How come our roads get potholed so fast?

[sinjin]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Oh, and about the bituminous materials? They're usually locally produced.

Locally refined which I didn't know. The oil is imported. Of course the AC is batched locally.

[CranBeree]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

ond day as i was driving somewhere... there was this truck and it said puka patrol..i thought they were going to look for potholes and fill it but all they did was stop off at ilima's at mapunapuna..

[cynsaligia]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

as many of you know, eric and i just came back from visiting my mom in portland, oregon over the holidays. the city gets a lot of constant rain every winter--akin to what we experienced during the 2006 "40 days of rain." in fact, none of the days we were there were precipitation-free (rain, hail, snow). we marveled at how well the roads are kept, not only because they suffer so much more rain than we do, but they have so many more and heavier vehicles like semis traversing the roads. we drove around town on surface streets and as far as 30+ miles out of it on freeways and never saw a single pothole. to tell the truth, i've visited my mom maybe five times over the last seven years and i can't recall ever seeing a pothole (certainly, i've never driven over or needed to dodge one).

while perusing the online version of the oregonian this week, i saw this article:

New fee would repave Portland
Projects - A tax for households and businesses is proposed to upgrade major streets and improve safety

Just about everybody who uses Portland streets will notice a change -- safer intersections, new bike boulevards, better traffic signals and fewer potholes -- but city residents and businesses will pay a premium for it.

A new tax headed for city approval will raise $464 million over 15 years for street safety and maintenance projects.

Here's some of what it would buy:

Most of the money, about $340 million, would go for pavement, fixing every major street in Portland.

Commissioner Sam Adams, who developed the plan with the help of an 89-member stakeholder committee, said money for street maintenance has steadily eroded since the state gas tax was last increased in 1993.

The new fee -- if approved by the City Council next week and if it survives a potential referral to voters by opponents -- would also pay for improvements to nearly 30 high-crash intersections, installation of 20 miles of sidewalks and 50 pedestrian islands, creation of 114 miles of walking and biking boulevards, and synchronizing of traffic signals on 26 corridors.

The fee would also allow police traffic enforcement on freeways within the city, which currently aren't patrolled.

Under Adams' proposal, households would pay $4.54 a month, added to their water and sewer bills. Businesses would pay a fee based on the amount of traffic they generate. Officials estimate that most businesses would pay an average of $33 a month, but large companies could pay much more.

if one of our politicians made a similar proprosal here, would you support it? $4.54 a month seems quite reasonable to me in order to have a comprehensive program for upkeeping roads, bridges, creating bike lanes, improving sidewalks, etc. (not just puka patching).

if something like this wouldn't work in this town, why not? i mean, besides the whole, "reactionary, not visionary" (quoting june jones here) thing that the 808 seems to suffer from?

seriously, every time i visit my mom, there are so many things i wish i could bring back to honolulu (curbside recycling plus reverse vending machines, many choices for public transportation, no sales tax...my mom's cooking...).

[dyasu]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

The Portland plan sounds good. I am always ashamed when friends come in from out of town and as I'm driving them around they ask why the roads are so bumpy and full of defects.

At the very least they should make Kapiolani and Ala Moana Blvd a little nicer since so many tourists traffic those area. I think it reflects poorly on our state as a travel destination when the roads are so bad in those areas.

[tutusue]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

My daughter, who was raised here but has lived in SoCal for 22 years, always remarks about how horrible the Oahu roads are now.

I just had a $1000. car repair bill (new rims and tires) due to accumulated pot hole damage. I'm now driving under 5000 miles per year to try to keep damage to a minimum.

I heard thru the coconut wireless that this is a 'job security' situation as mentioned above. Something about an expensive, pot hole repair truck sitting idle somewhere so as not to disturb jobs. Anyone know anything about this?

[timkona]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

"Eh, Bra....Ainokea how you didum on da mainland"
"Why not leave Hawaii as it is?"
"First you come here. Then you try to change stuff."

Some see the rice bowl as always full. That's a good thing.

Others think "stupid" should be illegal.

Kamehameha was the last true Hawaiian visionary. There has not been one since.

Vote Democrat.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

if one of our politicians made a similar proprosal here, would you support it? $4.54 a month seems quite reasonable to me in order to have a comprehensive program for upkeeping roads, bridges, creating bike lanes, improving sidewalks, etc. (not just puka patching).

First of all, I'd want an accounting of the money and way we are doing things now. Throwing more money at something rarely solves it. You have to do something differently.

