BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Does your ride involve Saxonburg Blvd. by chance?

Just having these same thoughts on the way to work this morning... seems like the last coating of oil and chips was still mostly in effect. And they had just recently painted tar over the few cracks. For a road that is in better shape than most around here (aside from these piles of gravel), they sure love to spend time and money messing with it...

Can't help but think that someone's brother owns a gravel company or something.

I got stuck behind the sweeper truck today, so at least some of the non-stuck chips were removed. And they were nice enough to notice me and stop so I could go around.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html

Interesting.

What was particularly frustrating about the oil-and-chip on Saxonburg, though, was that the first time it was done (a couple years ago) was not long after the road had been completely resurfaced. It was still butter-smooth with almost no cracks.

PennDOT is aware of the downsides of tar and chip, but continue to use it widely as it extends the life of the roadway surface in a very cost efficient manner. They say expect MORE tarring and chipping in future years.....

Yuck!

If those darn bicyclists would just start paying taxes we'd be able to afford asphalt.

I'll take smooth chip n tar over Penn, Center, Butler, etc. etc.

It's actually not bad after a few months IF they come back and sweep the sides.

Little Pine Creek Rd had also just been repaved the prior season when they first tar and chipped it. Similar thing with ARB. I guess laying tar and chip on top of good asphalt makes the surface last longer?

Or someone's brother owns a gravel company.

Saxonburg btwn 8 and green belt and then again between yellow and red belt, and still signed past red belt, but I went left on red belt.

At the left I thought I'd be done with oil and chip, but then, alas, red belt from at least Culmersville to Rte 8 still was fresh oil and chip. I couldn't believe my luck.

Arona Road in Hempfield Twp, Westmoreland Co., parallels the turnpike from Irwin to New Stanton, and got a beautiful asphalt coat for the first time ever, in 1986 +- a year. In 1993 they tar-and-chipped it. Like KBrooks said, there was nothing wrong with the surface.

+1 someone's brother owns a gravel company

"Paving grew in popularity in the early 20th century as more cars hit streets and spread when the federal government built the Interstate Highway System."

Ironic but not surprising how the article got that completely wrong;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement

I just spent two weeks riding all around Northern New York. Nice wide shoulders on the state roads, low traffic and few potholes on the county roads, the pickup truck drivers wait to pass, and wave when they do, and no hills (but constant wind). No tar and chip, no rumble strips on the shoulders. If it weren't for winter, it would be bicycling mecca.

The inevitable return of oil and chip season used to really bother the heck out of me--especially as @Kbrooks points out, when the did a beautiful job repaving Saxonburg only to oil and chip it a few months later-- but now I just think of it like the hills and the red pick up trucks with guys yelling "Fag!" at you as the drive by. It's an integral part of cycling in Western PA. It's tar and chip season hooray!

My worst experience ever was on Steubenville Pike from Bayer road nearly all the way out to Potato Garden Run. We must have been on it the day after they oiled and chipped and it was not a fun ride.

Oh well, Was uns nicht umbringt, macht uns stärker.

Was uns nicht umbringt, macht uns stärker.

My translation circuits must be crossed. I read "That which does not kill us, makes us naked."

It's true. I ended up on the oil-and-chip portion of Saxonburg Blvd. Saturday morning, and my pants fell off.

One might be able to make a good argument for preemptively chip-sealing roads

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010/07/21/the-hidden-and-massive-costs-of-letting-our-roads-deteriorate/

when the gov't doesn't have an abundance of funds, and has plenty of other dire infrastructure costs.

I think they have improved techniques, Saxonburg Blvd doesn't have the 4" deep gravel shoulders this time around. I think the gravel is a little more fine too, which seems to make it bed down sooner.

Now if they could only invent a way that it wouldn't fly up and pelt you when you get passed by a large truck.

+A bunch for edmonds

Any time I bring up the fact that roads were made nice because of cyclists, I always start an argument. Then I pull out the smart phone. Then I go to the article. And then they argue that wikipedia is editable by anyone and therefore doesn't count.

Sigh.

I find it amazing that someone would be so convinced of the primacy of the automobile that they argue vehemently against history itself. Oh, well, Americans are not great ones for history.

Would they believe such a regarded source as the Michigan Department of Transportation? Michigan wouldn't lie!

http://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,1607,7-151-9620_11154-103370--,00.html

...wikipedia is editable by anyone and therefore doesn't count.

