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How good are American roads?

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193 points chmaynard | 2 comments | 20 Nov 24 14:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.424s | source
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asdasdsddd ◴[20 Nov 24 18:20 UTC] No.42196707[source]▶
Love that I live in California pay out my ass in property AND state tax and get the worst roads in America despite the fact that we barely deal with ice, snow, or rain.
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UniverseHacker ◴[20 Nov 24 20:37 UTC] No.42197865[source]▶
Keeping roads perfect requires taking them out of commission for repair... which is a disaster on California freeways that have constant traffic. I think CA does a fair job of balancing that with road condition, and I assume they are already using more durable and expensive road construction methods than other areas that lacks so much constant heavy traffic.
replies(1): >>42197941 #
1. brewdad ◴[20 Nov 24 20:46 UTC] No.42197941[source]▶
I wonder if California would be better off with more Carmageddon type projects like when they shut down the 405 for like a week and hammered out necessary work.
replies(1): >>42198037 #
2. UniverseHacker ◴[20 Nov 24 20:58 UTC] No.42198037[source]▶
If you shut down one freeway in the LA or SF area, every other one grinds to a halt also- including essentially all non-dead-end local roads... you might as well shut them all down at once, but there aren't enough road crews to repave them all in a week.

Above a certain population density there isn't really any way to use cars that isn't awful. When I was in Socal I would often meet people 10-20 miles away, e.g. for an after work bar trip and ride my bicycle - and beat all of the car drivers by a long wait.