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Ask Autoblog: How are Michigan roads made?
The process of constructing roadways in a Michigan is a long and arduous one that takes many millions of dollars, countless workers standing around and at least five seasons to finish. Roadways here on the home turf of the American auto industry are a unique breed. Even though Windsor, Ontario is just across the river from Detroit and has exactly the same climatic conditions, its roads are completely different from those in Michigan. That becomes immediately apparent as your roll off the Ambassador Bridge. We here at Autoblog strive to keep you, our loyal readers, informed about all things even vaguely related to cars. Therefore, we present our step-by-step guide to the creation of a Michigan road.
The process typically starts in the spring as soon as the salt has been rinsed away. Before the first crocuses pop out of the dirt, the crews start setting out signs and orange barrels along the edges of the most heavily traveled thoroughfares. There they typically sit for anywhere from one to four weeks before the crews return to start closing off lanes of traffic. After another interval of random length, the heavy equipment begins to arrive and the process of tearing apart the existing pavement begins. Just to make sure that no one accidentally misses out on the fun, the same scenario is usually repeated along several parallel paths that might serve as alternate routes between any two major points that people commute.
Learn about the rest of the process after the jump.
Creative commons - Flickr - Ricarr
Throughout the spring and summer and often well into the fall, construction crews will shut down lanes of traffic often for several miles while they tear up old pavement, crush it and lay down new pavement. Interstates passing through Michigan are typically paved with concrete rather than asphalt, which is then finished in a special texture that seems calculated to excite certain harmonic frequencies in car tires at any speed over 30 mph. This is done to ensure that drivers never forget they are driving on Michigan roads.After labor day rolls around and the kids head back to school, the completion of summer road trips means that the need to restrict traffic is lessened. As the leaves start to change colors, the crews wrap up the first phase of their construction projects. At this point, most states are finished, but Michigan is just getting started. With a fresh layer of pavement in place, the real work now begins. Fortunately, Michigan is one of only a few states that still allows 80 ton trucks on its major roadways, which helps accomplish the second stage.
On the concrete highways, the extra weight aids the development of cracks, which are necessary for subsequent stages of the process. In the cities where the roads are paved with asphalt, the big trucks generate waves in the pavement as they come to a stop at intersections. These waves alert inattentive drivers that they are approaching an intersection without the need to look up from their McGriddle or makeup bag.
As the primary construction crews pack up and the winter snow and ice arrives, the inevitable cracks and gaps in the pavement do their part. Winters can get cold in Michigan, but they tend not stay that way for long. It's not at all unusual to have temperatures cycling between 10F and 40F several times within the same week. As the melted snow seeps into those cracks, re-freezes and expands, it can rupture even the toughest concrete and asphalt is no match. This allows large chunks of road to be easily removed before being later replaced with patches.
Late February and early March is the prime season for this phase of the process, although it can occur at anytime from Halloween to late April. Once the water has created the necessary cavities (perhaps we should start lacing our snow with fluoride?) the cold patch crews can go to work. In Michigan, this consists typically of three to four trucks, one of which is filled with cold asphalt patching material. These convoys trundle along the roadways, often blocking two lanes, as one or two out of the dozen-strong crew shovels the patching material into the craters. To be on the safe side, the patch material is piled several inches above the surrounding pavement. 
Tamping down the patch is the responsibility of cars that drive by for the next hour or so. While this does save the repair crews from having to perform this extra step, it has the unfortunate side effect of spraying passing cars with asphalt, but that's a small price to pay to save the aching back of a state employee. One of the things that makes Michigan roadways truly unique in America is that the asphalt cold patch is used on both asphalt roads and concrete pavement. Since the patching material seems to adhere only sporadically to concrete, regular re-application is necessary. At this point, the Michigan road is more or less complete, but like a good wine it does take some aging. Continued pounding by the big trucks and several more cycles of winter and patching yields the finished product. Meanwhile, the main construction crews start anew each spring with more sections of road.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
berne1 11:14AM (3/10/2008)
This is the best laugh I've had today...so true!