I fight against this argument all the time, with some success. Yes it is possible for anyone to edit anything -- including vandalism, untruths, etc. -- but everything is traceable and subject to verification. Edits made by anonymous persons with no editing history, whose edits themselves cannot be verified, can be backed out or repaired. OTOH, anything fed to you on TV or radio cannot be readily verified, and you eat that up like ice cream. Which, then, is the more trustable source, really?

Thanks, edmonds59, for the MDOT article. From the home of the automobile itself.

hunh... Maybe I didn't ride on fresh enough oil/chip roads, or maybe Penn Hills people are anal about their cars, but when they did Saltzburg recently I noticed people going a lot slower (like make the rude yelling pickup trucks go slower and divert hatred towards cars not bikes slower), especially anything with any finish left on the paint. I was driving (yes, a car) behind a truck behind a convertable once, the convertable forced all traffic down to ~10mph (my spedometer didn't register) due to the chips - he was fine on the paved roads. I was too entertained by the enraged pickup between us to mind.

People (esp construction vehicles) were NOT slowing down.

Also of note, although not related to the oil & chip thing, is that apparently the unposted speed limit on the McKees Rocks Bridge is 100 mph.

^^ 100MPH when did they lower it?

there are no speed limits on bridges! that's how they balance out the tunnels.

It is impressive how many people pass me on the Greenfield bridge in the morning. It is one lane going towards the park, and the end of the bridge is a blind corner that cars fly around going 40+ mph sometimes. I am going at least the speed limit, and if they waited literally 5 seconds I'd be in the bike lane and they could safely pass, but they always seem to cross the double yellow and fly around me only to slam on the brakes so they can make the corner without rolling into the woods. One day I fully expect someone to crash head-on with someone flying equally fast around the corner.

Serious LOL @ this: "there are no speed limits on bridges! that's how they balance out the tunnels."

I did a triathlon on Sunday that required a total bike course revision the night before since Penn Dot had been out there with the tar and chip going over previously smooth roads!

If it can crack a windshield no wonder it hurts when I get pelted on my bike!

http://kdka.com/local/PennDOT.seal.coating.2.1853756.html

Looks like they'll pay the claim if your windshield gets cracked at least.

i like how pendot's spokesperson said people shouldnt be following so damn close if they dont want cracked windshields. this makes me like oil and chip even more.

I feel like I have had a disproportionate share of cracked windshields, and I am not a tail-gator, I have had stones take out my windshield when I was a hundred feet from another vehicle.

F Penndot.

The natural conclusion to the PennDot spokesman's argument is: if you don't want cracked windshields, don't drive so close... and if so many cars didn't use these roads, we wouldn't have to maintain them so much... so if you don't like it, stop driving.

Come to think of it... maybe they're on to something...

That's crap. A car passing the other way can send up a rock that will chip your windshield. What are we supposed to do, revert to alternating single-lane traffic for two weeks?

(Stu! shhhh! don't give them any ideas! Orange Cone Season is bad enough!)

ALMKLM, apparently they have the same attitude about cars as they do about bikes!

I thought this topic was about poor dietary choices.

Somebody's brother owns a gravel pit, and his other brother owns a glass repair shop.

I thought this topic was about poor dietary choices.

Olestra...

In case any of you were unaware: PennDOT recently paved Allegheny River Boulevard with tar and chips. And it looks like they also just paved Saltsburg Road in Penn Hills. Not a big fan. They did this to Beulah-Brown Ave last year and it's still a pain to ride. The buildup of gravel on the shoulders makes it unsafe to ride anywhere but on the road. And even on the road, with traffic whizzing by, the uneven surface vibrates your hands to hell.

Fantastic. Gives me another excuse to not ride ARB.

why we piss money away on new asphalt and waste limestone on tar 'n chip is beyond me.

PennDOT issued a report not long ago that provided preferred methods for pavement rehab, maintenance and repair. Some of these systems, like Ralumac are older than most of us, and work.

I wonder if tar and chipped roads reflect more energy back into space

I was reading about solar heating last night and thought of it again while reading this. Tar and chipping is annoying (especially on steep hills) but what if it's also /helping reduce our otherwise overly hot world?

