Houston is on a relatively young coastal plain with clay soils. Fine particle clay soils are particularly subject to shrinking and swelling due to moisture content, shrinking when dry and swelling when wet. Since concrete is inflexible, the movement of the supporting soil plays hell with it. You can use lime to stabilize the soil adjacent to the road surface but you can't effect the larger areas that still influence the paving. Our roads are always going to be problematic, but going from conditions of extreme drought to extreme rainfalls will cause extreme movement. The same issues with roads effect housing foundations too.
The roads, the streets of Houston have always sucked. This is nothing new. One of the first things we noticed after we moved to Austin in '80 were the vastly better condition of the streets around the city, compared to Houston. Due to growth and the attendant budget problems in Austin over the years, they aren't as good here in places as they once were, but still far better, in the main, compared to my native city. I'm not talking about the freeways, to be clear. I don't think that's the topic. The future is bleak for Houston's streets, unless there's a huge influx of money, along with the leadership to use it well. Anyone see that happening anytime soon? I don't.
Yeah if you put concrete over limestone, it's pretty stable. Houston's road future is patch, repair and stabilize. It's just a fact of geology and engineering.
I am not sure how people drive nice sports cars around town without needing an alignment every 2 weeks. It took almost 4-5 months to repave about 2 miles of Holcombe (west of the med center). That's just 1 small piece. I understand if we had other meets of transportation but this ..well sucks.
I don't think most people are driving their nice sports car on an everyday basis. They usually have a regular commuter vehicle for weekday purposes. You should probably ask bigtexxx how he deals with this situation.
Some people do. The parking lot around 8 Greenway / Houston Club (?) heading towards the food court always had some Ferraris n there.
Try to ride a motorcycle when they were halfway done with that crap. The incredibly deep lines were very scary. Almost made me wipe out several times.
SOON!... Question: Spoiler I wonder why the Jetsons haven't made it to the big screen yet?... ....... ....... .......
Best point in the thread. But y'all didn't read it. Stop whining. Just stay inside y'alls houses in Katy.
I don't think it's a big deal and don't get why people complain all the time. We have some problems, but a bajillion cars drive on Houston roads everyday successfully. How much money are you willing to spend so that every road you might traverse is pothole-free? I think we should be striving for good enough, and I think that's where we're at now.
The roads and highways aren't actually that bad in Houston. In other cities along the East Coast where I've lived, they have actual potholes on the highway which never seems to get fixed.
I live in River Oaks and take Shepard a bunch. I guess they are trying to fix it, but it kind of sucks. So does going down Dallas or Gray. I guess Kirby is alright, but most of those roads suck, and that is supposed to be the "rich" part of the city.
