Why can't Portland repave its rutted roads?

[MNMike]

I don't think this has been posted?

The former head of the Urban Studies department at the U of M and the Minneapolis planning commission, Judith Martin (a brilliant woman who sadly recently died at only 63), use to always caution against giving too much praise to "perfect Portland" and saw trouble ahead with their policies and thinking. Anyway, she may be right, in many ways it isn't as perfect as many of us urbanists like to think...and this is indicative of a larger problem, I think. Canceling all reconstruction of seriously deteriorated roads for at least 5 years?! Cutting bridge inspection? I like investing in rail and other improvements as much as the next guy, but this budget proposal stinks. Thoughts?

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/i...tml#incart_mce

Why can't Portland repave its rutted roads?
Published: Sunday, February 26, 2012, 6:00 AM Updated: Monday, February 27, 2012, 7:20 AM
Beth Slovic, The Oregonian By Beth Slovic, The Oregonian The Oregonian


he steering wheel rattles. The car jostles side to side. But this is no arcade racing game -- it's a drive on Portland's Northwest 23rd Avenue, the main drag in a dense destination district.

Worse, the rutted street won't get better anytime soon. The Portland Transportation Bureau, the agency in charge of street maintenance, has shelved plans to repave Northwest 23rd north of Lovejoy Street -- or to overhaul any other badly deteriorating road in its 5,000-mile system -- until at least 2017.

[Okstate]

^ That story received a lot of criticism by other publications and political figures around town. This is typical Oregonian reporting.

http://bikeportland.org/2012/02/28/m...regonian-67902

Also, I live off of NW 23rd street North of Lovejoy....and the road is just fine. In addition they probably did not reveal that the remainder of NW 23rd was just repaved only a year ago.

[uaarkson]

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a different world. My entire state needs repaving. There are roads even in Ann Arbor that are completely embarrassing. The soil is so poor.

I don't think the author of this article has ever driven on a bad road.

[MNMike]

Yeah, it would appear that they left out some facts for sure! Though I am not sure we don't have to take the bike blog with a grain of salt too...these two sources seem to be biased and exact opposites. Is there something in the middle?

PS, our paper in Minneapolis tends to write articles like this too...that seem to aim to irritate liberals.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a different world. My entire state needs repaving. There are roads even in Ann Arbor that are completely embarrassing. The soil is so poor.

I don't think the author of this article has ever driven on a bad road.

If your Governor can get the new bridge to go through, the matching funds from Washington that you would get for the 500 million dollar loan from Canada, would be 2 billion dollars, which would go a long way towards fixing up Michigan roads. Why the Republicans keep voting this major piece of infrastructure down is beyond reprehensible.

[antinimby]

The roads in Portland aren't even that bad. Just in the Pacific Northwest alone, Seattle has worse roads.

We haven't even gotten into the roads of the big cities in the Northeast, which by far are the worst in the country.

[MNMike]

That has a lot to do with the fact that they are the oldest in the US.

This has been a huge topic around here since the 35w bridge collapse of course. Our roads require a lot of work due to the freezing and thawing up here. We actually just had another bridge fail recently...only 5 years old. Looks like some kind of engineering error. It shut down LRT and a major road for days.

More cracks in Sabo Bridge
http://www.startribune.com/local/min...140701543.html

Cable Breaks On Mpls Bridge, Closes Portion of Hiawatha Ave.
http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2504205.shtml?cat=1

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/galle...es-feb-20-2012

[zilfondel]

The answer is simple: our roads were built to very low quality standards, they are seeing much more usage than they were designed for, gas tax revenue is down, and is being spent on other things.

We have highly trafficked intersections that lead to other major roads/highways that are paved with very thin asphalt. They fall apart after less than 2 years. I've noticed that many streets in Seattle are paved in concrete, and many are over 20-30 years old and don't need paving. However, some of our major streets aren't being paved (actually rebuilt - Burnside) because the city was "looking into" building a streetcar down it. Of course, we don't have the money for another streetcar line.

That Oregonian article seems to try to blame it all on bicycling infrastructure, which is insane: lines on pavement? Cyclists need smoother streets than drivers do!

[Cirrus]

It is silly to suggest that car infrastructure must always be maintained at 100% perfect condition before any money can be spent on any other mode.

[MNMike]

Cirrus...I don't think anyone said that at all. That would be taking things out of context just as much as this article may have apparently. Never was it said that roads/car infrastructure should take 100% priority, and everything else should get money only if it is left over. That is silly and putting words in peoples mouths. That kind of paraphrasing only helps pit anti public transport and pro transport folks against eachother more in my opinion. Just sayin'. Both articles on this posted here may be skewed...but neither said that one or the other should get NO funding.

Maybe I misunderstood or something...but I digress...

[Omaharocks]

Sure, Portland isn't perfect. But this article is ridiculous - I've spent time in Portland fairly recently, and their roads are as good as any I've seen.

To boot, roads in moderate climates like Portland simply don't need as much maintenance as places such as the midwest, where extreme temperatures cause major pothole problems every spring...

[cityscapes]

They need look at the deep south if they want to write about poorly paved roads. Alabama has the worst roads I have ever seen anywhere in my entire live (and I've been to many different places in the US and abroad). I feel like I'm going to have to get a new car after living here. When I lived in Oregon I always thought the roads were very nicely paved. There were a few pot holes and bad patch jobs in Portland but there weren't more or less than in any other mid size city.

[vid]

My city does a full analysis of the conditions of all road surfaces in the city on a two year basis (which is pretty cool, they hire some company that has a weird looking European van with wires sticking out of it to do the work), and they use that data to grade each section of road. Combined with traffic data, they prioritize the worst roads in each part of the city and put them to the top of the list for repairs. As a result, in the past few years, almost all of our worst roads have been repaired. We also inspect bridges annually and have been replacing on average one per year since the early 2000s; in 2015 we will not have any dilapidated bridges in the urban area. We're also completely overhauling our transit system to respond better to the needs of passengers. Plus, we're paying down our debt at a rate close to 10% per year; it has gone from 180 million to 150 million since 2009.

We also raise our property taxes by about 2.5% annually but shhhhh.