As a Michigan commuter I can add to your comment on 80-ton trucks. It seems that our roads are made to accomodate 40-ton trucks, but allow 80-ton trucks. Good logic.
Check this out for yourself--driving on I-75 into Ohio, you don't even need the "Welcome to Ohio" sign anymore. The road surface completely changes...this is no joke. The roads are quieter and smoother and there is a distinct road variation right where the sign is. If there were any doubt who builds/maintains their roads better.
Another side effect of the "patching" technique is that when people see this being done, they usually swerve to avoid the newly patched area (I can't blame them) to also avoid getting that junk all over there cars, since we the drivers have been appointed the official "tampers" to finish the project. I have seen several near-misses on roads where patchwork is being done. Some days you can even see the workers heaving shovels full of asphalt over bridges and embankments (I guess to avoid extra work later in the day).
Nice.
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Scott 12:37PM (3/10/2008)
The one glaring omission in all of this is how Michigan is the only place I have ever been where it is perfectly acceptable to close a major interstate, or highway for an extended period of time. Not just lanes, but close the entire road, without any reasonable alternative. Everywhere else I've been they would find a way to keep at least one or two lanes open in each direction throughout the construction.
Now, They have I-75 closed at the Ambassador Bridge for 2 years! 2 YEARS!, CLOSED! I-35 in Minneapolis, where the bridge collapsed, won't even be closed for 2 years, but Michigan thinks it's fine to close I-75 for 2 years to reconstruct the highway, and some on/off ramps.
It's Unreal!
That One Person 4:12PM (3/10/2008)
Berne...funny you mention the patching method. I work for one of the many cities outside Detroit and we do patching. It sucks...plain and simple. And if we aren't on a busy street, it's sort of funny watching people swerve.
But the guys that you are talking about are most likely county workers. They suck. We usually see them out and about patching and they will do a couple small holes here and there and miss a huge one that can easily mess up some tires and/or suspensions. Fortunately for us, we have supervisors that get on our butts and we do EVERYTHING. And what is hilarious is that the county guys have a guy out there who POINTS to holes.
County workers are lazy. We tamp our patches down (usually with a shovel...it works) and we clean up our mess. The county guys love the leave speed bumps. Then we go around with our trucks and roll them some more. It's pointless doing it in the winter cuz the ice just rips the stuff up. But there have been stretches of roads that we have done that if you went down them before we patched them and then after, you would notice a huge difference.
Another interesting point: I was reading an article in the Free Press a while back about how the majority of the money to fix our roads actually goes to Northern Michigan and not to the roads that actually need it (Detroit area, etc.). And if you have every driven on I-94 in Taylor over Telegraph Road, look at the money wasted on that stupid bridge they built. That money could have been spent to repair roads in and around Detroit.
Mehul 11:15AM (3/10/2008)
Its the same story everywhere, not just Michigan. I live in the tri-state area and I see roads that have been made just 2 years ago already have cracks.
And dont even get me started on the construction that has been going on for 5 years to widen Route 18 and Route 1
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Eric 11:28AM (3/10/2008)
Trust me, it's not the same. I'm originally from NJ, but I've been in Ann Arbor for school for the past 4 years. The roads in NJ are buttery smooth when compared to the mess out here. You'd think everyone was still riding around in covered wagons on dirt trails.
fm 12:53PM (3/10/2008)
I have to agree with Mehul.
Eric, have you even driven in Manhattan lately?
It's never been good but now it's horrible. The BEST part of NYC(I guess this could be true for most any city) is when they finally resurface a road, it'll often take less then a month for some other agency to open the road up and redo a water line, or put down some new gas pipe. Seriously! Can't they have some sort of cooperation! Say ConEd has to do some maintenance in a certain street, can't they do it BEFORE the city shells out thousands of dollars for nothing?
I'd also like to add PA in the list of offending states. I-80 and I-81 are pretty bad in certain areas. And at Blakeslee, PA, I've never seen a bridge take so long to go up. They said it'd take 14 monthes(?? for that small of a bridge?). Since they started beginning of Dec 06. Times up! But still it's not finished.
