Road Pot-Hole Season is starting early! (Portland, Sandy: maintenance, tax, living in)

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Has anyone noticed all the little potholes appearing after the ice melted on the roads?

Almost every major street I drove on yesterday was full of them.

Gonna be a busy spring...for Portland's road crews.

Or, knowing Portland, probably not.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

The thing about potholes is you fix them and they just come back. So, maybe Portland is saving the labor costs, several years in a row. Watching from the sidelines, it looks a lot like Portland spends most of their road money on bike lanes that the cyclists refuse to use. Didn't Portland just pass a huge new tax to repair the roads, except that over half of it is earmarked for bike lanes?

I hope they fix all those leaking water mains that have been on the news, blowing up the roads.

On the plus side for all the snow and ice, it fills up those potholes, smoothing them out, at least temporarily.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

I think of them as reverse speed bumps.

[OneTimeSEALover]

Extreme high and low temperatures. Climate change. More severe, more pavement owies. Hey, maybe that's why off road vehicles are so popular nowadays. Tougher suspension to stand up to bumpy roads.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

In Portland, it's mostly neglect and lack of road maintenance.

Most of the potholes I see could have been prevented by basic stuff like sealing cracks in the road and the city being proactive.

[OneTimeSEALover]

Here's something people should realize about potholes. To do any serious job, you must shut down a lot of streets. And usually during hours when cars need them. If the money is there (not always the case) then what you get instead of the holes is more traffic on some streets. Somehow, people still insist on getting out the car when the orange cones come out. I was with a friend on Sandy Blvd at 7pm. I kinda thought by that time of day, the traffic would be sparse. But it is not. I couldn't actually report with limited experience when traffic becomes free moving. I drove to park and ride and got on MAX. Not sure if I moved faster, but at least I wasn't sitting in a line of cars that weren't moving.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

So I guess the solution is not to fix the roads because it's inconvenient?

[OneTimeSEALover]

Not the meaning. But discussions hardly EVER mention the REALITY of road repair. In a city that has yet to develop gridlock, the inconvenience might be minor. But in most places that people like to live in, it is really Poison A or Poison B. As someone said, a "pothole" is nothing but a natural speed bump. You can choose a suitable vehicle that minimizes the impact on you and the car. And you can support RATIONAL repair policies. If street agencies get too much whining in their ears, they go off the deep end (revenge?) and massacre traffic movement. You need to have experienced is to realize how little you want that. Rational street repair, of course. Crash programs to make street smooth? If you force it, you wont be as happy as you think.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

I don't know if you are from Portland, but any road maintenance here has been either delayed for years because of the repair budget being re-directed, or superficial repairs in areas where it can't be avoided anymore.

[OneTimeSEALover]

Originally Posted by pdxMIKEpdx

I don't know if you are from Portland, but any road maintenance here has been either delayed for years because of the repair budget being re-directed, or superficial repairs in areas where it can't be avoided anymore.

Not a doubter. But I'm thinking there just isn't a groundwell of popular discontent. What might be interfering with that? That's what I'm been speculating about all along. Drivers' complaints are just not sympathetic enough? We all, when we drive, pollute the atmosphere. Could be many drivers have some sort of sense of guilt when they fire up their cars, and potholes are karma? Again, that's wild speculation. But there must be something operating. People like Alphonse D'Amato in New York have been elected due to their exploitation of things like potholes. Immigrants from other locations to Portland might see a problem where a lot of natives just see a minor drawback in living in the Pacific Northwest. Time will tell.