Road Conditions In Your Area

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RVDNuT374

RVDNuT374

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Manning, SC
To avoid further hijacking of the "what are you currently paying for gas?" thread, I've simply decided to create a thread on the road conditions in your area/state. Simply tell how the roads are maintained, road quality, etc.

Mine: SC has some of the worst roads in the US, not because of potholes and crap road construction, but because of narrow, twisty country roads and lots of blind hills and corners. Not to mention it's damn near impossible to see anything at night due to a complete lack of lighting; all there is are reflectors which half of them are broken and don't reflect, and the center and road edge lines which are in desperate need of repainting. Also, huge ditches sit on both sides of the road, one slip and it's all over.
 
Michigan roads:

In the spring you have pot holes the size of cayons that own your tires, rims, everything.

In the summer they are under construction, which means they close down every freeway and main road at the same time making driving any where a royal pain in the ass.

In the fall the roads are somewhat nice.

In the winter the roads are either icy, snowy, slushy, or if they are dry bleached white with salt causing your car's skin to cry.
 
I've driven a fairly large amount of Michigan roads, all sorts: highways, residentials, farming roads, and b-roads. While they aren't great, they hardly compare to the crapiness of Quebec's roads. There simple isn't any argument over this one. Anyone driven in Montreal? PR can back me up on this one...

The only place I have seen worse roads are backcountry roads in Latvia, where they simply fill hole after hole after hole. The entire road is filled holes, barely any normal pavement left. The communists left everything in horendous condition, including the roadways. It is almost unbearable in any normal commuter car.
 
eliseracer
The only place I have seen worse roads are backcountry roads in Latvia, where they simply fill hole after hole after hole. The entire road is filled holes, barely any normal pavement left. The communists left everything in horendous condition, including the roadways. It is almost unbearable in any normal commuter car.
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Oh man... sounds just like home.

The UK - overtaxed and officially as crappy as Latvia.
 
Don't be dissin' Latvia. It's still a wonderful country.

It's gone nowhere but up.
 
NASCAR = 200mph, bumper to bumper, 50 Professionals
BOSTON = 70 mph, bumper to bumper, 50,000 amateurs.

Seriously. The zoo that we all lovingly call Rte 128. I am so happy that I don't have to travel that route anymore. I've learned many of the back roads and it has saved me more frustration and time than anything.
 
Its ok here. Although our county refuses to widen any of the back roads in the areas where the are used most. They for so reason feel the need to widen and straighten in the areas of the least amount of use.
 
eliseracer
I've driven a fairly large amount of Michigan roads, all sorts: highways, residentials, farming roads, and b-roads. While they aren't great, they hardly compare to the crapiness of Quebec's roads. There simple isn't any argument over this one. Anyone driven in Montreal? PR can back me up on this one...
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Indeed, Montreal hands down. The weather isn't even a good excuse, they have much better roads in Northern Ontario. I bought a complete aftermarket Bilstein sport suspension for the Volvo - never again. Desirable sports car for me now? ...a Subaru Forester XT. You can easily spot masochists here, they ride on 18"+ low profile tires.

Quite ironically, I think we're also quite good contenders for parking laws enforcement efficiency. :dunce: You have to be very lucky if you leave your car in a local parking zone for a quick bathroom trip without getting a ticket. And if you forgot to renew the car sticker for your parking zone, rest assured that early in the morning of the first day it's expired, a nice surprise will sit on the windshield to help you remember. Just don't ask about the giant potholes that have been used for the last couple of months as hibernation hideouts for a whole family of bears, on the same street, though. Oh, and don't bother trying to sue the city for any damage they have caused to your car: you can't. 🤬


Never, ever let me in alone with the person responsible for these parts of the budget.
 
Road conditions in California vary very widely (hey, homophones!). I live on a stretch of road that used to be the only route connecting southern California with northern California (back in the early 1900s) – it’s a one-and-a-half lane road (you have to scootch over when somebody is coming opposite of you) that the county has mostly forgotten, though it’s not in horrible shape because there’s so little traffic now.

The freeway I travel on (I-5, for those of you who know) is getting progressively worse. There’s a part near our house where the soil underneath the freeway has shifted a whole lot, causing large ripples to form over the past five or six years. For people coming from up north, this totally catches them off guard, and whenever it rains there is almost always an accident there. They’re dangerous SOBs.

The roads I use near my school are, for the most part, pretty good, since it’s a growing suburban area. There used to be one stretch though on my way to school that had a couple absolutely massive[/i] potholes, and if you drove over one of them it felt like your car would just explode from the shock. Thankfully the county filled them up a few months ago.
 
