How are the streets in your city?

[Monkeyleg]

I've been all over the country, and I can't recall any city with streets as bad as Milwaukee's. Perhaps Chicago, but it's been a few years since I ventured into that city instead of going around it.

There are very few streets here that don't have bumps and big cracks and potholes that rattle the doors off your car. My wife's car only has 45,000 miles on it, but it needs new shocks, struts, and at the minimum new bushings for control arms, etc. Last year she hit a hole and broke the belt on one of her front tires.

It's not surprising that the streets are this bad, since Milwaukee is the 5th poorest city in the country. Once you get to 124th street, where Waukesha county starts, the streets are smooth as glass.

Just curious how the streets in your town stack up.

[Gewehr98]

I'd wager I'd be in a hurry to get my beloved Mustang out of there if the roads were that bad, too. 

[AJ Dual]

LOL... I've never thought about it. I'm just used to it I guess. 

I KNEW there was a reason I should have kept my '98 Jeep at the end of it's lease in 2001..

[Gewehr98]

Lifelong Wisconsin resident here, save for the 20 year detour to strange(r) parts of the world.

I bought the Jeep for Wisconsin winter roads.  I gave it a real workout, however, in Northern Illinois earlier this year.  I've learned the only good Illinois roads are the approaches to the toll booths. 

[Monkeyleg]

GW, I'm not trying to beat up on Milwaukee, but this is just the way it is. When was the last time you were in Milwaukee?

When I'm driving the Mustang I take all sorts of routes to avoid the worst roads, trying to keep the car intact. Instead of driving down Oklahoma to 76th Street when going to the gym, I head south on 43rd Street to the entrance ramp at Loomis Road, then go west to 76th Street, then north to Oklahoma. It's a few more miles, but better than the four miles of non-stop bumps and holes on Oklahoma.

I've learned the only good Illinois roads are the approaches to the toll booths.

Yes, except that they put the rumble bars in the pavement. Actually, the rumble bars are smoother than the streets in Milwaukee.

Last year, while riding my motorcycle, I was behind a car and didn't see a pothole until it was too late. I bottomed out the suspension, and also the vertebrae in my back. When I tried to get off the bike I couldn't stand up straight.

[HankB]

Road surfaces aren't bad in & around Austin, but the routing of the roads is remarkably poor; lot of "choke points' and the idiot police just LOVE to shut roads down after a crash for "accident investigation." And with the "choke points" you have to go mile and miles out of your way to go around. (I mean, even after the injured have been evac'd, even after the debris has been cleared . . . the uniformed morons with badges often keep the road closed for hours afterward - even during rush hour. Because they can.)

Just got back from LA, and the road surfaces in Burbank/Pasadena/Glendale are pretty rough.

Minnesota had two seasons - winter and road repair. And of course, they frequently tore up a road JUST before winter put a halt to all construction, so the road STAYED torn up from November through May.

[grislyatoms]

Not too bad in Albuquerque unless I need to make a left turn...

Anyway, most of my route to work was milled and resurfaced a couple of weeks ago. Nice and smooth.

The two lane road enroute to kiddo's school was also widened over the last couple of months, making that a quicker trip as well.

Overall, not too awful bad.

[Gewehr98]

When was the last time you were in Milwaukee?

Which time?

Brewer's game, VA Hospital, airport???  

Milwaukee ain't the worst.  There are indeed plenty of localities with "pavement" unfriendly to stiff-suspensioned, low-profile tired, low-slung, ground-effected automobiles.  That's a risk one takes.  It's also another reason I bought my Jeep.  

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

Streets in my city are torn up everywhere for construction purposes. Must've taken millions from the bailout bill. Other than that, they tend to be pretty smooth and flat.

[Lennyjoe]

Roads near my home in Harpers Ferry Wva are in good shape. As for my hometown of Lorain, Ohio (30 miles west of Cleveland), they are rough. Hard winters take their toll on those roads. Ice, snow and snow plows tend to degrade roads quickly.

[Monkeyleg]

There are indeed plenty of localities with "pavement" unfriendly to stiff-suspensioned, low-profile tired, low-slung, ground-effected automobiles.

It's not very friendly to marshmallow's like PT Cruisers, Saturn's, my neighbor's Ford F150, or other cars I know of.

In 2006 the city of Greenfield decided to tear up the streets in my area. They tore up the pavement and dug all the way down to the main sewers. It was months of dirt, noise and shaking houses. When they finished in 2007 they poured all new streets and curbs.

