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I sound like someone who's been in the road construction industry, who actually knows how roads are built, and who actually knows what they're talking about. My "naysaying" is the result of knowing an impractical proposal when I see one.
What's to "protect" exactly? Even if I were still in the industry, you wouldn't pose any threat to my "bread and butter". You throw out a bunch of idea which aren't going to be practical, and think I'd somehow feel threatened by them? Not to mention your proposals make it quite clear you don't understand road construction, or that, if your idea of modular sections were going to work, it would actually benefit the infrastructure industry.
If you know so much better, I'm dying to see what you've got.
You must wonder how cars are built in factories, what with all the myriad of options and different panel designs. Surely they must be assembled in the customer's driveway to get the proper alignment and functionality.
No, I don't wonder. Cars and roads are two entirely different things. Even with the myriad of options, cars are still built on the same platform... the base of a basic model of car and the high end model don't change. That doesn't change with options packages. The manufacturer builds the platform the car is made on, and can assure it to be universal throughout the model range. Roads rely on a number of factors, including the natural terrain, what's underground (both natural and man-made), etc, and this is never a constant.
Roads do not work the same way. If you'd spent day one doing what I've done, you'd know this, as well as the futility of comparing road construction to car manufacturing. Would you care to shoot yourself in the foot some more?
You sound like someone in the road construction industry, protecting your bread and butter, what with all the naysaying.
Right, like the road construction industry couldn't also make their bread and butter by adopting your proposed methods, if it were actually more advantageous to do so.
In Houston where I live, the road construction makes driving even more frustrating than it already is. It also makes driving dangerous on occasion. The other day, I was turning left at a busy intersection. Two lanes were allowed to turn left, and I was in the far right lane turning left (the lane nearest the curb after I turned). There was road construction at the intersection, but no warning that the lane I was entering was CLOSED! As soon as I turned I had no place to go but to merge immediately with the other lane turning left or else hit road workers and heavy equipment. Fortunately, we were all driving slowly enough the other cars gave me space to merge, and we avoided an accident.
We also have problems with street name changes, and another thing I find frustrating is the absence of street numbers on street signs. When I am in an unfamiliar neighborhood, I can drive block after block and have no clue what block I am on the street.
But by far the thing I dislike the most about driving here are the entrance ramps that are also exit ramps on our clogged, busy freeways. Traffic jams are a daily occurance anyway, and when you combine this with impatient drivers trying to get on the freeway while other drivers are simultaneously attempting to get off on the same strip of pavement, that is a recipe for trouble
No, I don't wonder. Cars and roads are two entirely different things. Even with the myriad of options, cars are still built on the same platform... the base of a basic model of car and the high end model don't change. That doesn't change with options packages. The manufacturer builds the platform the car is made on, and can assure it to be universal throughout the model range. Roads rely on a number of factors, including the natural terrain, what's underground (both natural and man-made), etc, and this is never a constant.
Roads do not work the same way. If you'd spent day one doing what I've done, you'd know this, as well as the futility of comparing road construction to car manufacturing. Would you care to shoot yourself in the foot some more?
The reasons you listed as to why modular sections as impractical were the crowning and grading (options). I don't know, maybe in road construction the design plans tell the contractor to "grade and crown as you see fit". But if they provide measurements then those measurements could be provided when ordering manufactured sections, which could be manufactured with much greater precision and QC than anything in the field.
My pet peeve is the street where I have to make to make right turn to stay on the same street. They may change name slightly (Beltline N to Beltline E). When this happens they should have big boards telling take right to stay in same street.
I don't want to get started on Atlanta road names - Peachtree Rd meets another Peachtree Rd. Ugh!
In south Louisiana, funeral processions are a tradition. As a kid, when mom or dad saw a funeral procession go by, they would turn off the radio as a sign of respect. I don't do that, but I do wait patiently.
My mom and dad did the exact opposite... ...they would turn up the volume and play soul music!
I swear, some people continually keep trying to ice skate uphill...
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Originally Posted by oceangaia
The reasons you listed as to why modular sections as impractical were the crowning and grading (options).
Those are not the reasons; only the first two which came to mind out of many. I'm not going to sit here and give a whole seminar on the ins and outs of road building to try to appease you. Consider this - in the whole entire world, amongst every road building outfit out there, nobody else thought of this and put it into play? You're so original, you came up with this idea exclusively on your own? Tell you what... find a way to make it work, then patent it, and you'll be raking it in, big time. So would anyone else who did.
Crown varies within a roadway, and what it's set at will be determined by a number of factors, most of which are centered around drainage. It can vary within the roadway (and often does), and will even flatten out at points (such as at intersections). Topping that off, there are no 100% perfect grades - there are some damn good blade hands out there, but none of them are perfect, and there will be imperfections in the grade. When the base layer is laid by the paver, it fills these imperfections in and forms to fit... you don't want an empty void underneath the asphalt, because, guess what? Asphalt is not the load bearing surface! The purpose of asphalt is to distribute the weight of traffic evenly across the ground below it. When you have an empty void underneath it, it does not do this, and it damages the roadway. To prefab something like this, you would need a form specific to each section of roadway... tractor-trailers have a statutory length limit of 53 feet, while most flatbeds are 48', so you figure that's going to be the length limit of each section. There's an estimated 2.65 million miles of paved road in the US, the majority of them are asphalt, and a good percentage of those have more than one layer of asphalt... do the math.
Then, once it's laid out, it gets compacted. Asphalt has a compaction rate.. well, specifics vary according to mix, but 25% compaction is the general rule of thumb. So, aside from needing a form specific to each section of road, you'd need to be able to do the compaction within this form, then cool it... yes, cold mix does exist, but there's a reason it's only used for minor patching.
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I don't know
My point exactly. You don't, and yet, you want to keep insisting that you somehow know better.
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maybe in road construction the design plans tell the contractor to "grade and crown as you see fit".
Lot of variables in how that's determined. The contractor may or may not have at least some degree of discretion in this.
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But if they provide measurements then those measurements could be provided when ordering manufactured sections, which could be manufactured with much greater precision and QC than anything in the field.
And the problem I described above would still exist. Not to mention the question of how do you bond them together, and a million other logistics questions which I have neither the time and inclination to spell out for you right now.
Last edited by Mire; 10-31-2014 at 09:43 PM..
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