Comments on: The Highway Department Has Some Explaining To Do

By: CaroleJ

CaroleJ — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 23:05:21 +0000

Unions…

By: Stumbling Over Chaos :: Linkity for the April Fools (feel free to interpret that however you’d like)

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 07:03:33 +0000

[...] was wondering this myself after seeing how fast Japanese highway workers have been fixing earthquake ravaged roads. (Thanks, [...]

By: pst314

pst314 — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:52:48 +0000

“Well, part of it has to do with “meter” and “inch”. Working in inches, feet, yards and miles is more error prone than meters and millimeters”

You’re joking, right?

By: Tim Rudderow

Tim Rudderow — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:38:03 +0000

If you take the total length of highway in Japan and divide by the number of citizens, and compare the the same ratio in the US, I think you would find that there is a lot less highway per person in Japan. If the same proportion of the population were devoted to highway repair, then each Japanese repairman would be responsible for less highway, and would be more likely to fix problems. We forget just how big our system is relative to the population.

By: Joseph Schmoe

Joseph Schmoe — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:00:19 +0000

Actually, when a freeway bridge was destroyed in the 1994 Northridge California earthquake, it was demolished, a new one designed, replaced and open within four months. Replacement of roadway is a relatively easy task, engineering is minimal compared to a bridge.

What is missing, is ten years of environmental impact reports; economic impact reports; three public hearings sixty days apart; alternate route hearings; a bidding process and the resultant litigation from homeowner’s groups, losing contractors and environmental groups.

That’s why it takes so long to build anything, the people demand their say.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:24:23 +0000

Well, part of it has to do with “meter” and “inch”. Working in inches, feet, yards and miles is more error prone than meters and millimeters (just divide by 1,000).

With all the time and money they waste on sticking with our broken collection of measurements we could have gone metric a decade ago and be saving money today.

By: Steve Martin

Steve Martin — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:19:39 +0000

They could use a stronger union over there.

This rush rush rush work schedule is a sign of corporate greed and control.

LIVE BETTER…(at everyone else’s expense)…WORK UNION.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:33:47 +0000

If the pothole opened up in the late fall or the beginning of winter, it would be a complete waste of time and money to fix it before the temperatures stayed consistently above freezing.

But I don’t know where you live, so I don’t know if that’s the issue.

By: Jack Perry

Jack Perry — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:04:04 +0000

I’d be shocked if either your Highway Department would leave a 150-meter crack sitting around for six months, or the Japanese would fix every 15 inch pothole in six days.