The Derby...
 

On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 12:37:37 -0400, Keyser Söze wrote:

On 3/24/15 12:26 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 12:03:25 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 11:26:34 -0400, Keyser Söze wrote:


You obviously missed the article in the Boston Globe announcing that
Gregg has been hired by the Harvard School of Medicine to teach courses
on "There is no need for trained, experienced, educated doctors," and
"Tips on Performing Your Own Heart Surgery." These are only taught by
the world's greatest living expert.

Why turn a reasonable, sociable discussion into an attack on Greg? That's twice now.
You reckon to get a pat on the back for this one too?

When Harry can't deal with the message, he attacks the messenger.


Nah. I just get a kick out of how many fields, and they seem endless, in
which you claim such extraordinary expertise.

That's called jealousy combined with your lack of knowledge in most fields.
--

Guns don't cause problems.
Gun owner behavior causes problems.

The Derby...
 

On 3/24/2015 12:16 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 10:21:50 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/24/2015 9:47 AM, Justan Olphart wrote:
On 3/24/2015 7:27 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
No matter how severe the environment is for infrastructure in the
northeast, Gregg assures us it is far, far worse in SW Florida. Well, of
course it is. :)



And used Florida cars are not highly desirable up here due to their lack
of rust and frame rot. :-)


Harry lies and you swear to it. ;-)
What percentage of federal and state road taxes collected are used to
repair and improve the road system in your state, as compared to Florida.

Beats me. I thought we were discussing what area has more bridge and
overpass corrosion due to their relative climates ... Florida or the
Northeast.

If you are looking for how gasoline taxes and tolls contribute to a
state's spending on road systems, here's a chart. As the article
states, it's only about a third of the total amount spent. The rest
comes from other revenue sources.

I think you have to also consider the size of the states, miles of roads
and number of bridges and users. The chart isn't a relative comparison
of who spends the most or least per capita.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pay-only-third-state-local-road-spending

Actually this started with me suggesting that they raise the gasoline
tax, provided that it all gets spent on the roads.
If you and Harry are right and your roads need more maintenance, you
should be paying higher gasoline taxes.


Oh, the politicians are trying. Our past governor (Deval Patrick)
floated the idea of a mileage tax. The more you drove, the more you
paid. Also proposed more and increased tolls. Tax on fuel only is
only one way to increase revenues and in a way it's self defeating. Cars
average much better mileage than they did 15 or 20 years ago.

Mostly, we just put up with rusting bridges and foot deep potholes. It's
Massachusetts after all.

The Derby...
 

wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2015 21:17:39 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I doubt very much that the bridges in Florida are subjected to the
amount of salt corrosion that the bridges up here are subjected to.
Down there you get plenty of rain that rinses any salt spray that wind
might deposit on them. Up here the salting starts with the first
freezing sleet or snow and continues all winter. It's only swept up
in the spring.

The rain is on top of the bridge and the salt is on the bottom. We
also have a dry season for several months a year when the wind is
blowing hard and it just does not rain.
The water temperature makes a big difference too,.
I suppose the real answer would be, how much money makes it to road
and bridge maintenance (per mile and per bridge foot). I bet we win.
If you really have that much more of a harsh environment, you should
be spending more money than we do.

We have salt, etc. we also have crap roads. Lots of potholes, and some of
the highest taxes in the country. We also have a highway trust fund with
probably in excess of a $billion in IOU's from the general fund. Now they
want to raise taxes to fix roads. A couple years ago we passed an
proposition to only spend highway dollars on roads, unless we are in a
fiscal crises. We are always in a fiscal crises, we have by far the most
people on welfare. And this is a Democrat run and controlled state!

The Derby...
 

On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 13:52:06 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

The only type of construction work on bridges in
Florida that I ever saw was new construction and changes to roadways.
Come to think of it, I never even saw any repaving being done although I
am sure it is done from time to time.

===

There is a lot of repaving going on. It really never stops. Here in
SWFL there is also a lot of lane widening in progress. Not sure they
can still do that on the east coast since it's pretty well built out
wall to wall.

The Derby...
 

wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 13:52:06 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/24/2015 12:24 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 11:26:34 -0400, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 3/24/15 10:35 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 3/24/2015 10:23 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 08:47:25 -0400, John H.
wrote:



I think Greg forgets that I spent three winters living in Florida where
there were many bridges and overpasses. I never saw sand blasting and
repainting of any of them. I am sure it happens from time to time but
not to the extent that you see in the northeast. During the summer
months there are crews out constantly sand blasting and repainting the
bridge and overpass structures.

Probably a lot more of your basic concrete beam bridges which don't
require
repainting regularly - too many kids with spray cans keep them
freshly painted.

The problem with the prestressed concrete beams is the salt water
infiltrates the beam and gets to the rebar.. A little rust on that
rebar will blow that beam out as fast as a series of freeze thaw
cycles.

