #107
csdreamer7 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California cities could trivially fix their budget problems by satisfying the demand for housing by adding density, but it seems they are determined to do nothing until the wheels finally fall off, and the city's budget crisis spirals out of control. The state of California already mandated certain density improvements: https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/10/newsom-signs-massive-... There is another law that mandat…

I live in CA. My state senator is Scott Wiener. We are making some progress. Your argument might be plausible if it weren't for the fact that this issue is happening -- predictably -- in every major sprawling city in America. Strong Towns has literally built a tool to effectively convert cities' cash-accounting budgets into accrual-accounting budgets. You can see it happening over time... you just need to account for…

[flagged]

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#116

Post by bmitc »

SimianSci wrote: post #79
csto12 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American wants a big SUV/Truck

This is not supported by good data, Car manufacturers are pushing to make bigger larger vehicles because they require very little additional manufacturing overhead over smaller vehicles and the manufacturers are able to sell them at higher prices. What people want are Inexpensive vehicles, not necessarily larger ones. American car manufacturers have been actively suppressing cheaper smaller vehicles for their own ben…

> This is not supported by good data

It's supported by sales data.

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#117

Post by mschuster91 »

djoldman wrote: post #28
mschuster91 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Interesting! Is it possible to make the ramps offsite and then fit into place? EDIT: I'm assuming the difficulty here is the pedestrian ramps at intersections. NOT the curb that spans the entirety of a road section.

> EDIT: I'm assuming the difficulty here is the pedestrian ramps at intersections. NOT the curb that spans the entirety of a road section.

The curb elements are made offsite. All you do onsite is to cut the stones to length if need be.

The challenge is properly anchoring them into the surrounding soil, and for that you need a concrete foundation. Basically, you make a gravel (or concrete) foundation, then you put down the curb element onto a few small pieces of wood, then you make a sort of mold cavity, and then you pour that mold full of concrete. Once that has cured, you put gravel to have an equal height with the road's gravel foundation on the road side and either soil or gravel on the pedestrian side to grade height - gravel if you want to place paving stones for pedestrians, or straight out soil if you want a grass siding.

You can see a few pictures and diagrams on how we do it in Germany here [1].

[1] https://www.beton-info.de/randsteine-setzen/

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#118

Post by NetMageSCW »

Freedom2 wrote: post #54
atleastoptimal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People buy SUV's because they want to avoid being injured in crashes (at the detriment of the other driver)

Yet per capita, US vehicle occupants are more likely to be injured in general while on the road than Europeans. Perhaps the driving standards are just far too different.

Per capita isn’t meaningful, try per mile.

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#119

Post by xxpor »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #110
scoofy wrote: post #70

I have been a Strong Towns follower/member for about 6 years. I really don't think people realize the world of pain we're signing up for by not actually fixing the underlying problem of lack of density and walk-ability and their effect on the municipal budgets of American cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Towns I know municipal finance is about as exciting socks for Christmas, but if the Strong Towns thesi…

I think Chuck Marone and his group make good points but their admonition by ASCE is also deserved. He really went too far with disparaging the profession because of differences in purely value judgments. Furthermore, the type of infrastructure you get is a political decision. Civil engineers don’t tell your mayor or your highway commission what to build, their only job is to figure out how it can be built. The “what”…

>I promise you the reasons have nothing to do with zoning.

I am willing to guess they probably did, even if it doesn't seem directly related.

Re: Why isn't LA repaving streets?

#120

Post by stevenwoo »

anthony_d wrote: post #99
mjamesaustin wrote: post #40

The amount we pay just to settle the liability claims for police misconduct is almost as much as our entire street services budget. LA government is an enormous corrupt police department with a few measly services slowly decaying as their funding gets cut.

References?

Read Copaganda. The footnotes with references is very long and detailed for those inclined to read the sources, it reminds me of the MLA stuff we had to write in high school. There are many references to LAPD and LA county sheriffs with overlapping jurisdiction.
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