We are gonna end up like Venus anyway

"I wonder if tar and chipped roads reflect more energy back into space"

even if it did reflect more heat back up, it could only reflect it into the atmosphere where CFCs, CO2, and other greenhouse gases would trap that IR radiation.

oh wait, you were just being sarcastic. weren't you? I don't even know any more...

milling every dang road in the city and then breaking out the oil and chip for my long rides too? c'mon PennDot.

Riding in snow is easier. (Having done both...)

Sherman, the secretary of the Department of Energy seems to disagree with you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu

I'm more inclined to take the word of a Nobel Prize winning physicist over somebody on the Internet I don't know. Do you feel better equipped to debate him?

As for whether or not I'm being sarcastic... No, I am not. I'm seldom sarcastic on these forums or in person.

If that's the case I would rather start with parking lots rather than tree shaded streets.

@Pierce, I'm not disagreeing with Dr. Chu. I was just pointing out that in order for reflected solar energy to make it out of the atmosphere, it has to get past any greenhouse gases that are up there. Greenhouse gases cause global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. I guess I probably overstated the magnitude of the IR trapping effect in my last post, but it would, to some degree, mitigate the amount of heat being reflected back into space by the light-colored roads. I think you're right in that it's safe to assume that Dr. Chu thought about that effect before he started advocating for lighter colored roadways and rooftops. But even if he didn't, at least the buildings and roads will look more stylish, amirite?

The stretch of Saltsburg is straight up dangerous. Traffic has bedded down a nice trail but any entrance/exit on that road is just asking for trouble. I ride my motorcycle through there weekly on my way to swimming and it gets worse every week so Id take extra precaution when turning on/off Saltsburg so you dont eat it.

The Sun's peak emission is in the visual wavelengths. The Earth's peak emission is in the infrared. This peak emission is determined from their temperature--the Earth is ~20x cooler than the Sun.

Greenhouse gases absorb and scatter infrared wavelengths. So they absorb some infrared light from the Sun as the light travels down, but most of the energy gets through fine. But as the Earth radiates energy into space most of that is in the infrared and so additional greenhouse gases make a bigger difference to the Earth's ability to cool itself but not much difference to the Sun's ability to warm us.

The point of all of that is that if you're directly reflecting the light from the Sun then it will be mostly reradiated into space. Making things light and shiny is a good way to do this. But if instead the Sun's light is absorbed, making things black makes them good at this, then it will be reradiated in the infrared then it will be trapped much more easily.

@Astrobiker: what I was thinking in my first post was that the roads are not perfect reflectors, and therefore the incident light from the sun would be red-shifted after reflecting off the road surface. This would lead to an increased amount of IR light being cast upward, where it could be trapped by greenhouse gases.

As Pierce points out, the DOE's resident Nobel Laureate has endorsed the idea of using lighter colored roads and rooftops. So I firmly believe Dr. Chu accounted for the greenhouse effect and predicts a net heat loss, even with the IR-trapping gases in the air.

That said, I appreciate your explanation.

Light colored roofs provide a multiplied effect since the cooler buildings then don't need to use generated electricity to keep the interior cool.

Parking lots just suck. I suppose you could try to ameliorate them by using lighter pavement, cutting some holes and planting deciduous trees, permeable pavement where practical. But there's no getting around that they basically suck.

With proper land-use policy, you would not need transportation to the extent we have developed it, since people would live, work, shop, play and worship/whatever all in the same spot, like we did until about 1880. And thus we would not need parking lots as we would not need parking as we would not have anything to park that takes up much space. *looks at bicycle*

Otoh I would not want to see a return to some semi-feudal society where the average person is severely limited in their choices in life, where to work, live, travel, and only the 1% have any real options. Cheap energy was a great democratizer. Never mind that the great unwashed masses have been suckered into making piss-poor choices regarding the use of their resources, and I don't see that improving any time soon.

Uggh, thinking through the permutations of this just makes my head hurt. People are stupid, fk 'em, eat the rich.

edmonds - I'd be wary of illusory choices. I'd say the Joe Average in the 1880s likely had more choices than now....

Check out Terry Jones' Medieval Lives, full series is up on youtube. Feudal societies' reputations have suffered the fate of all losers in history - the successors choose the epitaphs.

@ejwme Are you talking about "physical" or "mental" choices? E.g. I don't have a physical choice to become a president of US, or 100 meter run world champion. Those are impossible choices limiting my "physical" choices (and "mental" too). I am not ready to become a "killer for hire" -- this is a pure mental block limiting my "mental" choices.