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not a rumble strip. the marks discussed are inside the lane.
What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
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Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#72[dead]
If you read the linked thread, the commenters make it very, very clear that they know what rumble strips are and are not talking about rumble strips.
Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe this is true. But honestly, we don't have that many roads in the PNW that are concrete. It was when I lived in the midwest that I noticed them everywhere . I really don't care for them. In the PNW we have relatively few, but the weather here is milder than the midwest. Not sure what that says about the freeze-thaw hypothesis.
I live in Seattle and almost every single road I drive on is at least concrete base. Even if I couldn't tell for other reasons, I've seen enough sections replaced for water or gas line maintenance; I've never seen one without concrete, from my side street all the way to the freeway.
Older Seattle area roads tend to be concrete; newer roads are more frequently asphalt. It was definitely very popular here in recent memory — I could name tons of concrete Seattle roads off the top of my head — but my impression is it is no longer as popular in new construction.
Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#74I don't understand how everyone knows what the commenter is referring to when it took me forever. I figured he was referring to the "dents" on the shoulder, which I thought were rumble strips.
People inferred what OP was talking about by reading the post. In addition to an ASCII diagram, it included the phrase:
> I’m not talking about the perpendicular “rumble strips”
Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#75A little funny to not link to the comment that had the answer — they're dowel bar retrofits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowel_bar_retrofit
On mobile and no time to correct it myself, but I think there's a consistency mistake in that article:
The retrofit begins with cutting of six slots (three in each wheel path) across all transverse joints or cracks. The slots are cut with ganged diamond saws that make six cuts in each wheel path.Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The USA has possibly the best freight rail system in the world and it’s used extensively. Trucks pay a ton of tolls, licenses, and fuel tax.
The interstates are a constant stream of freight trucks. Trucks cause 4x the pollution of trains. Trucks spew tire and brake dust all over the countryside. Most of the maintenance on highways are the result of trucks, and this is paid for by taxpayers.
Trucks are what get goods to their destination. Rail can only get you so close.
Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#77I don't understand how everyone knows what the commenter is referring to when it took me forever. I figured he was referring to the "dents" on the shoulder, which I thought were rumble strips.
People inferred what OP was talking about by reading the post. In addition to an ASCII diagram, it included the phrase: > I’m not talking about the perpendicular “rumble strips”
Like GP, I was also confused. I think this is because HN links to a comment featuring a streetview photograph. Until I saw your comment, I didn't really notice that the article should have been linked to the very first post in the thread, which does clarify the question.
Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#78> Maybe they didn’t use the best grout and that’s wearing away faster than the surrounding concrete. IIRC this is one of the disadvantages of concrete (as opposed to asphalt) road surfaces: it's very hard to repair them in ways that don't degrade over time. edit: You can tell this road is "real" concrete because of the visible seams between each slab. For an ideal repair, they would have had to replace every affected…
Interesting. I’m GBA too. What are our roads made of?
Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
But not nearly higher enough. Driving on roads damages them in proportion to the fourth power of per-axle weight, which is about 17,000lbs for a fully loaded semi and 2,000lbs for a car. To put that in perspective, if the toll for the car were $0.25, it'd have to be over $1,300 for the truck for it to be fair in that sense.
It will just raise shipping costs and therefore raise the cost of goods. By charging trucks more it creates a regressive tax effectively. By subsidizing them this is a way we utilize socialism to ensure lower wage people have access.
Well the tax increase on trucks can be accompanied by some other tax decrease that mostly affects poorer people, such as a sales tax decrease or an income tax rate decrease in the lowest bracket.
Re: What are those dents in I-90 outside Seattle?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US interstate moves insane numbers of huge ass-trucks that weight one billion metric pounds each or something. Anything less than airport-grade concrete dies instantly, and then dies again when it invariably freezes to -40° Kelvin, because fuck physics when shit gets cold.
The reason for the interstate trucks is the taxation system that punishes railroads for owning their right-of-way. The trucks cause by far the most damage to the highways, but taxpayers subsidize that with the gas tax. Trucks also do not pay property tax on the highways. Long haul freight should be done by loading the semi's trailer onto a flat car, and picking it up near the destination. Another myopic government de…
> Trucks also do not pay property tax on the highways.
Why would they pay property tax on a highway they don’t own?
What they do pay is a per mile tax that is collected at the pump and divided up to the states through IFTA. Every single mile a truck travels is taxed by some state even if it’s just using it for personal use like shopping at Walmart.