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Rural Michigan counties turn failing roads to gravel
Chicago Tribune ^ | June 12, 2009 | Tim Martin

Posted on 06/13/2009 12:18:43 PM PDT by magellan

As goes Michigan's crumbling economy, so go some once-paved rural roads now being turned back into gravel.

About a quarter of the state's county road agencies largely left out of the federal stimulus package, which focuses on highways and other major thoroughfares, say they can't afford some costly repaving projects and have crushed up deteriorating roads.

Montcalm County alone estimates it saved nearly $900,000 by converting almost 10 miles of pothole-plagued pavement into gravel this spring.

Reverting to gravel on low-traffic roads has been done to some degree for years and long-term savings and maintenance costs vary widely. But it can be an attractive option for municipalities seeking to save money up front and it's recently been done in a few other states, including Indiana and Vermont.

More than 20 of the 83 counties in Michigan, home to the nation's highest unemployment rate for much of the past four years, have turned rural roads back to gravel with no immediate plans to repave, according to the County Road Association of Michigan. About 50 miles have been reverted in the last three years.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: counties; economy; failing; granholm; gravel; michigan; roads; rural
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To: FourPeas
By "Western Side" you meant along Lake Michigan's Eastern Shore, right?

BTW, I've managed to drive around all these places several times over the years, so I'm familiar with this stuff. There's a recent Discover presentation of how the glaciers ground down Michigan and created the Great Lakes except for Ontario and Superior, and I'm drawing on that to describe subsurface conditions. Rest assured, there's limestone not too far below those sand and gravel deposits. If it were worthwhile they could bulldoze the gravel out of the way and get at the stone.

I suspect it's cheaper to buy crushed rock from Indiana, Illinois or Ohio though. (Ground water table problems are far different).

61 posted on 06/13/2009 1:55:56 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: SpaceBar
H.L. Mencken: "People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?"

Why should we give the government control of something that has been demonstrated to done better and more efficiently by the private sector?

62 posted on 06/13/2009 1:56:12 PM PDT by In veno, veritas (Please identify my Ad Hominem attacks. I should be debating ideas.)
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To: FourPeas
Remember, there are minimum standards for asphalt, and "peagravel and tar" ain't it. You also find it a common practice to spray tar on gravel and crushed rock to keep down the dust (not to hold them together). I grew up along such a road, and it's still gravel and crushed rock, and every now and then they'll add peagravel to smooth out the breaks.

After several decades of such treatment a lightly traveled road will begin to take on the appearance of having been paved.

We have several such roads near this neighborhood in Virginia.

63 posted on 06/13/2009 1:59:48 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: magellan

The legacy of Democrat rule: Cities are bulldozed and roads returned to dusty trails.

Democrats have promised to do for the auto industry what they have done for Michigan.


64 posted on 06/13/2009 2:02:57 PM PDT by Nephi (Support Fascism: Buy GE, GM and Chrysler products!)
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To: magellan

It all makes sense a Crack Head claiming to be President anything is possible.


65 posted on 06/13/2009 2:07:01 PM PDT by Cheetahcat (Zero the Wright kind of Racist! We are in a state of War with Democrats)
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To: muawiyah

I probably should have explained that I lived in Western Michigan (Kent & Ottawa county, just south and west of Montcalm Counted mentioned in the article) for 30+ years. When I was a teenager my parents had a dirt/gravel driveway. Less than a quarter mile down the road it turned from a pea gravel “paved” road to gravel. The roads were all gravel for miles and miles. I rode the school bus and my bicycle on these roads a lot. Smooth or pleasant were not words anyone woud ever use to describe them.

There are water table challenges there, too. Our house well was at 15 feet. That was the second water. I’ve been told much of the reason that Dutch immigrants settled in the Holland, Michigan area is because the wet conditions were much like those where they had lived in the Netherlands. They were familiar with how to manage the water whereas other immigrants were not.

There are gravel pits in Western Michigan. Rock is highly prized, but NOT inexpensive (compared, at least, to Oklahoma where I live now).


66 posted on 06/13/2009 2:09:35 PM PDT by FourPeas (Why does Professor Presbury's wolfhound, Roy, endeavour to bite him?)
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To: muawiyah
The gravel roads I'm familiar with occasionally had a liquid sprayed on them but it certainly wasn't tar. In the five years I lived there, the roads never took on anything resembling a paved look. They were good old dirt with a bit of rock. The rock tended not to stay on the road, but found its way to the edge. A month after new gravel was put on, and neighborhood windshields chipped/cracked the ruts and holes appeared and the road became bumpy and dusty again.
67 posted on 06/13/2009 2:16:34 PM PDT by FourPeas (Why does Professor Presbury's wolfhound, Roy, endeavour to bite him?)
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To: Jacquerie; RoadTest

Thank you both for your points. Looking forward and looking at past history can help clarify things going on now.


