Truth about highway work
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Truth!!!
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I retired from 32 years working in state service . While not in the highway division ,I can tell you that this is closer to the truth than many would admit
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All you have to do is look. They are not really working on the highway. The state has wisely invested our money in orange cones and they just store them out there on the road. They will be worth a fortune one day.
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Ricci.Wright: 30933503002523/comments/30933519938459
All you have to do is look. They are not really working on the highway. The state has wisely invested our money in orange cones and they just store them out there on the road. They will be worth a fortune one day.
Especially when, in Iowa, it's a $1000 fine for speeding in a "construction" zone
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I worked for Mo Hwy Dept long before it was MoDot and at that time, WE WORKED. Lots of axe and chainsaw work maintaining rights of way, lots of shovel work filling pot holes, lots of operating non-cab tractors mowing shoulders and ROW.
Most hwy dept employees worked there because they didn't have the skills or education to get an easier job. I took the job because it was convenient and fit into my farming schedule.
It didn't take 7 men, 4 trucks, 4 dozen road cones, and a grader to fill a 12" diameter pot hole. When some politician's hwy dept employee Nephew got killed in a work zone along I 44 several years ago, the highway workers pretty much got handed an easy life. After that, every deadbeat lazy butt flunky was on the hiring list trying to get a MoDot job. Tell me that was coincidental.
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And why do they "cone off" 5 miles of roadway when only working on 1/4 mile at a time🤔
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Even with the ridiculous costs of everything I think building a road is something like 10 million a mile Lol, (or maybe that's actually close!)
I don't know how it is everywhere else but around here it seems all the roads are in very poor shape including interstate 26 the few trillion in infrastructure $ probably couldn't pay for 2% of the bridges and roads that really need upgrading not including costs to upgrade utility systems, broadband, etc.
We have deferred maintenance and upgrading on a lot of infrastructure that 10 trillion probably wouldn't even be enough.
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They decided to build the world's most complicated/unnecessary interchange here, and somehow it took three years to complete. This is what they built (note the area marked in red)
Then we had a good sized earthquake and it took out that area marked in red.
They were able to rebuild that ramp in THREE DAYS
Neat, huh? Except they spilled the beans. It doesn't reeeeaaaaaalllllllly take 3 years to do projects like these. Oooooops.
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Orange cones and detour signs are as much a part of Salt Lake as Mt Rushmore is to South Dakota.
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Well you have the survey crew, the sign crew, the barrier crew, the portapotty crew, the equipment delivery crew, the excavation crew, the paving crew. With all that going out the door, I guess they want you inconvenienced so you think your getting your tax dollar’a worth!
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For the last few years around my area some influential smart *** sold the idea of constructing "Roundabouts" at many intersections. This includes rural intersections out in the sticks as well! Coming into town from the south you go through 3 of them within a span of about 5 miles! The costs for these is over the top expensive and the roads leading up to them are in a pretty sad state of repair.
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Roundabouts! I hate those things! They're in the process of putting one in on Hiway 2 just west of Kalispell and yep, I'll have to go through it every time I need to go to town. Where they put it in an overpass looked to have made more sense, but heck, what do I know? There's one in Island City, OR that is such a tight radius that if you are pulling a utility trailer behind your pickup you can't use it without running the trailer up on the inside curb. I just treated it like a normal intersection and turned left.
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There are a couple of tight ones so close together on the east side of Mankato that it's not uncommon to see semi tracks go right across them.
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Brookwood: 30933503002523/comments/30933540101787
For the last few years around my area some influential smart *** sold the idea of constructing "Roundabouts" at many intersections. This includes rural intersections out in the sticks as well! Coming into town from the south you go through 3 of them within a span of about 5 miles! The costs for these is over the top expensive and the roads leading up to them are in a pretty sad state of repair.
When they build a roundabout all I ever hear is that they are so much safer than regular intersections. My thoughts are if people are to stupid to pay attention to a simple stop sign then how the hell will they master a more complicated roundabout? They built one 10 or so years ago on my route to work. Made the center of the circle all pretty with a brick flower bed and a fancy wrought iron light pole. 2 weeks later somebody went straight and wiped out the bed and pole. Now they are building them all over and instead of ratings for most dangerous intersection, I see ratings for the most dangerous roundabouts. Just another waste of your tax dollars. Bob
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Now the thing is the "dog bone"
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A few years ago the state built a new interstate between my town and one 40 miles up the road. Private contractor doing the paving . State inspectors riding herd on the job . Somehow they manage to lay substandard too thin pavement on 15 miles of it . One year later that section had to be replaced .Instead of making original contractor fix his screw-up, the states pays someone else to do the repair .North Carolina was once known as " The Good Roads State " ,not any more
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Gov't work requires any contractor doing work to submit a material and labor bond. The state should at least have the moxie to contact the bonding company for God's sake. They "may" be of help but if nothing else certainly won't bond that contractor in the future.
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I worked for the city of Branson, MO the summer of 1980. Being low guy on the totem pole I usually got the fun jobs. A water pipe broke in the main intersection near downtown and the payment buckled. I remember being down in the hole with a pump and a patch kit while 8 guys watched.....
Luckily a few days later one of the other truck drivers had an issue and I drove a dump truck the rest of that summer.....
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I slung tar and gravel one summer for the county. Helped me decide to continue my education.
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Work on I-4 through Orlando has been dragging on since before I moved here four years ago, and it's not close to being finished yet. Even though I'm three counties and many miles away, it has a rebound effect of destroying traffic in my own area.
The private toll road agency gets expansion on their toll roads finished in a year or two, but with public gas tax money...what's the rush? They're only tax payers!
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jimdeere: 30933503002523/comments/30933587952795
I slung tar and gravel one summer for the county. Helped me decide to continue my education.
Same here...that was the summer before my Sr year of college...I enjoyed the summer but was ready to get back to the books that fall.
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Rumor is there are just TWO seasons in New England. Winter and ''ROADWORK''😲
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In '89 on my trip thru Alaska i witnessed what i thought were premier road builders in the world. These guys deal with devastating effects of earthquakes and runoff from snow in the high peaks. Some places i went thru the roads had completely disappeared. You looked down in a valley and could see they had decided too much work to repair or fight mother nature and started in a different direction.
I saw one machine that literally gobbled up everything on the sides of highway so that you could see wildlife before it crossed. In one place (my bad memory escapes me) the road crews were actually building the complete road from ground up as i drove behind them. They were putting down some kind of rubber/foam to deal with the permafrost.
I talked to a couple of these guys in stiff muddy coveralls that would stand up at attention without a body in them. They live for weeks sometimes in road camps and only get to visit their families on a weekend every couple of weeks. These guys truly have a hard life, at least at that time they did.
Alaska was a real adventure and for me the Last Frontier.----------------------------Ray
PS: When I finally returned home after way over 10,000 miles on my new Silverado, looked underneath and all four shocks were leaking all over my driveway. Roads were brutal.
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You think that's bad, check out one of the many federal bureaucracies such as EPA, DOT, Dept of Ed or Dept of Energy.
At least construction accomplishes something.
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