Over here in Western Michigan, we get a poop-load of snow every winter. With the stranglely warm temperatures weve been having, many roads have gigantic potholes, one in which took my front passenger side wheel last sunday...

It does greatly depend where you are to make road conditions good or bad.

The main roads are pretty clear as most of them have recieved a fresh coat of blacktop within the last five years...

Go out to the country roads (my favorite) and the surface varies. Of course there are plentiful ammounts of dirt roads here in Kent County, but the average-quality asphalt roads in the Northeast corner of the county are great and rarely deteriorate beyond a few small holes a year. I use them to train for cycling, and ocasionally for a quick country blast to push my car to the "limits."

I'd give Kent Country roads (around the Ada/Cascade/Kentwood are) about a 7.5 out of 10...
 
And the best part about Michigan is that we can do 85mph bumper to bumper while it's snowing.
 
lesse...ohio, a BUNCH of one lane straights or "wavy" roads around a bunch of farms and small towns...nice for late night driving
 
Around my house the roads are pretty damn good, being a suburban area and all.Nearly all the roads I travel on are in good nick except out in the country a bit, where the roads a very bumpy, but it’s still not that bad.

The fact that the roads are fast and twisting more than makes up for it – in-fact, the bumps add character! :D
 
Southern Ontario, Canada.
Not bad actually. City streets, especially in the larger cities can wreck your car, especially if lowered, but the highways are pretty good for the most part.
In the winter, its a different story though, they're either wet, icy or snow covered, depending whether or not the plow has gone down it yet.
Summer is the classic construction time of the year.
 
Like I said, I've been to many of the places mentioned here, and still, nothing compares to Montreal. And Southern Ontario? Puuuhleez. The roads in Ontario are practically race tracks.

I have also found some decent Michigan backroads, many of them are very entertaining (some do have boring straight stretches, mind you). Something I noticed and liked about some of them: they had built in rumble strips. They weren't painted the white/red, but there was a little elevated strip of pavement extending an inch or two, a foot out the side of the road. 👍

And anyone here from Cleveland? What's with the 90 degree kinks that catch you by susprise on a highgway in the middle of the city? Damn, I had to brake hard for some of those...
 
does everyone know what eliseracer is talking about with the little elevated strip? if not i can post up a picture tomorrow <8- )
yeah, i live by some fun roads that are ok, but there are some pretty "gnarly" lumps that really catch you off gaurd if you don't know about them (i do).
but the main roads are unacceptable, my new car is lowered (88 VW golf GTI) and man....its better than the civic, but its still not good enough.

i am getting tired of it, even some of the brand new roads have random lumps in them.
 
Roads in Ottawa are quite nice if I compare them with Toronto's and Montreal's
only few busy streets have bad condition
we have two roads along the canal
very well paved and very wavey ... great fun 👍
 
Im in Orange County...the roads here arent too bad at all...traffic sucks ( 6 lanes wide and nobodys moving....get near Hollywood and its the suck...its like it hasnt been paved in 30 years...:sick: It freaks me out because may car is lowered (01 VW GTI VR6) and the wheels are no longer made and there is only like 4 sets in the US, not to mention a lot of money...basically impossible to replace if I ruin one..:indiff:
 
Without mentioning the drivers: The roads are all fairly smooth and wide on major routes in South Florida. The only exception is I-95; it's 7 lanes in some places, and 3 lanes in others. There's not much lane-count consistency, which create a bottleneck every couple of miles during rush hours.

Since we have no ice or snow, we have no potholes; maybe in a few places such as secondary roads and city-maintained roads that are in really bad shape. There are few ditches, and just about every route that has a canal alongside of it has guardrail or concrete barriers. Just about every state/county-maintained road in South Florida has been re-paved in the past 10-15 years, and that's because nearly every road was under construction for widening in the late-1980s.

There's lots of well-marked signs (well, it was pretty good until the Wilma knocked down half of them), no nameless roads (although some major roads change names often). The set-up down here is like a big grid, since most roads were created 50-100 years ago, and there's almost no terrain for the routes to dodge, other than large or historic buildings.

All of this sounds like driving paradise...Sure, except 95% roads are straight and boring, with no elevation changes. You knew there had to be a catch, right? There are almost no country, backwoods roads. Even the few that inspire spirited driving are usually well-patrolled by radar.

