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Comment by macintux | Hacker News Reader

Vaguely related: I lament the ongoing work to pave gravel and dirt roads.

Leave the slow roads alone for those who enjoy the less-travelled route. We have enough highways.

Lobby your local departments of transportation please (EDIT: really, please please please).

Iowa is coming around to letting underutilized roads return to gravel as a cost savings measure [1]; expect other government bodies to follow suit.

[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/7/6/iowa-dot-chief-...

EDIT 2: If you've already gotten this far in my comment, do take the 2-3 minutes reading the above citation/link; its eye-opening.

Dirt/gravel roads still require maintenance, though. From the article, it almost sounded like he was saying that they would just stop doing anything to those roads.

For example, I've come across dirt roads with potholes deep enough that you really needed a vehicle with a raised under-carriage (e.g. pickup, SUV, etc) to not risk damaging your car while driving it. This wasn't way out in the boonies anywhere either. It was only a couple of miles past the DSL service area, and at an intersection that had a subdivision that was just built on one corner[1].

[1] This was probably a decade ago. I'm pretty sure that area has broadband, etc nowadays.

One of my fathers friend's used to drive a grader on the Stuart Highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Highway), from Adelaide to Darwin in Australia, through the desert. 1700 miles through some pretty inhospitable country, in stifling heat (pre AC days, too, I believe this was late 60s, early 70s). He'd get to the other end, have five days off, and drive back.

I simply can't imagine that.

I met a man who was a long-haul trucker on the Eyre Highway, across the Nullarbor. Sounded bad, but the Stuart Highway looks worse!

There's a show on Netflix called Outback Truckers that shows some of these remote roads. It's amazing the work it takes to get basic supplies to some of the remote outposts.

There's a few awesome little alleyways in SE Portland that are so deeply pitted with potholes and bumps that you really couldn't get through them without a lifted or off road vehicle. I like to take my 4x4 truck through them on bad days :)

These persist primarily in areas that were annexed by the city and where the neighborhood never put up the money to form an improvement district to pave their streets. The city seems to not maintain them at all, even as gravel roads, to encourage the landowners to eventually pay up for improvements... but it hasn't really worked out.

Its definitely been hit and miss, in SE Portland you really can see which neighbors ponied up, as the city asked residents to fund part of the cost of the speed bumps added in parts of SE to reduce through traffic speed. Hence why some are literally bumps atop a bump, cause the house directly beside it paid a non-negligible portion of the cost of that there speedbump!

Living on a gravel road myself, I don't.

On the one hand, it does have character and gives the place a certain "look." OTOH, people don't necessarily slow down, so the road gets rutted. Badly! And then you're forced to drive at a snail's pace because of the massive holes. And that sucks because unlike the visitors who are out for a pleasant country drive, you live here and have to get someplace on time. Sure, the road is graded weekly, but until then, you're dodging potholes.

And then there's the dust. Every vehicle has a coat of dust, inside and out and it gets everywhere

The road leading to mine was recently paved over the most heavily traveled section. Night and day difference. In winter, the snow and ice melts much faster, it's far quieter to drive on and you can drive at a reasonable speed. I happily pay the extra county tax in exchange for it.

Similarly: paved rail-trails. These drive me nuts.

Awwww. Traffic-free paved cycleways are one of the great pleasures in life. And the Bristol-Bath Railway Path (UK) shows that if you do them right, they can attract thousands.

Depends on the context and quality of drainage. An urban trail should probably be paved. Gravel or crushed limestone works great in more rural contexts.

Plus road bikes these days have tires of a more sensible width than the long-popular 700x23c.

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