are they just the cheapest way to make a new road?
they seem to be everywhere now
With apologies for the blatant plug - My R3 handles the buzz from the Chip-Seal quit nicely! 
Check out #2.
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/districts/d03/pages/chipsealfactsheet.aspx
I disagree that “excess stone is swept.” At least its not swept to my standards for cycling.
With apologies for the blatant plug - My R3 handles the buzz from the Chip-Seal quit nicely!
haha, still tends to mess up a good tire pretty quick though
excess stone IS swept… INTO the bike lane!
Check out #2.
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/districts/d03/pages/chipsealfactsheet.aspx
I disagree that “excess stone is swept.” At least its not swept to my standards for cycling.
Hwy 287 frontage road used to be a great training route, but they recently resurfaced it with that super rough chipseal. It’s terrible now.
I asked my coach about this, and he said that it was much cheaper for the state, and that it lasts quite a bit longer than asphalt, although it can take 5 years to wear the edges off the sharper stones. Apparently though, it eats through car tires a fair bit faster, and causes about 3 times as much road dust.
What I’ve noticed is that when the chip seal surface degrades, it’s harder to notice, since the chip seal is such a shitty surface to begin with.
Maybe it’s an anti-cyclist conspiracy. I wouldn’t put it past Arlington City Council. Especially after they sold their soul to Jerry Jones.
in the suburbs south of austin they wont even LET it wear down, they just throw down new stuff again. argagagaggg
But even better, Delaware County in OH just paved a 5 mile stretch of road. Beautiful, smooth, perfect pavement that the workers took great care to make all the cutouts into driveways and rolled to pool table smoothness.
Three weeks later they layed chip seal over the top. No reason for it, confirmed with my brother and dad who layed pavement for years. I did actually get to ride it three times before they ruined it.
Delaware County LOVES chip seal, no matter what the road looks like, it needs more chip seal.
I never notice the chip seal. My softride, makes smooth work of it.
They did the same with a couple of my favorite routes here in OR - used to be beautifully smooth, then just ruined 'em.
They are destroying the roads here in MI as well! We had a stretch of about 10 miles, gorgeous shoulder, low traffic, perfect asphalt. There was absolutely no need to mess with it- no potholes- it was perfect. It was one of the only roads that actually had a shoulder and wasn’t in complete disrepair. Two weeks ago, they actually SPENT money to tear it up and cover it in chip-seal. Now there are no shoulders, no lines, gravel all over the place- it is an absolutely awful mess. They’ve done this to 2 of the main cycling roads in and around Ann Arbor. I am PISSED!!
Has anyone had success dealing with the DOT to fix the shoulders of chip-seal roads? Or to convince them to consider cyclists? They have just made these roads markedly more dangerous for cyclists, and it just frustrates me enough to try and do something about it.
Seems like a lot of counties/cities are doing this crap. One of our best routes (smooth pavement, huge bike lane) was repaved in the last few weeks. Don’t know what kind of asphault they used, but they decided it would be a great idea to only pave 1/3 of the bike lane. Niiiice.
I know our project was from the “Making America Work” stimulus crap.
Step 1: Repave road
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
“…Sweeping is done at the completion of the chip seal process to remove surplus rock from the surface. This loose rock can grind and loosen rock set in the chip seal and damage the project. Sweeping is done within 4 hours of the rolling operation, and typically again a day or two later…”
Maybe Ohio is better at it than any place I’ve ever lived, but this just about never happens when they chip seal any road. And I’m not sure it can be done like this (n=1 study). They just did our office park about a month ago and they had to bail on the first sweeping because they did it too soon and were pulling up all of the rock (which I thought was kind of funny). They haven’t been back to sweep again, as the stone piles at the gutter can attest.
And, in my experience, anyone who says that chip seals last more than a year and a half is full of it…or only testing in lab conditions and not on real roads. Between plows scraping it off in winter and 18-wheelers sinking into it in the summer, it doesn’t stand a chance. Granted the latter is also affected by the base materials on top of which the chip seal is spread, but, still, never believe a city/county politician who argues that it’s cheaper and will last at least five years. It’s only cheaper if it does last five years, but it never will.
But even better, Delaware County in OH just paved a 5 mile stretch of road. Beautiful, smooth, perfect pavement that the workers took great care to make all the cutouts into driveways and rolled to pool table smoothness.
Three weeks later they layed chip seal over the top. No reason for it, confirmed with my brother and dad who layed pavement for years. I did actually get to ride it three times before they ruined it.
Delaware County LOVES chip seal, no matter what the road looks like, it needs more chip seal.
The reason for this is long term maintainence. The sooner they overlay the asphalt with chip and seal, the less likely the pavement will deteriate. The “death” of a road is poor substructure (base). Think of the new asphalt as more of a base…not the finished product.
It sucks…yes…but for Counties with limited finances they really only have one inexpensive method for maintainence. In an ideal world, counties would mill and resurface every road every 4-5 years!
the other option is a deep, high quality concrete road which will last a long time at huge up front cost
.
Yeah - try explaining to tax payers the benefits of 15" concrete payment…without getting beheaded after they find out the costs!
Boulder county is getting ass-crammed with chip-seal too. US 36 North of town, Lee hill, Olde Stage, and Nelson roads… (Boulder Peak course) It’s really bad and many of these roads had fantastic surfaces just weeks ago. I’m PISSED.
It’s pretty simple: people constantly demand lower and lower taxes. The result is that what little public infrastructure projects even get done are done on the cheap. Some counties have even gone so far as to tear up paved roads and replace them with gravel. Shockingly, the people that use those roads then complain.
Here in Southern Illinois they chip seal the roads about once a year. Thank goodness has hot & humid as it has been it doesn’t take long to wear down and become solid again.
a strange way to put it when taxes are not lower! haha
It’s pretty simple: people constantly demand lower and lower taxes. The result is that what little public infrastructure projects even get done are done on the cheap. Some counties have even gone so far as to tear up paved roads and replace them with gravel. Shockingly, the people that use those roads then complain.