If you want to have driving that resembles fun, you have to leave the Miami-Ft.Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area entirely. That's 2 hours away from where I live. In short, amny of those roads are also in good shape, although many principal routes could use more lanes. There's a lot more curves as the land has more lakes and hills (the center of the state has so many lakes, that you could spend weeks just driving on all the roads for fun).

Many of the "fun" roads have been altered over the years for better safety; for example SR 29 lined a crooked canal, which was rather fun and scenic as canopies of cypress trees shrouded the route. Sure, the Armco was just a foot or so away from your right-side wheels, and just a foot or so away from the canal...but when the state wanted to re-pave and make the road a little wider, they decided to move the guardrail 5 feet from the canal, the road 10 feet from the guardrail, and since all those nice trees were in the way, let's just chop all those down too...and then they "straightened" the road out at the expense of naturally-planted trees in the Everglades and driving fun and character of the location.

So there's my road report for Southern to Central Florida.
 
The road conditions are vary decent in my area. The road I live on (fairly busy at peek hours. Has a school and connects a large village to much of Swansea as its duties) was retarmaced a couple of years ago, and the M4 is in pretty decent shape (Bar the fact there's only 2 lanes on a fair stretch :rolleyes:
 
BlazinXtreme
Michigan roads:

In the spring you have pot holes the size of cayons that own your tires, rims, everything.

In the summer they are under construction, which means they close down every freeway and main road at the same time making driving any where a royal pain in the ass.

In the fall the roads are somewhat nice.

In the winter the roads are either icy, snowy, slushy, or if they are dry bleached white with salt causing your car's skin to cry.
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That is all correct. Right now the roads are absolutely horrible. The dramatic change in temperature caused the road to expand and contrast. This makes them to break into pieces, make holes, or simply crack everywhere. Then the state comes along and fills the holes which caused the roads to be even more uneven.
Its 50 today and im taking the Camaro for a spin around the block before I start adding more goodies to it.
 
They're actually in good shape, espcially Plano Parkway.
The city does what it can to pay for the roads so it's a pretty smooth ride with no bumps to tear off your bumpers.

In Dallas, that's another story...They're decent on the main roads, but in the small streets, you can hit some nasty spots.
 
duluth minnesnowta!!!!!!! we have a 20 mi stretch called skyline parkway its like green hell only its full of pot holes and bumps, quite the tease:grumpy:
 
I live in overland Park, KS, the capital of the midwest for soccer moms in luxury SUVS, who do not realize their vehicles are slightly larger than gokarts.

I drive to Missouri alot to my Dad's hometown, let's just say their roads are nice.:dopey:
 
BlazinXtreme
Michigan roads:

In the spring you have pot holes the size of cayons that own your tires, rims, everything.

In the summer they are under construction, which means they close down every freeway and main road at the same time making driving any where a royal pain in the ass.

In the fall the roads are somewhat nice.

In the winter the roads are either icy, snowy, slushy, or if they are dry bleached white with salt causing your car's skin to cry.
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You took the words right from my mouth.
 
pupik
All of this sounds like driving paradise...Sure, except 95% roads are straight and boring, with no elevation changes. You knew there had to be a catch, right? There are almost no country, backwoods roads. Even the few that inspire spirited driving are usually well-patrolled by radar.
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Ahh, that sucks! 👎 I only have to drive for 2 minutes to get onto some nice country roads! :D

5 minutes to get to the really twisty stuff. :D

10 minutes to get to the really really twisty stuff. :D
 
PA roads allready have a reputation for potholes

here's the bare bones
Backroads: covered in Tar and Chip with large central potholes that spread all the way to the berm/verge, and only in front of houses for about 100 yds/meters in either direction
side roads: straight uphill with two 90 degree bends (i call em "farmers turns"), usually also tarred and chipped with loose stones, all of which are next to either sheer dropoff cliffs, or straight up inside cliffs yards/meters high, with blind hills
main roads: chaging conditions with each township, boundary lines clearly delineated, usually shot
town roads: always under construction with new pavement, road widening for all intersections, well into October or even November. "shortway" portions of blond concrete with so many patches there's a concert from your tires...especially when you suddenly hit exposed brick pavers from the early 20th century
Interstates: nearly as bad as town roads in places, with most bridges under construction...even truckers are griping as loudly as they do about their deisel costs.
 
Socal's pretty wierd, I guess. City roads range from coilover-killer to moderate, but the backroads are all pretty nice.
 
victoria, B.C... the roads are a bit better than average, some are really nice. especially towards Mt. Washington there are some reaaally long straights, smooth too
 
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