Comments on: Huron River Drive & Foster

By: Timothy Durham

Timothy Durham — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:45:17 +0000

Rod, my assumption, based on my limited time reading the chronicle, is: if you spend any time here, you are pro-bike. I was just sayin,’ not refutin.’

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:58:18 +0000

(Tim, I hope you realize I was kidding/parodying. In fact, I almost appended “/annarbor.com” to my post. It is amazing how fixated the commenters there are on bikes and bike lanes.)

By: Timothy Durham

Timothy Durham — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:43:10 +0000

Sections of Huron River Drive that ARE in good shape were resurfaced thanks to money raised by the Ann Arbor biking community (A partnership between the Washtenaw County Road Commission, the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society and the Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission). Maybe that information will get some of the bike haters at A2.com to measure their commentary regarding bike travel?

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Thu, 09 May 2013 03:43:32 +0000

It’s all them bikes wearin’ it out.

By: Jim Rees

Jim Rees — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:18:23 +0000

If the county can’t afford to maintain HRD, maybe they should impose a weight limit of, say, a quarter ton so the road won’t deteriorate further.

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:16:50 +0000

Definitely brick. You can see the plans for reconstruction of the brick sections of Detroit St. and State St. here (PDF again).

By: Steve Bean

Steve Bean — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:12:30 +0000

Thanks, ABC. An Ecosia search yields several links that describe brick roads (including a certain yellow one). Are the pavers around Kerrytown brick or stone? I always thought of them as brick.

By: abc

abc — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:50:31 +0000

Mr. Bean

You may be thinking of cobblestones or setts. Roads have rarely been built of bricks, although there are examples . However for centuries people have used stones to make roads; it was one of the distinguishing features of the Roman Empire.

By: Steve Bean

Steve Bean — Wed, 08 May 2013 01:22:11 +0000

The sooner we start the transition away from asphalt—which is peaking in supply along with oil and will rapidly decline in availability in the next decade when we go over the net-energy cliff—to an alternative surface material, the better.

My understanding is that the recycling/reuse process for asphalt captures only about 85% of the useful material. Then there’s the diesel fuel required for the reconstruction and repaving processes. And all that’s going to come on the heels of the next, imminent financial debacle. In other words, we’ll likely not see a majority of “good” roads in our lifetimes.

Maybe advances in permeable asphalt will improve on the lifetime issue. I wonder if we’ll eventually go back to brick pavers.

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:48:18 +0000

The latest paved road (PASER) ratings map I can find for WCRC is here (PDF). They're from 2007, alas, but things haven't gotten much any better since then. The thing to note is that almost no roads are rated good (green), and lots and lots and lots of miles are rated poor (red).