Why perpendicular ridges on the fwy?

[look 171]

You know the ones that make your truck feel like bone shakers. I do know a couple of things about concrete and I know they can work that out during the finishing process, so why not? These are new concrete surfaces. These are not rain grooves. Every single new section of fwy here that's concrete is that way. My man tits bounce and shake over them drives me nuts on a long section driving my 3/4 ton truck. Shakes in the Cayman too only not as much.

[gtc]

I think construction companies just don't care any more. It seems like when they pave a highway up here these days, it comes out rougher than it was before.

[RKDinOKC]

Road design has been taken over by absolute idiots.

Was traveling at the speed limit on a brand new curved overpass. The bumps caused by the perpendicular seams were so much of an uneven surface they caused my Boxster to unweight and change lanes. Had to shut it down to way below the speed limit for the rough sections to not unweight the car on the corner. Glad there were 2 lanes, there was no traffic, and I was in the lane on the inside of the curve or it would have caused a wreck.

That was on a brand new roadway. I can't imagine what it is going to be like when the truck traffic make the bumps more dramatic.

i wonder about the cargo on trucks and how these bumpy roads effect it?

[pwd72s]

Maybe Vash would care to weigh in. Called "expansion joints"...but why so uneven or far apart, I haven't a clue.

[RKDinOKC]

The roadway is humped to the expansion joints instead of the sides of the roadway causing it to be very bumpy.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Maybe Vash would care to weigh in. Called "expansion joints"...but why so uneven or far apart, I haven't a clue.

I'd guess the joints are for heat, heaving, plate shift, draining, or other. One solution fits all.

Here in SE Michigan we sit on thick clay soil and former swamp. Hard as a rock one minute. Jello the next.
Over in SW Michigan a hundred miles away they are all pure sand.

[look 171]

I understand the need for expansion joints, but they all seem to be abruptly, but slightly higher near both side of the joints causing the typical bone shaker effect. Seem to be done for a specific purpose? Driving an empty 3/4 ton 4wd truck over this is a very long few miles, sometimes a lot longer. It is really bad at speed

[tevake]

You got to wonder what it's about when sections of highways are built so badly that they become notorious for being difficult to drive safely.
One section that comes to mind, to the west of New Orleans on I 10 most of the way to Shreveport is so well known in RV circles that most go out of their way to avoid it.

The seams or joints are so bad that trailer and tow trucks get into a porpoising motion that is hard to manage anywhere near the speed limit. Really trashes the interior if driven at any speed.

When you read about the cost per mile that is paid for road surfacing and then end up with such bad results, it make you wonder if there is any oversight or quality inspections at any point of the job. 😡

Cheers Richard

[ckelly78z]

Possibly all of the new highway construction engineers are from Michigan, and are homesick ?

[masraum]

In the early 90s I drove a Ford Ranger to New Orleans. I was pretty sure that Louisiana wanted me peeing blood when I got there. It felt like every the adjacent plates in each joint was 1-2" off from each other.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Maybe Vash would care to weigh in....

If Cliff chimes in about man tits....he'll join Jeff on my very first ignore list....I'm just sayin'.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by masraum

In the early 90s I drove a Ford Ranger to New Orleans. I was pretty sure that Louisiana wanted me peeing blood when I got there. .

I've done that ...a few times .....

[URY914]

We'll talking two different reasons here:

Expansion joints cause jarring bumps. These move and get miss-aliened between each section of concrete road.
Camber in precast beams on bridges cause hoopie-dos where you spill your beer. There is one section of bridge here that I travel. JTB to PVB. All the loaacal know about it.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by URY914

We'll talking two different reasons here:

Expansion joints cause jarring bumps. These move and get miss-aliened between each section of concrete road.
Camber in precast beams on bridges cause hoopie-dos where you spill your beer. There is one section of bridge here that I travel. JTB to PVB. All the loaacal know about it.

This, really noticeable in a light car with heavy springs.

The absolute worst incident for me, I was coming back from the Dragon years ago. I was heading east on I-26 somewhere east of Asheville early on a Sunday morning when I encountered a concrete section of road that had shifted or something. It launched me into the air at 80 MPH, I never saw it until I hit it. It was a sickening feeling after the landing, the car did not like that at all.

The impact was so violent it actually knocked my car out of alignment, was steering left to go straight after that and the wheel was pulling.

I pulled off the highway to inspect the car and nothing seemed amiss.

I drove it home and took it in for an alignment, my rear tow was all out of wack. Causing my thrust alignment to be way out, hence turning left.


I initially thought OP was talking about the rumble strips on the edge of the roadway, I think that is a brilliant idea. Wish it was in place in the early 2000's when I was making lots of overnight drives from Florida to NC. I used to stop at rest areas and do jumping jacks on those trips.

[Chocaholic]

No fun for those of us who ride motorcycles either.

[Porchdog]

They are there on purpose. The idea is that with the grooves it takes longer for the concrete to "polish" to the point where it becomes to slick in the rain. They aren't trying to drain the water, just to provide longer lasting texture on the surface.

No, they aren't very sympathetic to our low profile tires and stiff springs.

[red-beard]

Concrete cracks. Seriously. Expansion joints are there to create "controlled" cracks. Asphalt roads are more "flexible" and do not need expansion joints. Concrete roads last longer than pure Asphalt roads.

The expansion joints are supposed to have a filler in them, but usually over time, these disintegrate. They are especially dangerous for road cyclists. We call them,"The valley of death".

I've always said that the best roads are concrete, covered in thin layer of asphalt. No expansion joints, lower noise, etc.

They do make a machine that is used to "level" the different pieces of concrete. It is basically a grinder.

[GH85Carrera]

They just finished a long section of I-35 in the Oklahoma City metro area. It was not really that bad before the construction. It was all concrete, so they would pull up huge blocks of concrete, and stack them on the side of the road. I had a few occasions to watch as the construction pulled the three lanes into just one and was rather slow.
Anyway eventually all the old concrete was pulled up, and new slabs put in. It was so bumpy it was impossible to the the 70 MPH speed limit along there. Big rigs slowed down to 50. So the "fix" was worse by far than the old road. Evidently they planned it that way, ans the next step was to diamond grind all three lanes. After that, and a lots of time, the road is now smooth and has great drainage with long groves on the road that help the drainage.

[legion]

Originally Posted by gtc

I think construction companies just don't care any more. It seems like when they pave a highway up here these days, it comes out rougher than it was before.

There's more money to be made in f***ing it up, getting paid to kind of fix it, getting paid to kind of fix it again, and getting paid again to replace that and **** it up again.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by legion

There's more money to be made in f***ing it up, getting paid to kind of fix it, getting paid to kind of fix it again, and getting paid again to replace that and **** it up again.

Yea, the US highway construction business seems to be aimed at an annuity business. Build it as cheap as possible, do it often.