How come our roads get potholed so fast?

[GeckoGeek]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

I remember hearing somewhere that a big problem we have in Hawaii is that the water table is so high, especially when it rains. That water damages the road from the underside.

[tutusue]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

I remember hearing somewhere that a big problem we have in Hawaii is that the water table is so high, especially when it rains. That water damages the road from the underside.

That makes sense to me. On occasion I notice flooding in the intersection of Hobron Ln. and Kaioo St., across Ala Moana from the Ilikai. When there was no rain to speak of, I finally asked someone about it...HIGH TIDE!

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

When it's high tide in Mapunapuna, over by that truck rental place, the water comes up through the storm drains! On the website that EastCoastTropics pointed to, there's a page on drainage that does make it sound like water is a big problem for roads. And I'm sure all the old leaky water mains and sewer lines don't help.

What I am not clear on is, how do they make sure that all this roadwork is of high quality? At first I thought that all the road building was done by the city (or the state), but on further reflection I realized that it must be done by contractors... who won the low-bid contracts for the work... based on whatever cheapest way was to meet the specs that the government engineers wrote into the RFP... and quality-checked by inspectors who are probably only there 1% of the time.

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

how do you make asphalt? By mixing cement, tar and gravel. Where does the gravel come from? These islands. These oh-so-soft islands.

[SusieMisajon]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Many roads in the midwest are made fom slabs of concrete, and not tar and gravel.

[sinjin]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Asphalt concrete is primarily a mixture of aggregates and asphalt(bitumens). Cement is used in PCC(Portland Cement Concrete) pavements. Water is the primary reason Hawaii's roads don't hold up. There are solutions. They require greater dollar expenditures per mile. Better drainage, better base/sub-base construction, state of the art aphalt concrete mixes and placing procedures.

Here's something that Hawaii may already be experimanting with or should if they're not:

http://www.asphaltinstitute.org/uplo...ces_Offer_.pdf

[GeckoGeek]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

At first I thought that all the road building was done by the city (or the state), but on further reflection I realized that it must be done by contractors... who won the low-bid contracts for the work...

When I worked at 711 Kapiolani, there was a broken water main nearby. I nosed around and talked to one of the head guys as to what happened. He blamed the problem on the contractor that put in the line. The pipe is supposed to be surrounded by gravel that allow the ground to shift without affecting the pipe. Unfortunately, some larger rocks get mixed into the fill for whatever reason, and the rock creates a hard point that breaks the pipe - many many years after the work was done and the contractor paid.

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

I wonder whether the current construction boom has anything to do with it, too. More construction means more demand for aggregate (gravel) for concrete... does that raise the price or lower the availability? If so, maybe our road repairs are getting the lower-grade stuff because the high-rises are sucking up all the high quality materials.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

When I was living in Idaho they were repaving parts of the interstate highway and was amazed at how they do it.

At a depth of I'd say close to 2-feet down (maybe a bit less) they tamp down a thick layer of 1-inch minus blue rock gravel followed by another thick level of cement then asphalt. At least that's what it looks like.

The asphalt is a byproduct of oil refining and is the sludge at the bottom of the tanks.

So when we ween ourselves off of our oil dependancy we'll also have a problem paving our roadways here. I love those environmentalists that want to reduce our carbon footprint but hey part of that footprint is what we drive on as well as drive with...rubber tires. Oil is a part of our lives whether we like it or not, right down to those plastic bottles we recycle.

But on Oahu the roadways are pretty bad for another good reason, too much vehicular traffic. It's just an overcrowded island with too many cars and trucks and buses rolling over it everyday. Not to mention a million people weighing down on it. That's a lot of weight to press onto an island as small as Puna district here on the Big Island.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Which to me raises a question that maybe we're using different (worse?) materials simply because it's too expensive to get that stuff here. I doubt if our refinery is that large (my mainland standards) and we can't just transport things by rail here.

[joshuatree]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

So a commission is recommending the feds raise the gas tax by 40 cents a gal to help pay for repairs to aging roads and bridges, think any of that will go to our potholes?

[sinjin]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Which to me raises a question that maybe we're using different (worse?) materials simply because it's too expensive to get that stuff here. I doubt if our refinery is that large (my mainland standards) and we can't just transport things by rail here.

Generally speaking, aggregates are produced as close to projects as is practical. For Hawaii that means using lava. Basaltic aggregates are less than desirable within the CONUS, but structural sections can be designed to compensate for this.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

So a commission is recommending the feds raise the gas tax by 40 cents a gal to help pay for repairs to aging roads and bridges, think any of that will go to our potholes?

40¢? I think the politicians would find angry villagers with torches at the door if they tried that.

[timkona]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

The problem with repairing aging roads and bridges is all the red tape that has been created by the Politics of NO. The cost of all the superfluous paperwork makes all the projects more expensive. You can thank your local "do-gooder" for this.

Eisenhower built the interstate freeway system without public hearings or environmental impact statements. He did it rather quickly, by today's standards, and we still use those roads today.

[alohabear]

Re: How come our roads get potholed so fast?

Global warming.....hey they blame it for everything nowdays