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How good are American roads?

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193 points chmaynard | 12 comments | 20 Nov 24 14:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.645s | source | bottom
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rconti ◴[20 Nov 24 17:52 UTC] No.42196461[source]▶
> Interestingly, in all cases urban roads are worse quality than rural roads, presumably because they see higher traffic than rural roads.

There's more infrastructure under urban roads. Crews come in to fix some utility, shred a section of a lane, patch it poorly with dissimilar materials, and leave.

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bluGill ◴[20 Nov 24 17:59 UTC] No.42196522[source]▶
Rural roads are often unpaved. The local authority has to come by regularly with a grade to redo things or they become unusable quickly. Overall this is by far the cheapest way to have a road, but it doesn't scale to high use and city folks demand something that makes less dust. Rural roads also includes minimum maintance roads which demand 4wd (real 4wd, many SUVs will have trouble) when the weather is nice and a winch is a must when things get rainy or snowy.

Though given his definition of quality I expect he is actually ignoring all the real rural roads and only talking about major roads which while they get less traffic than urban roads are maintained to similar standards.

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nozzlegear ◴[20 Nov 24 19:59 UTC] No.42197529[source]▶
> Rural roads are often unpaved.

Like the other replies have indicated, I'm not so sure this is the case? I live in very rural northwest Iowa, and while there are certainly plenty of gravel roads around here, I'm only driving on them if I'm intentionally trying to go "off the beaten path." You'll take a gravel road if you live on a farm, or you're trying to get to somewhere secluded such as a lake, campground or maybe a county park; but (imo) it's rare for the average person to drive down a gravel road just going from Point A to Point B on their daily commute.

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1. dullcrisp ◴[20 Nov 24 20:18 UTC] No.42197707[source]▶
Do most people in rural areas not live on a farm? Excuse my ignorance but genuine question.
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2. ssl-3 ◴[20 Nov 24 20:23 UTC] No.42197752[source]▶
The people of the United States are broadly free to build a home wherever they can afford to, comrade, including on land that would otherwise be used for farming.

(Actual answer: I know a bunch of people who live in houses in the middle of seemingly-nowhere in rural Ohio, and almost none of them farm anything at all. They just seem to like the space and the quiet and the desolate isolation.

The only farmer who I know is my parents' neighbor, who has a house few miles away from their place.)

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3. bluGill ◴[20 Nov 24 20:35 UTC] No.42197842[source]▶
That is a tricky question to answer. Farms need small towns scattered all over - that is where many of the teachers, accountants, mechanics, hired hands, other services, and owners of the stores that serve all of the above live. Often small towns have factories that are not farm related and those employees live someplace. Do you count those small towns as rural? Many of the above have also realized that they can buy some build a house on marginal farmland cheap and so live rural but they are working a small town job - they may have a few goats or something but it isn't how they earn their money - hard they farmers? There are also people who retire to the country, hunting cabins (not residents), camp grounds (the owner lives there), and other non-farmers living in rural areas. Parents generally transfer the farm to the kid who will inherit it over decades, and part of that is the parents move to a small house off the farm but still rural - are they living on a farm?

Depending on how you count the above you can say that most people in rural areas are not living on farms. Even if you don't count small towns residents, there are a lot of people who are not farmers living out there.

4. AngryData ◴[20 Nov 24 20:50 UTC] No.42197970[source]▶
Certainly not. You will be lucky to find an area where 5% of the people living their are farmers or work on farms.
5. amanaplanacanal ◴[20 Nov 24 20:51 UTC] No.42197978[source]▶
Depends where you live. In my state you pretty much cannot build any kind of residence on land that is zoned for agriculture.
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6. bluGill ◴[20 Nov 24 21:00 UTC] No.42198060{3}[source]▶
Generally you are allowed on resident per 40 acres or something similar - farms are getting larger and that leaves plenty of land that doesn't have a house that could.
7. nozzlegear ◴[20 Nov 24 23:33 UTC] No.42199275[source]▶
I don't have any real numbers to back this up, but I don't think so. Even in my quite rural area, most people live in towns despite the relatively vast, open farmland. My town's population is between 3-4000 people, but some are as small as 500. It'd take a lot of farms to spread all the people in my town out.
8. fragmede ◴[21 Nov 24 02:21 UTC] No.42200430[source]▶
I like your version of America. Sadly, California's not that free. Some billionaire can't just buy up some land and just put in apartment/office/factory tower as they please, the local government and residents just aren't going to stand for that.
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9. ssl-3 ◴[21 Nov 24 02:35 UTC] No.42200519{3}[source]▶
That billionaire can probably just buy up some land and put their house there, though, since "affordability" is not part of the equation.

(Some adjustments may have to be made, but that's only another also-irrelevant expense.)

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10. fragmede ◴[21 Nov 24 02:40 UTC] No.42200543{4}[source]▶
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-22/silicon-... is what I'm referring to
11. engineer_22 ◴[21 Nov 24 02:53 UTC] No.42200627[source]▶
No, in fact, many rural areas are not economical for farming. But in those areas they may have other extractive industries to support a population.
12. thaumasiotes ◴[21 Nov 24 06:44 UTC] No.42201767{4}[source]▶
> That billionaire can probably just buy up some land and put their house there, though, since "affordability" is not part of the equation.

Not in California; we have an entire bureau, the Coastal Commission, that exists to prevent that very thing.