# What are they doing to the road?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-they-doing-to-the-road/21741>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 8, 2000, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-they-doing-to-the-road/21741 "2000-06-08T12:05:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-they-doing-to-the-road/21741/41 "2000-06-14T13:47:53Z")

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Seems to make sense to me. I don’t think they were trying to track down every single crack and drill a hole in front of each crack. Rather, the road was starting to develop numerous little cracks. They cut numerous little holes at regular intervals so there is a good chance each crack will reach one of the holes and stop.

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**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-they-doing-to-the-road/21741/42 "2000-06-14T22:05:41Z")

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pretty much what **BobT** reported. I got the following in an email from Kari Debnar from MDOT:

> [@](#):
>
> The work that is taking place is a relatively new procedure in Michigan called a dowel bar retrofit. This procedure involves placing steel bars into the pavement in the slots you saw. The purpose is to strengthen the pavement and extend its life.

I note, however, that Kari does not mention placing these dowels at existing cracks. I imagine the intention is to **prevent** cracks, and so positions of greatest sensitivity are chosen.

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**Author:** ![wastelands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@wastelands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wastelands)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2000, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-they-doing-to-the-road/21741/43 "2000-06-15T22:16:42Z")

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OK, after procrastinating a few days I finnaly called NDDOT. They are dowel bar retrofits. Julie explained to me that what they do is help spread the load forced against the surface to help prevent stress from fracturing the concrete. They put them in new roads as well as old. So get ready to slow down for all those orange barrels cuz I assume they’ll do it to all the road surface instead of just intermittent (sp?) as it is now.

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**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-they-doing-to-the-road/21741/44 "2000-07-01T15:53:22Z")

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They talked about these grooves on the news the other night. As mentioned above, they are for reinforcing rods. They will (hopefully) prevent shifting of roadway sections, and lessen the number of cracks and potholes that will develop. If you’re interested, the rods are epoxy-coated steel. The grooves will be filled in with an epoxy-cement mixture. Groovy 🆒

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