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The roads are disintegrating!


GRDadof3

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I completely agree. It's hurting commerce and it's making us look horrible. Even the DDA did a study that showed that for every street they rebuilt downtown, a subsequent amount of redevelopment followed. I would imagine a similar study would show the opposite. The parts of town with the worst streets have the smallest amount of investment/upkeep/appreciation.

It's absolutely unacceptable and needs to change. If it means a higher gas tax in this area, higher sales tax, bond issue, whatever. I'm guessing they'd get overwhelming taxpayer support for something, ANYTHING!! It's killing us economically. They issued $Hundreds of Millions in bonds to fund the sewer separation project. Is this any less an important issue?

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Do you know whom we can contact? Would it do any good to come en masse to a City Commission meeting and speak during the public comments time? The city government is failing its citizens. I understand that's a grandiose way to express it, but in this case I think it's appropriate. Basic infrastructure is failing in a big, bad way.

[P.S. Sorry about the errors in my first note.... Apparently my internal grammar police were on a coffee break.... :rolleyes: ]

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Several years ago, i heard some news report that in Germany they were surfacing roads with some combination that included old ground up tires. The rubber alowed the road to expand and contract more - making more durable

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Several years ago, i heard some news report that in Germany they were surfacing roads with some combination that included old ground up tires. The rubber alowed the road to expand and contract more - making more durable
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Just did a quick search myself, and there is a lot of good information out there about rubberized asphalt--and at least two decades' worth of trials. It's certainly worth a try here.

The with-and-without pictures on this site are interesting:

http://www.ces.clemson.edu/arts/benefitsofRA.html

We should try something, anything different. I'm very nervous about the quote I just read on MLive from Public Works Director Bush:

"Once the weather breaks and temperatures reach 45 degrees, crews will fill the holes with hot asphalt that will last through the summer, Bush said." [Link]

If they're planning only more asphalt patches, will the potholes be even worse next winter?

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Wow.... "That will last through the summer"

That just sounds like they're just throwing money at the problem, temporarily delaying the inevitable! Patching the holes doesn't solve the problem... As everyone has said above, its not just one here, one there... its almost EVERY major round in the metro area! Its terrible! Obviously what they've been doing isn't working.

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...We should try something, anything different. I'm very nervous about the quote I just read on MLive from Public Works Director Bush:

"Once the weather breaks and temperatures reach 45 degrees, crews will fill the holes with hot asphalt that will last through the summer, Bush said." [Link]

If they're planning only more asphalt patches, will the potholes be even worse next winter?

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A few spots I've noticed and now try to avoid:

Monroe between Leonard and Ann

Ionia from Michigan to dead end

Fulton from Fuller to Beltline

Fuller from south of Michigan to Leonard with especially detrimental holes on the overpass and just north of

Spaulding from Fulton to Cascade is the worst!! Huge sections of road are missing - all cars are crawling along trying to save their axles

Another option for increasing durability in asphalt/concrete is Hemp. "Hemp fiber added to concrete increases tensile and compressive strengths, reduces shrinkage and cracking." from http://www.construction-technologies.com/l.../Hemp/hemp.html

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Hot asphalt is different from cold patch. (I can't believe I know this.)

When you get a driveway done, they use hot. On a roadway, it forms to fit the shape desired, and fills in all the iregular edges of the holes.

Cold patch is the truck with two guys in safety vests (matching Tony's new one!) shoveling stuff into holes. This relies on the weight of motor traffic to push the substance into the hole.

Hot is actually pretty good...but the only way to avoid the freeze-thaw cycle is to have a pervious surface (such as bricks or poured concrete with joints) or one that moves with the weather (repurposed tires).

When I lived in Baltimore in the 80s, several streets were done in glass-phalt (broken glass chips in the mix). Anyone care to look that up?

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Kalamazoo Avenue between M-6 and at least Plymouth is a total disaster. Kalamazoo is scheduled to rebuilt in '09 I believe. It's supposed to be turned into a boulevard, but man - I can't imagine driving another year on that stretch in its current condition.

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Found this on Usenet:

"In the old days when I did roadway repairs. Those damn patches popped out as soon as we put them in there because of moisture, temp. differences, etc.. (don't believe that "cold patch" crap). Well, my

boss was ex-military. So he called a buddy of his and had some runway patch material (the stuff that can take a few hundred C-130s a day and not break up) sent on out. That crap was still in the road until it

was repaved 15 years later. That of course was in the subtropical paradise of Ypsilanti where frost heave doesn't happen. Which brings me to my personal moral of the story. Fix it right the first time.

Fixing it 50 times and them repaving it costs more (duh). "

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I've been riding State all winter... what part of it is bad? The sides? Its wide enough/low traffic enough you should be able to dodge any potholes quite easily... I know theres a few rough patches but honestly I wouldn't rate it among the worst. Maybe Founder's blurred my memory however :blush: ?

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The worst street by me is westbound Burton, just before you get on the highway. There are a few potholes that have claimed the tires of my friends and family. Just in the past two weeks, five of my friends have popped tires on potholes.

So, in an attempt to save my tires (and $$), what are the good streets in Grand Rapids? I've been taking Jefferson into downtown GR and it has been ok.

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I've been riding State all winter... what part of it is bad? The sides? Its wide enough/low traffic enough you should be able to dodge any potholes quite easily... I know theres a few rough patches but honestly I wouldn't rate it among the worst. Maybe Founder's blurred my memory however :blush: ?
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