I do find it amazing that this many "boaters" are blowing off the
effects of 24/7/356 salt water corrosion in sub tropical water.
Richard mentioned cars ... OK how many Florida boats are that
attractive, even to Chesapeake Bay boaters, much less someone near
Tim.

If road salt is that deleterious to the structure UNDER your bridges,
maybe you should be looking at how you engineer bridges to see how the
salt is getting there and why it isn't harmlessly going out the
scuppers and over the side.,


I don't question how bridges are designed to withstand the elements.
There are people far more qualified than you or I that do that.



You obviously missed the article in the Boston Globe announcing that
Gregg has been hired by the Harvard School of Medicine to teach courses
on "There is no need for trained, experienced, educated doctors," and
"Tips on Performing Your Own Heart Surgery." These are only taught by
the world's greatest living expert.

If road salt is that big an issue even a dumb old guy like me knows
you should be designing your bridges to send that salt over the side
and not send it up under the bridge .


I don't know why bridges are designed as they are. Most around here are
steel I-Beam frames on concrete forms. Perhaps they don't want heavy
rains to cause water or runoff from pouring down on whatever is under
the bridge .... like cars traveling at 70 miles per hour on a highway.

All I know is during the summer it is routine to see half of a highway
blocked off while a crew is sandblasting and then repainting the steel
frames of bridges. The only type of construction work on bridges in
Florida that I ever saw was new construction and changes to roadways.
Come to think of it, I never even saw any repaving being done although I
am sure it is done from time to time.

They resurface roads fairly often here,. We had a "lift" on the little
street in front of my house about 10 years ago and we are supposed to
be on the schedule for another one soon.
Maybe you didn't see the bridge maintenance because they do it from
under the bridge. One problem that causes the requirement for total
replacement is those prestressed concrete beams. They do OK until you
start getting salt water intrusion, then they are goners. There is no
easy way to swap them out. That is what happened to the Sanibel
Causeway. They just built another one.
On a lot of the roads, they rebuild the bridge as part of adding
lanes. They build the second span, divert to it and rebuild the old
one.

I also think part of the road maintenance problems are the "prevailing
wage" seems to be the highest amount ever negotiated by a union. Also
seems as if some technology is not allowed. When in Canada 10 years ago,
there was a company "asphalt recycling company" ARC that used an infra red
heater that took the asphalt roadway up, chopped it up, added a binder and
relaid the road. 4.5 lane miles a day. Here it takes a week to do a half
mile of road.

The Derby...
 

On 3/23/2015 9:17 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 3/23/2015 8:29 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:38:20 -0400, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 3/23/15 5:20 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2015 15:02:08 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:



All depends on who is the replacement. I don't see Hillary as having
what it takes. She'll be too busy ducking answers to questions and
asking why we don't simply respect the fact that she's the first woman
president.


If this was not such a corrupt government and so many scams going on,
I would suggest a 20 cent hike in the gasoline tax that went for
absolutely NOTHING BUT fixing roads and bridges.
The thing that prevents me form being serious about it, is how badly
the government is in spending money like this on what they were
supposed to be collecting it for.
In states like Florida, it would actually go into the roads but up
north, where they really need infrastructure improvements, the money
gets siphoned off into totally unrelated programs.
That is why Florida only has around 2% of their bridges in trouble and
that is up in the double digits in California, New York and the North
East states.


Wrong. The reason is that Florida doesn't have a freeze-thaw cycle that
lasts half the year, it seems, as the northeast states do. *That* and
the salt are the killers of road infrastructure.

There is plenty of salt here. Most of the bridges go over salt water.
Freeze thaw can be an issue but not if the road is properly
engineered.
Usually frost heaves are when they did a quicky patch last time.
Water gets under the patch and blows it out when it freezes.

It is still undeniable that the places with the biggest road and
bridge problems have diverted road building money to other things like
trains people won't ride or simply to patch other holes in their
budget instead of patching holes in the bridge.



I doubt very much that the bridges in Florida are subjected to the
amount of salt corrosion that the bridges up here are subjected to.
Down there you get plenty of rain that rinses any salt spray that wind
might deposit on them. Up here the salting starts with the first
freezing sleet or snow and continues all winter. It's only swept up
in the spring.

My neighbor has a very large front yard. It used to be a big hay field
but over the years he's been mowing it, weeding it and developing a nice
looking lawn. Each spring however there are huge boulders "growing" in
the lawn that weren't there the previous fall. Some are
huge... weighing over 1200lbs. I know that because I help him dig them
out with the back hoe on my tractor and then try to pick them up with
the bucket. It's rated to lift 1200 lbs. Some I couldn't pick up and
had to push them off into the woods.

They aren't "growing". When the ground freezes each winter they are
slowly pushed upward until they break the surface and continue to "grow"
each winter until we dig them out.

Ask any car dealer or mechanic if he wants to work on a car from Boston,
or Baton rouge...