In my area they are doing a ton of re-paving (resurfacing?) work, and in many cases the old pavement seemed fine. Other roads that desperately need to be re-paved are not touched. I know that a road that has more traffic (or is projected to) is more likely to be improved, but in many cases busy roads in poor condition are left untouched while roads with less traffic that seem fine are torn up and redone.
What’s going on here? Can a road be in bad shape but still feel smooth to the average car? Or is a more a matter of political influence?
ah seems to happen alot in the UK as well but not so much , good roads are often re-surfaced because many people use them and thus many people see your tax £/$ at work , i mean some out of the way road with few users would not be seen and tax dollars at work would not be seen , thing is in England they are going nuts with your tax at work they put speed bumps EVERYWHERE and mini roundabouts at every junction , i’m just waiting for speed bumps and mini round abouts to appear on the motorway , oh more speed cams etc
More than a few highway projects are started in an effort to burn off extra funds before the end of the fiscal year. If a state/county/city has funds left over, it looks really bad when trying to get an increased Federal subsidy or tax increase for road improvements (“Why do you need more money next year, you didn’t even need what we gave you last year!”).
So, the game is to spend the money on whatever highway or road projects you can in order to justify an even larger hand-out next time.
Is it possible you are watching the road crew laying down a chipseal? Chipsealing is relatively inexpensive and significantly lengthens the life of the road.
bare – No, I am talking about riping up the top 2-3" of surface (At least thats how big the bump back to the old pavement is), leaving that grooved pavement (that is so much fun on my motorcycle) for a couple weeks, then putting a new layer of pavement on top.
I figured it was the goverment wasting money for one reason or another (like divemaster said), but I was hoping someone would say a road could be ready to completely fall apart any second, yet still have a smooth suface.
I live in Tallahassee Florida and they’re doing the same thing here… It’s one thing when they put a roundabout in to aid with traffic flow, but the ones they are putting in here seem to be purely ornamental. Some of them are so small that they don’t even have a curved outside… it’s just a regular intersection with a little planter box in the middle, and yield signs instead of 4-way stopsigns.
And then, just for shits and giggles, they put in these oversized speed bumps with warning signs saying “Speed Hump”… The problem with them is that they are either so tall that you can’t drive over them in your average car, or they are put so close together that they impede regular travel on the road (or both)
What you’re seeing, Anachronism, is a “mill and resurface” operation. A raod is typically paved with several layers of various materials. Which materials, and the thickness of the layers, is determined by the type of traffic using the road (among other considerations). A typical road in New Jersey (where I work) is 8" of graded, loose stone for drainage, 6" of rough asphalt, called the base course, and 2-3" of smooth, softer asphalt, called the surface course. In a mill-and-resurface project, the contractor will remove, or mill, only the surface course.
Milling and resurfacing costs about 5%-10% of what a full construction project would cost, so it makes sense to replace the surface course before it wears out completely and the structural courses beging to weaken. As for why they are doing this on certain roads and not others, it may be a matter of jurisdiction - are the roads in question state or county highways? If not, your town may be playing favorites, or, like geepee suggested, spending the money in high-profile locations.