91–100 of 146 posts
I'm from Iowa. There are a handful of population centers, and a sprinkling of homes and small communities between miles and miles and miles of farmland. The thing is, most people don't travel between the small communities - most driving takes people to or from town. If they're not going to town, they're going to visit neighbors or their fields, in which case gravel roads work great. Gravel roads work better than dete…
How does this work in the context of motorcycles?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I spent some time doing work in rural NW Iowa, and I remember the sheer number of gravel roads that are run between the fields. (They are great for running on too) How does the maintenance per mile between gravel roads and paved roads compare? Does this article apply to both?
From northern Wisconsin here - I always had the impression growing up that gravel roads became gutted with potholes from the snow after a few winters if not maintained, and generally pretty horrible. Especially in WI, our small roads are "milk roads" where they drive the heavy milk trucks in for collection. Certainly like the idea of cutting back unnecessary expenses, but I'd also like to see some data on this.
But those are dirt roads, which are not the same thing as a proper, old-fashioned gravel Macadam road. They can be excellent, and are pretty easy to maintain --- if potholes develop, fill them promptly with the right grade of gravel --- but don't do high speed traffic well. (Gravel is flung up by the wheels, which was why they started gluing it down with tar --- hence tarmac, or tarmacadam.)
Can find a good video of a grader in action, so here's a bad one:
I'm from Iowa. There are a handful of population centers, and a sprinkling of homes and small communities between miles and miles and miles of farmland. The thing is, most people don't travel between the small communities - most driving takes people to or from town. If they're not going to town, they're going to visit neighbors or their fields, in which case gravel roads work great. Gravel roads work better than dete…
This may make sense in Iowa but it makes no sense in California. Gravel roads would would slow the effective max speed down to a crawl which would further exasperate traffic. If anything we need a higher driving speeds.
That being said, I live in CA and would love a model much like Germany, with unrestricted freeways in the rural areas and speed limits around 15-20 mph in towns and cities. Going down I-5 to socal? Sure, do 150. Driving in a town where there could be people walking, cyclists, vehicles stopping often, etc,? Maybe 15 makes more sense.
Of course, not giving a license to just anyone with a pulse would be a start. My grandmother (lovely woman, but 91 and clearly past her driving years) failed her written driving test a few weeks ago. What did the DMV do? They _extended_ her license another two months, for reasons that escape me. "You can continue to drive despite a demonstrated ignorance of driving law" is pretty much what we're saying there.
Also, California is big. A lot of it probably resembles Iowa more than SF in terms of road infrastructure - ever head out to the more remote parts?
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http://www.maine.gov/mdot/csd/mlrc/documents/pdf/Richmond199...
So for comparison of 50-yr maintenance costs (in Maine): - Low-use gravel roads are ~50% of paved road maintenance cost. - Moderate-use gravel roads are ~350% of paved road maintenance cost. Yikes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I spent some time doing work in rural NW Iowa, and I remember the sheer number of gravel roads that are run between the fields. (They are great for running on too) How does the maintenance per mile between gravel roads and paved roads compare? Does this article apply to both?
From northern Wisconsin here - I always had the impression growing up that gravel roads became gutted with potholes from the snow after a few winters if not maintained, and generally pretty horrible. Especially in WI, our small roads are "milk roads" where they drive the heavy milk trucks in for collection. Certainly like the idea of cutting back unnecessary expenses, but I'd also like to see some data on this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The social good supported by entitlement spending is sick people not dying and poor people not starving or being homeless. The social "good" supported by highways is geographical separation between the middle class and the poor (which largely means the white and everyone else.)
> which largely means the white and everyone else. Ah, that explains why highways only exist in the United States.
They weren't saying what you are suggesting they were saying.
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You lost any credibility when you mentioned communism.
"Hi, my name is s73v3r and I'd like to interrupt this discussion to say that I, s73v3r, have been brainwashed through Pavlovian Conditioning to react with repulse to the word "communism" whenever that word is found in an argument I cannot counter". FTFY.
This may make sense in Iowa but it makes no sense in California. Gravel roads would would slow the effective max speed down to a crawl which would further exasperate traffic. If anything we need a higher driving speeds.
Higher speeds generally increase traffic rather than decrease it, as following distance increases (or, if it doesn't, traffic due to wrecks will slow you down anyway). That being said, I live in CA and would love a model much like Germany, with unrestricted freeways in the rural areas and speed limits around 15-20 mph in towns and cities. Going down I-5 to socal? Sure, do 150. Driving in a town where there could be p…
The German Bundesstrasse (equivalent to U.S. or state highways?) does have highly variable speed limits, as you describe, and I found them correspondingly maddening to drive on, due to the incessant need to accelerate or decelerate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Hi, my name is s73v3r and I'd like to interrupt this discussion to say that I, s73v3r, have been brainwashed through Pavlovian Conditioning to react with repulse to the word "communism" whenever that word is found in an argument I cannot counter". FTFY.
You need to have an argument before someone can counter it.