It looked nice for awhile, which no doubt bugged somebody at the DPW. This year they came through and gouged squiggly lines all over the streets and then patched them with black tar. When I asked the supervisor at the DPW why they did that, he said there were hairline cracks in the street. One of the patch jobs is in front of my house, and I would have seen a crack if there was one. I think they did it just to make the streets blend in with all the others in the city.

[Antibubba]

I'll pit your Milwaukee streets against any randomly chosen in California-urban, suburban, or rural.  And we don't have freezing induced potholes!

[MillCreek]

Especially when I am on one of my bicycles or motorcycles, I think about how bad many of the city streets are in Seattle.  The surrounding communities usually have much better road surfaces.

[Fly320s]

My town has lots of new asphalt.  Not just paved over, but scraped off and resurfaced correctly.

In general, NH has good roads, and does an excellent job of keeping them snow and ice-free during winter.

[Matthew Carberry]

Covered with a half inch of fresh snow, first of the year.

[BobR]

Spokane, the city of potholes and a phenomenon I had never seen before moving up here. We have ruts in the concrete roads, particularly I-90. They look like the wagon wheel ruts you see in movies about the old west and the movement west. These ruts will actually move your car if you are unlucky enough to get in them.

Potholes, oh yea.

The Street Maintenance Division repairs thousands of potholes every year in Spokane. Potholes are common to cities that experience winter weather patterns that consist of many freeze-thaw cycles. Potholes are formed when moisture seeps into cracks in the surface of a road and freezes, causing the water to expand. When the ice thaws that space is left empty and combined with frequent or heavy traffic over the crack, causes the asphalt to break and fail.

Hopefully the potholes will be full of snow and ice soon.

bob

[longeyes]

Los Angeles here.  Our Mayor vowed to fill a million potholes three years ago; I think he's filled maybe a hundred.  He was too busy having extra-marital affairs, though, so you can forgive him for not getting down to business.

Our thing lately is broken water mains.  That's become an everyday occurrence.  The unions are too busy diverting tax dollars to salary increases to worry about actually spending their income on necessary maintenance.

[thebaldguy]

The streets in Minneapolis/St. Paul are bad. The freezing/thawing cycles do a number on our roads. They are in really bad shape by the time spring gets here.

[Lee]

Pretty good here in Columbus O.  Late Winter/Early Spring is kinda rough, but it's been a long while since I've even noticed bad pavement.

[RocketMan]

Spokane, the city of potholes and a phenomenon I had never seen before moving up here. We have ruts in the concrete roads, particularly I-90. They look like the wagon wheel ruts you see in movies about the old west and the movement west. These ruts will actually move your car if you are unlucky enough to get in them.

Same here in Oregon, especially on the Interstates.  Studded tires.

[Declaration Day]

I live in Michigan (near Detroit), where streets were largely neglected for 25 years or so.  Somebody pulled their head out of their ass about ten years ago and things have been improving, but I can't go anywhere without running into construction.  My neighborhood has all new asphalt, which is nice.

[AJ Dual]

The one thing I will say for the Milwaukee metro area is that the streets are largely laid out in a grid like God intended.

I would take the logical layout of Milwaukee and in mud/gravel over the Gordian knots that make up many Eastern seaboard cities like the D.C. Metro area with which I have some experience.

[GigaBuist]

A little rain 'round here can result in fatal accidents here:

http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/06/washedout_allegan_county_road.html

A washed-out section of Lakeshore Drive where two people died early Sunday could be temporarily repaired by week's end, Allegan County Road Commission officials said.

A deluge of rain washed out the scenic road north of 126th Avenue where a culvert runs to Lake Michigan. The chasm is about 50 to 60 feet across, but can be repaired, Road Commission Director Bill Nelson said.

[Doggy Daddy]

Las Vegas streets are generally in good shape.  They have a policy around here of fixing them before they fail.  Saves money in the long run.  The problem is that you can't go 5 blocks without hitting a construction zone.  Frequently, there's no work being done, but the coneheads have passed through and taken out a lane or two.  My understanding is that as long as the contractor gets the cones out, they can meet the contractual requirements on starting work by a certain date.

DD

[Nick1911]

Kansas City is alright.

Sure, some of the side streets can be a bit ratty, but the main roads are reasonably nice.  I've never had to replace a tire due to a pothole.