Spokane Mayor Mary Verner plans to ask the City Council to transfer $500,000 from the City’s contingent reserve account to the Street Department’s 2008 budget to pay for street repairs such as potholes.
Do you support this move? Read the news release and let us know.
http://www.spokanecity.org/services/articles/?ArticleID=1680
to whom it may concern: the fact of the matter is we dont have a pothole problem. potholes are only th effect caused by the problem. maybe it would be better if we started addressing the issue of our roads are being made to soft. i grew up in alaska and the roads there are not great but they are 100 times better in spokane. it rains and snows more in alaska they use salt gravel and de-icer on the roads and it gets up to 60 below with wind chill factor in anchorage alone yet very few potholes. maybe we should ask alaska what glass to rubber ratio they are using in their roads. i have seen brand new streets layed down in spokane and two months later they are 4 inch deep with rutts. a clear sighn if you ask me that there is not enough glass and too much rubber in our asphalt mix. who is in charge of making the dision on what type of asphalt we use? find out and fire them imediatly our roads get worse and worse every year, probably because some one is shorting us all by buying a cheaper/crappier product. thanks for reading and lets stop neglecting the cause of our pothole and rutt problems in spokane
I have never seen potholes like we get in Spokane! I like what jive turkey had to say. It is a great question.
Some say “Potholes are nature’s speedbumps.” If you walk or ride a bike they aren’t much of a problem.
But for those of us who have to drive a car, we better figure out a better way to resurface our streets (I never see potholes in our concrete streets), or get used to terrible roads.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but does it behoove a road construction company to lay down asphalt that will last a very long time?
Maybe the next time we get bids, there ought to be a stipulation that the company who wins also wins the responsibility of maintaining that road for the next 10 years – and they have to post a bond to prove it. I think our roads would weather much better.
All to say, fix the roads with the reserve funds now, and fix the way we construct our roads, as well.
Thanks for commenting Jive Turkey and Evilelf. I just got off the phone with the City and they say they use a cold mix that is approved by the Washington State Department of Transportation. They use a bid system to purchase the mix, and bid on a new batch last fall that they will be receiving here pretty soon. That means every batch is a little different, but overall must match the WSDOT specifications. Of course, those specifications are used statewide by WSDOT, so how are the west side roads/highways maintained by WSDOT?
WE HAVE A NEIGHBOR WHO LIVED IN AKRON,OHIO FOR YEARS.GOODYEAR TIRE GOT A BID TO DO SOME ROADS AND 20 YEARS LATER,GUESS WHAT. NO POTHOLES..GOES TO SHOW. MAKE SOMETHING GOOD,OUR SYSTEM DOES NOT GO FOR IT. WHY DO IT RIGHT AND PUT PEOPLE OUT OF WORK.THE BOND IDEA IS WONDERFUL BUT STATE WON’T GO FOR ANYTHING THAT MIGHT HURT THERE FRIEDS IN THE POTHOLE BUSINESS.
Goodyear does roads? I had no idea. Are you refering to rubberizing asphalt? My ‘sources’ say the product was good but it was a major fire hazard and every once in a while a road would catch fire and burn for long periods of time. Also, the fumes when you lay rubberized asphalt are supposedly far less than healthy.
Here’s some more info on rubberized asphalt. I was curious and had my ‘contact’ (our SRTMC Traffic Engineer)send it to me.
http://www.greycounty.ca/transportation/roadsfaq.cfm
Staci you link didn’t post all of the way. I will try to post a hot link Here
Thanks Jeff! It worked this time. Now if you could do something about my squeaking brakes…
I’ve got a clarification on the rubberized asphalt. Apparently it was when it was used in embankments that it caught fire. From what I have been told, the only real complaint about using it on the roadway was the fumes.
Is it possible to find out the historical traffic count for a county road? Specifically I’d like to know the traffic increase on Long Lake Road.
Thanks
Stevew,
If its’ the portion of Long Lake Rd. that is in Spokane County, you can click here to go to the Spokane County website for those traffic count numbers. If it’s the portion in Stevens County, let me know so I can do a little more research for you.