One of the smarter things MI has suggested in a while.

I don't mind this one bit so long as they grade it before the washboard ripples shake your fillings loose.

What did your other mom drive?



 

I practically grew up on dirt roads so I know how you feel.

That sounds like a problem with the way your road was constructed without enough drainage rather than a material problem.

My gravel road has great drainage and lasts months during the summer, even when it rains alot in the late spring. It's smooth as hell right now and it rained hard last night. They haven't graded and dropped gravel in two months.

They didnt have Rebar. Thats alot of it right there.


We got hit with a pretty big rain here not too long ago. Many roads were beginning to wash out.

Are they talking about true gravel roads, or "seal coated" roads which have a layer of tar put over the preexisting pavement which is then covered by gravel?  They've been doing a lot of that here in Kalamazoo County.

I drove many a mile on Michigan gravel roads.  With a good hard-pack of snow, you could drive faster on them than the rural paved roads after a snow.  For rural, low volume roads there's nothing wrong with a gravel road, but all the fuck-sticks that fled Detroit demanded paved roads "just like in the City".  Fuck them, it's mostly rural farmland, and gravel roads are just fine.

The biggest problem with Michigan's roads are the number of freeze-thaw cycles they have every year.  To the north, the ground stays frozen all winter, to the south, the ground doesn't freeze very often.  In Michigan, you can have 2 or 3 freeze-thaw cycles in a week, which tears the ass out of an asphalt base, and causes heaving on concrete roads.  U.S.23 (used to be all concrete) was horrible.....the slabs would be 3-4 inches different from slab-to-slab.

Not a damn thing wrong with a maintained gravel road......plus you get to get a new windshield or two every year!

A properly constructed rock road holds up to weather just as well (and sometimes better) than paved.  You just can't travel as fast on it.

Wow!  And they call us Southerners Rednecks

Gotta love UAW  Wonder if dem government vehicles will make down a unimproved road?

Part of the problem here is that they've put off fixing roads for so long that by the time they get around to them the cost to fix them has skyrocketed and they have to completely tear the road out and rebuild it from scratch. Plus the idiots at the road comission wasting money by tar and chipping blacktop roads that are in great condition.

Don't argue with a journalist! They know more about this than you dumb hicks who actually drive on the roads. Why just last week there was a special on NPR about Obama rebuilding infrastructure...

Storm Damage to roads top 1 Million$

I  am of a mixed mind on this.  I grew up on gravel roads here in Iowa and HATED every time it rained and the winter.  If they don't take care of them they get rutted and will suck you into a ditch quicker than shit!  I see the reason to not pave small country roads but...gravel sucks!  The dust gets everywhere!  But then again thats why I moved to the city no gravel!

Now you've done it.

Apparently if you don't like gravel roads that makes your mother a lesbian. Just ask larkinmusic.

What do you guys think of privatizing roads? I heard someone make this argument a while back. You would have to pay a small toll or stare at an ad to pass, but theoretically, the condition of the roads would be much better, and it wouldn't waste millions of taxpayer dollars as contractors milk as much time as possible to get a road project done.

More gravel roads = Less salt on the roads in the winter.

I might actually be able to keep a vehicle for 10 years without it rusting to pieces.

I used to think gravel roads were shitty when it rained, but that all changed when our brilliant county government decided to replace the gravel with shale.  The shale makes a fine powder dust when you drive on it, and when it rains it's like clay slip.