sheep foot

[darkoshi]

I got home tonight expecting the whole road to be paved, considering how far along they were this morning. But no, it's still just ground up on one side, and looks pretty much like it did when I left this morning, except with gravel on top instead of dirt.

I forgot to mention, the driver of one of the big pieces of equipment* appeared to be a woman. That was nice to see.

*I looked it up, and it's called a sheep foot roller.



Back when my brother was staying here for a while, one thing he said has stuck with me. He was commenting on how quickly roads over here deteriorate and need to be repaved. He said that in Germany, they have better paving technology (or they use a better paving substance?) and don't need to pave roads as often.

Since then, I've wondered if that is really true. First I thought, "well the climate is different here than there, that probably makes a difference." But there are probably a lot more freeze-thaw cycles over there per year than here, so if anything I'd expect the roads to deteriorate faster over there. Then I wondered if my brother was mistaken about roads needing to be repaved less often over there. But still, I wonder if there is any truth to what he said, and if so, why can't it be done better over here too?

Comments

[darkoshi]

That could be true for here too, but I don't know. Considering that there's always roadwork needing to be done somewhere in the area, I was thinking that the county and/or city had their own permanent roadwork crew. Either way, it probably comes down to funding. If you've only got so much money in the budget, there's only so good a job that can be done. And if there's bidding going on, how can you know that the people with the higher price will really do a better job? Especially when the durability of the road may take years to discover.

[randomdreams]

I think it's funding. To make a very durable road you end up digging down quite a ways, and filling in with several different layers of material. In the US, they usually grade it flat and put down asphalt, and if it's a larger road, they'll put down concrete and then asphalt on that.