On 2/20/2020 5:03 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 16:15:03 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

John B. wrote:
On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 14:59:47 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 1:12:52 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:56:38 PM UTC-6, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 18 Feb 2020 15:23:30 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 3:41:10 PM UTC-6, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 1:22:44 PM UTC-8, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Tuesday, 18 February 2020 16:12:43 UTC-5, wrote:
On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 8:36:32 PM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
“In 10 years, we’re going to start turning roads back into gravel” if
nothing changes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/b...sin-roads.html

As I've mentioned, Ohio has 88 counties. Some, like mine, have many more
miles of county roads than do others. But the state's funds distributed
for county road maintenence gives each county 1/88 of the total instead
of giving on a per-mile basis. I frequently see the effects when riding
from one county into another.


I can't complain about the condition of our country roads. They
are well maintained compared to Germany and Belgium were I ride
also frequently especially Germany. The roads in Belgium are
awful. There are no borders anymore but as soon as you cross the
invisible Belgium border you now immidiately you are in Belgium.
Your fillings are rattling out of your teeth.

Lou
--
- Frank Krygowski

That's exactly what Duane says about riding from Quebec to Ontario Canada.

Cheers

This is interesting. Why do you suppose they went from very good
roads during the Presidency of Eisenhower to the slow degradation of roads since?


????? Eisenhower was in office about 70 years ago. He started the
national Interstate road system. Based upon the road network he
observed in Germany during World War 2. In the 1950s there was not
two cars for every single human being. There was not as many roads.
The car culture had not become the meaning of the USA yet. There
were also less people. Now there are 330 million people in the USA.
People who consume stuff. People who buy stuff. People who need
stores to sell them stuff. Stores that need roads to haul all the
stuff to the store. Stores that need heavy semi trucks to haul the
stuff. Heavy semis that destroy the roads. 70 years of heavy trucks
on roads destroy the roads and eventually they need to be replaced.
How many cars built during Eisenhower's reign do you see being driven
today? None. They all wore out. And the roads have to be replaced too.

But yet roads built in the days of the Roman empire are still in use
today albeit with another layer of surfacing although I believe that
there are sections of the Via Appia and possibly the Via Aurelia
where the original paving is still used.

To be a bit pedantic a semi truck don't necessarily destroy roads, it
is the tire loading is the determining factor and it is quite possible
for a small, heavily loaded, truck to have a higher tire loading and
thus do more damage to a road than a large truck, with more wheels and
wider tires and thus having a lighter tire loading.,

I once did a study of wheel loading and potential road damage for the
Indonesian National Highway Department demonstrating that 50 ton
Oilfield trucks actually caused less damage to the highway than the
small, grossly overloaded, 3 ton trucks commonly used by small
freight companies.
--
cheers,

John B.

True, it is the pounds per square inch that is the decider. But big
trucks, or the small freight trucks you describe, or gravel dump
trucks, have the highest pounds per square inch. And do all the damage
to roads. In the USA 80,000 pounds is the maximum weight of an 18
wheel semi truck. That is 4,444 pounds per tire. A Toyota Camry
weighs 3500 pounds. Or 875 pounds per tire. For these two vehicles to
be equal for weight per square inch on the road, the semi tire would
have to be 5 TIMES more surface area touching the road. I have looked
at tires on semi trucks and Camrys. The semi tire does not have 5
times more surface area. Semi tire has about 2 or 3 times more surface area.

The surface pressure of semi's is so high that in some places it causes
the road to melt and run under the tires. That is why concrete should be
used on commercial roads.

Whatever are you smoking. The pressure exerted by each large truck's
tire (11R24.5 for example) is in the neighborhood of 40 psi.
--
cheers,

John B.



It would seem to me that to a first approximation, the road loading of a
tire would be in the vicinity of the inflation pressure of the tire. My
subcompact runs 32 psi, my minivan runs 35 psi, and large truck tires tend
to be inflated around 110 psi.

Yes tire pressure is related to vehicle weight but the amount(area) of
tire actually in contact with the ground is the final determining
factor.
--
cheers,

John B.


Uh, for force per area both are equally important.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971