68 posted on 06/13/2009 2:17:34 PM PDT by GOPsterinMA (Where can I take 'Austrian' lessons?)
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To: FourPeas

Old oil was sprayed on gravel roads. Consequently your car would get covered with oil and then when you drove down a road that wsn’t oiled, the dust would roll up and stick onto your oily car. Nice! They kind of stopped doing that when it was discoveed that counties were using oil from old electrical equipment that was loaded with PCBs. So we’re bring back dirty, oily, cancering causing cars... thanks 0bama!!!


69 posted on 06/13/2009 2:30:30 PM PDT by Kirkwood
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To: magellan

Wow. Starnesville, Mich is a real place after all.


70 posted on 06/13/2009 2:31:35 PM PDT by Tribune7 (Better to convert enemies to allies than to destroy them)
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To: magellan
What's next? Refurbishing the old Indian trails so people can get to market?
71 posted on 06/13/2009 2:32:01 PM PDT by Gritty (The force of an economic correction is equal and opposite to the deception that preceded-Bill Bonner)
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To: dsrtsage

It seems as if the road map for this administration was taken directly from the book.


72 posted on 06/13/2009 2:32:25 PM PDT by thile44 (Simplicity is too complex.)
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To: Springman; sergeantdave; cyclotic; netmilsmom; RatsDawg; PGalt; FreedomHammer; queenkathy; ...

If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.


73 posted on 06/13/2009 3:50:39 PM PDT by grellis (I am Jill's overwhelming sense of disgust.)
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To: grellis; AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ...
About a quarter of the state's county road agencies largely left out of the federal stimulus package, which focuses on highways and other major thoroughfares, say they can't afford some costly repaving projects and have crushed up deteriorating roads. Montcalm County alone estimates it saved nearly $900,000 by converting almost 10 miles of pothole-plagued pavement into gravel this spring.
Well of course, what would rural areas filled with hardworking white country folk need with stimulus money? ;') Thanks grellis.
74 posted on 06/13/2009 3:56:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: GOPsterinMA
Does anyone else see this as a sign that the standard of living here in this country is trying to be being lowered?
75 posted on 06/13/2009 4:09:34 PM PDT by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|"AlsoSprachTelethustra"-NonValueAdded|Lk21:36|FireTheLiar)
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To: magellan
Trust me...on some of those roads the gravel is an immense improvement, with some of them haven't been noticeably fixed in 40 years.
76 posted on 06/13/2009 4:17:31 PM PDT by madison10
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To: mamelukesabre
Interstates= federal upkeep

State roads = state upkeep

county roads=responsibility of county

Every county in Michigan as a County Road Commission. They are a bitch to deal with...I didn't want to deal with them when I put up my barn/garage so you can drive to the barn from my driveway . To make a driveway apron that touches the county roads, forget it because of cost and red-tape...

77 posted on 06/13/2009 4:46:44 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: In veno, veritas
If the private sector can do it, why should the government get involved?

Because roads and other related infrastructure are for the greater public. Do you want to pay tolls every few miles or see the names of streets get replaced with more untypical and profane ones? See a bunch of NIMBY types protest roads in their area?

78 posted on 06/13/2009 4:58:29 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist ("President Obama, your agenda is not new, it's not change, and it's not hope" - Rush Limbaugh 02/28)
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To: pnh102
I want to point out that states are no better than the feds at siphoning gas tax money on unrelated spending.

But that spending is more closer to home and will be more accountable to voters. Gas tax revenues to the feds goes into a bottomless black hole.

79 posted on 06/13/2009 4:59:49 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist ("President Obama, your agenda is not new, it's not change, and it's not hope" - Rush Limbaugh 02/28)
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To: razorback-bert

>>I can’t wait for Detroit to get gravel roads.<<

The suburbs of Detroit already have them. I know, I’m here.
It was a shock to move from the nice burbs of Cleveland to the gravel roads with no sidewalks of Detroit.

I’m not talking country roads either. Mapquest Redford, MI. It butts up against Detroit and has gravel roads.


80 posted on 06/13/2009 5:31:58 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Psalm 109:8 - Let his days be few; and let another take his office)
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