I wouldn't mind the $4.54, but how much are we spending now compared to other cities? And what's this about putting it in the water/sewer bill? That's bogus. Put it in the gas tax or vehicle registration.

I heard thru the coconut wireless that this is a 'job security' situation as mentioned above. Something about an expensive, pot hole repair truck sitting idle somewhere so as not to disturb jobs. Anyone know anything about this?

The story I remember is that it takes a special asphalt mix - one that isn't available here. But trying to google it, I see in another forum that they mistreated the equipment and ruined it. Neither one would surprise me.

What I'd like to see is some investigative reporting. Way back .... oh, I think around 1990, a Denver TV station secretly followed various public crews around. The first crew was the pot hole fillers. I think they reported that they worked about one hour (total!) but put in for two hours of over time. It got worse from there. Huge blowup. Mayor ended up resigning, criminal court cases. All kinds of fun.

I'd like to see that here.

[EastCoastTropics]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

I was just talking to my youngest DD about this, this morning. Her fiance has a paving business here on the east coast. They travel to either the south or west during the winter months to work, right now they're in TX. He said that they don't pave with concrete here because the salt used to melt the ice eats it right up, so they use asphalt, which he says, has sand in it. You probably knew this, so I'm not much help here but I did find this online:

http://www.hawaiiasphalt.com/HAPI/mo..._hma_mixes.htm

[Nords]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Maybe part of the issue is the frame of reference. What about roads that are worse than Hawaii's?

I grew up near Pittsburgh in the 1960s-70s and spent plenty of time on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We returned there for a weekend last summer and technology does not appear to have improved the situation*... Hawaii looks pretty good by comparison.

Lanikuhana Street (in Mililani) was repaved last summer. One big difference is that all the bus stops changed from asphalt to concrete pads. I wonder how the rest of the streets are affected by bus/truck traffic.

*Well, one thing improved. People were no longer fishing through the 6th Street bridge.

[cynsaligia]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

I wouldn't mind the $4.54, but how much are we spending now compared to other cities? And what's this about putting it in the water/sewer bill? That's bogus. Put it in the gas tax or vehicle registration.

it might be that the city of portland views its roads kinda like a utility that everyone uses. i'm pulling this out of my posterior, but that's my guess. most pay only $30 in registration fees per vehicle.

if you're curious about what oregonians pay in income, property, and other taxes (sales tax on everything is = 0), look here.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

i'm pulling this out of my posterior, but that's my guess.

If I was to do the same, it would be to note that in Oregon this is the city talking - they may be looking to tax something they already tax. In Hawaii we have a "city & county" government rather then a city government and a county government.

When it comes to comparing, I wanted to compare spending. How much are we spending on our roads compared to other states?

[Menehune Man]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

It's not the weather or climate of Hawaii that's the problem.
They're doing something wrong. Last year I went to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming: the freeways and surface roads were all in better condition and they have way worse factors to deal with than our road crews do.

Come to think of it, even Fiji's roads (the ones that are paved) out shine ours.
Hmmmm....

Have you noticed how sometimes the repairs are worse than the original pot hole?! Now it's a bump instead.

All I can say is that our roads are beating the hell outta my moped and posterior.

[joshuatree]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Considering there's never a need to salt our roads, wouldn't it be cheaper when you factor in the longevity, to pave concrete roads instead of asphalt? I would think the greenhouse factor would also improve since black asphalt act as heat sinks whereas concrete reflects a lot more of the heat back?

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

what about the fact that the soil beneath our roads is softer than all that loamy goodness you find on the continent? There is this one particular area of the road I traverse daily that has chronic pothole issues. Today, when I went past it, I noticed the swale on each side and how it is always muddy there. Our primordial material needs to be looked at as part of the equation, while we (of course) bash the insidious cabal of contractors who employ substandard materials in their nefarious designs to rot the roads and keep their companies fat.

[tutusue]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

what about the fact that the soil beneath our roads is softer than all that loamy goodness you find on the continent? There is this one particular area of the road I traverse daily that has chronic pothole issues. Today, when I went past it, I noticed the swale on each side and how it is always muddy there. Our primordial material needs to be looked at as part of the equation, while we (of course) bash the insidious cabal of contractors who employ substandard materials in their nefarious designs to rot the roads and keep their companies fat.

I think I'm gonna have to sleep on that explanation! All I know is my car is taking gas on Oahu's roads. Ai yi yi yi yi!