Huron River Drive & Foster

Stopped. Watched. icon

East of Foster until the Ann Arbor city limits the pavement in pretty rough condition. Looks like someone has attempted to address the absolute worst potholes as recently as this season. Result still barely navigable on a bicycle. Inquiry made with Washtenaw Road Commission to determine responsible jurisdiction. [photo]

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14 Comments

  1. By TJ
    May 4, 2013 at 7:00 pm | permalink

    Not so great in car, either! Must be murder on a bike.

  2. By Rod Johnson
    May 6, 2013 at 9:27 pm | permalink

    The Road Commission, alas, is broke, or claims to be. There are bridges that have been closed for years and roads that are nearly undrivable. Homeowners associations are paying for repaving themselves because the County can’t keep major trunk roads up. Huron River Drive isn’t even close to the worst–try Ann Arbor-Saline at 94 sometime.

  3. By Rod Johnson
    May 6, 2013 at 9:29 pm | permalink

    And now that I’ve pushed the submit button (*dammit!*) I realize that’s my county perspective screwing me up again–Ann Arbor roads are different, aren’t they. Nevertheless, the same financial miseries afflict us all.

  4. May 7, 2013 at 12:37 pm | permalink

    Re: [3] Ann Arbor roads are different.

    Although Ann Arbor roads are different, you’re right about the segment in question being the WCRC’s bailiwick – as well as the reason it’s not going to repaired in summer 2013. From a WCRC engineer, I received the following response to my query:

    As you stated in your email, segments of Huron River Drive are in poor condition. Unfortunately, like many road agencies, the WCRC is in a position of trying to maintain an aging road system with declining revenue. The WCRC has been focusing our limited resources on preserving the roads that are in fair-to-good condition. Roads in fair-to-good condition lend themselves to preventative maintenance activities such as milling and asphalt paving as was done on other sections of Huron River Drive.

    Roads in poor condition, such as Huron River Drive east of Foster Road, require much more extensive work. The cost of these types of improvements is beyond our current financial resources. Therefore, we continue to patch and maintain these areas to keep them safe for travel. However, long-term improvements are not planned until there are additional funds available for larger, capital improvement projects. Unfortunately, Huron River Drive is not currently on our 2013 project schedule.

  5. By Rod Johnson
    May 7, 2013 at 6:48 pm | permalink

    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).

  6. By Steve Bean
    May 7, 2013 at 9:22 pm | permalink

    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.

  7. By abc
    May 8, 2013 at 8:50 am | permalink

    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.

  8. By Steve Bean
    May 8, 2013 at 10:12 am | permalink

    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.

  9. By Rod Johnson
    May 8, 2013 at 11:16 am | permalink

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

  10. May 8, 2013 at 1:18 pm | permalink

    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.

  11. By Rod Johnson
    May 8, 2013 at 11:43 pm | permalink

    It’s all them bikes wearin’ it out.

  12. By Timothy Durham
    May 9, 2013 at 8:43 am | permalink

    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?

  13. By Rod Johnson
    May 9, 2013 at 1:58 pm | permalink

    (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.)

  14. By Timothy Durham
    May 10, 2013 at 9:45 am | permalink

    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.’