But I guess it's just the contractor making sure they have a job in the years to come.
Barry 11:20AM (3/10/2008)
You know that scene in "Wizard of Oz" when the movie goes from black-and-white to color? That's pretty much the effect when driving out of Michigan and into, say, Ohio, Indiana or Ontario roads. Not only are they smoother, they're a lot quieter, too. It's no wonder Detroit earned a reputation for softly-sprung cars...the engineers had to drive Michigan roads to get to work.
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Soccer Mom 11:37AM (3/10/2008)
Too bad roads of Ontario end in Toronto, where pavement can compete with that of Michigan. Thanks to the great Toronto municipality that colluded with utility companies to empty pockets of all the taxpayers blaming each other.
Neon Jebus 12:00PM (3/10/2008)
Indiana isn't pure magic. The new hotness for the road crews is to destroy a decent road and resurface it. When they do they now have the driving deck a good 2 inches or more below any service covers (man hole covers) that might be on the road. It's enough to rock the heck out of your car if you hit one, or cause a bent rim. You can try to drive around them but they like to use this new technique on busy narrow roads. You can try to dodge them but might hit another car head on.
Another option is to resurface the roads and try to make them look like the photos you see of roads in Hawaii after the lava flows over the roads.
Tim 11:25AM (3/10/2008)
The best example of forward thinking road repairs in MI was the I-275 fiasco from about 8 years ago, where they covered the original concrete stretch of I-275 between I-696 and I-96 with asphalt.
They did it entirely at night, which was nice from a commuter standpoint, and right after it was finished it was beautiful. But within 6 months the asphalt started cracking due to those heavy trucks, and within a year huge chunks were being thrown off, usually into your windshield. It was FAR worse than the admittedly horrible concrete had been beforehand.
They eventually rebuilt that surface in concrete, but I shudder to think how much money they wasted on that ill-conceived endeavor.
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David W. 11:25AM (3/10/2008)
hahaha nice read, though it's not just in Michigan :P
There is a road right next to my apartment that was supposed to be done 4-5 years ago...well...it's nowhere close
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michael.r.felkins 11:46AM (3/10/2008)
Have you driven in Minnesota latley? Crossing the line from Iowa to Minnesota is life changing. Who knew that they know how to make smooth roads in Iowa but not in Minnesota. Maybe it has to do with states that start with M.
sith33 12:31PM (3/10/2008)
Has more to do with states that put money into transportation repairs ... we've finally passed a transportation funding bill here in Minnesota, so we can start paying for some of this stuff.
I mean, not that we'd have any reason to put money into things like bridge repairs - what could possibly go wrong?!
Eric 11:26AM (3/10/2008)
Haha, I go to school at U of M and it doesn't get any truer! Michigan roads have already eaten 3 hubcaps off my car. At $50 a pop, it's getting kind of expensive.
I don't get why the roads are so bad! I paid almost a grand in parking tickets 2 years ago....where'd all that money go?
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Huis 12:41PM (3/10/2008)
You're lucky. Two years ago, I blew out a tire and bent my rim on a pothole in Ann Arbor while visiting U of M. Luckily the tire was replaced free by Discount Tire, but getting a new aluminum rim for my car was not so cheap. That sucked.
Jacques Auef 11:29AM (3/10/2008)
Blame it on the fact that those that developed road repair guidelines in MI are MSU grads. Had they been UM grads, this wouldn't have been a problem!
GO BLUE!
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Joe 1:08PM (3/10/2008)
This is just more proof that Michigan Sucks.
Go Buckeyes!
John 2:59PM (3/10/2008)
Michigan's roads are just like Buckeyes- Full of crack
U of M class of '96.
John 11:37AM (3/10/2008)
Bravo! I got a good chuckle out of this on a Monday morning.
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Randy 11:38AM (3/10/2008)
By no means am I defending the DPW or state! But um, regarding 80-Ton trucks! How else do you get trucks full of cars out of MI? Drive them all?
Personally I think anyone defrauding a state like some DPWs should be hung on a bridge by their toes till all themoney falls out of their pockest for dragging their asses and costing the tax payers money!
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