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How good are American roads?

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252 points chmaynard | 1 comments | 20 Nov 24 14:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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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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burnte ◴[20 Nov 24 20:42 UTC] No.42197899[source]▶
This happens CONSTANTLY in Atlanta. They'll spend a bunch of money fixing a road, then a month later Public Works digs a huge hole and leaves a steel plate on it for a year, then patch it with either concrete that is an inch or two below the rest of the surface, or they don't pack the earth they put back and in 3 months the patch has sunk into a new pothole in a brand new road. The city has been trying to force public works to go do those things BEFORE road projects, but it's an uphill battle.
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ASalazarMX ◴[20 Nov 24 20:58 UTC] No.42198036[source]▶
This happens in other countries too. Some people theorize that it's done because of internal rivalries between dependencies/political factions, but I suspect local governments are just inept at logistics.
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jakjak123 ◴[20 Nov 24 21:29 UTC] No.42198299[source]▶
Its also a difficult problem. They need the right digger and the right crew at the right time and possibly the right weather to get the job done. Many times there will be weeks of juggling around schedules and suddenly the digging started three weeks after the road was finished
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lo_zamoyski ◴[20 Nov 24 21:44 UTC] No.42198428[source]▶
Let me ask you: how many buildings collapsed during the reign of Hammurabi?
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Carrok ◴[20 Nov 24 21:52 UTC] No.42198493[source]▶
I.. I have no idea. I don't even know who Hammurabi is.

Is there a point you're trying to make? If so, care to enlighten us without assuming we all have history degrees?

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yulker ◴[20 Nov 24 22:04 UTC] No.42198585[source]▶
Not obscure enough of a figure to necessitate a history degree. Well known for being one of the first to establish building codes.
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tharkun__ ◴[20 Nov 24 23:45 UTC] No.42199380[source]▶
Yet many including myself have never heard of him.

Would it have been so much to ask to put a Wikipedia link and nerd-snipe some of us in the process?

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shiroiushi[dead post] ◴[20 Nov 24 23:58 UTC] No.42199489[source]▶
[flagged]
johnnyanmac ◴[21 Nov 24 00:03 UTC] No.42199521[source]▶
>Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator.

I don't think Wikipedia gets to the point quickly enough for this context to be relevant.

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shiroiushi ◴[21 Nov 24 00:39 UTC] No.42199793[source]▶
That's a valid point, but I was just responding to someone who claimed that Hammurabi was so obscure that (in their minds) no one had heard of him, and additionally complained that there was no Wikipedia link. I feel like I should have used LMGTFY.

Whether the OP was making a poorly-articulated point by merely bringing up Hammurabi and expecting the reader to know about his history with building codes, I think, is a separate issue. Anyone with a basic education should have heard of Hammurabi, though they may have forgotten the specifics about him. And finding a Wikipedia link on your own is trivial.

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1. InitialLastName ◴[21 Nov 24 14:17 UTC] No.42204519[source]▶
I am going to guess (based on vocabulary evidence) that the person you responded to is British. You should be aware that the UK education system does not work like the US system (where you get general education including history before going into a subject-focused college degree program at 18). You're more likely to start the subject-focused program at ~16 (and possibly be aiming your focus in that direction earlier than that), which means the general studies curriculum has to be constricted.