Paved over rumble strip on I-40?

I was wondering why they did this as well. For $209,000, you think they could have spent the money on something better.

They were filled in from the 40/440 split in Garner/Raleigh through 40/42.


Contract Number: DE00068 Route: I-40
Physical Division: 5 County: Wake, Johnston
Administrative Division: 5 TIP Number: TD-4944
Length: 10.5 miles Federal Aid Number:
Resident Engineer: Chad D. Hinnant RE Phone Number: (919)733-9499
Location Description: I-40 FROM I-440 TO NC 42
Type of Work: FILL INTERMITTENT RUMBLE STRIPS ON CONCRETE SHOULDERS
Contractor Name: BARNHILL CONTRACTING COMPANY
Contract Amount: $209,283.00 Cost Overrun/Underrun:
Availability Date: 9/3/2013 Letting Date: 7/10/2013
Completion Date: 10/2/2013 Work Began: 9/3/2013

 

I am sure it is the 1st part of some other project. Repaving I 40, or something else. Make a temp lane so you can avoid going to 1 lane etc.

 

http://www.4042.com/4042forums/showthread.php?t=37920

Guess now we know why they paved over rumble strips.

 

Yea, I guess it was for the "Bus on the Shoulder" thing that started Monday, so that you can get a bus from the Walmart on 40/42 to downtown Raleigh, while the construction is going on.

 

Just makes one wonder if the profitability of the bus running that route will begin to pay for the work done.

 

I'm sure it will be profitable since it is free to ride for the first month

I checked the bus schedule.

10 min from my house to Walmart, then bus to downtown, another bus to RTP, local bus to where I work. 2 hours in total. I would have to leave the house by 5:45am to get to work before 8am.

I don't see how that would be good, my normal morning commute is about 40 minutes.

 

I think this route is supposed to help w/ people who work near downtown and for when the traffic starts backing up due to the Crawleigh project. Right now, my commute from near Cleveland High to Dix Campus is 35-40 minutes in regular traffic. I'm betting that Crawleigh will double that. Still trying to decide what route I will take.

 

Sarcasm?

 

How much more of my tax dollars will it cost me to pay for everybody's commute? Since it's free for a month to ride the bus and there's probably at least 2 or 3 buses and drivers, probably at least another $30-40k in tax dollars on top of what it cost to pave the strips. I would bet money that they will never turn a profit.

Hell even most of the regular buses in the Triangle operate at a loss since the tickets are subsidized by tax dollars.

 

Nailed it!

 

I passed a JCX route bus on I40 today around Jones Sausage Road around 5:30pm. They were in the middle lane, I saw one rider on the bus. There was quite a bit of traffic. We drove right by the sign that says "Buses use shoulder, use caution". However he wasn't using the shoulder. So much for the reason for paving the rumble strips.

And I am sure with one rider, even if they were paying, doesn't even cover the cost of the gas, let alone the driver and maintenance of the bus, or paving over the rumble strips.

 

If the traffic is going at least 35 mph, the buses cannot use the breakdown lane. It's only to allow them to get through when traffic is bad.

 

I heard on 101.5 this morning, that yesterday they ran 6 busses, and a total of 8 people used the service. Not 8 per bus but 8 total.

 

Maybe they should run the route with a Prius.

On a good news note, it doesn't look like the 40/440 split is backing up as early this morning. I went through there around 6:25 and it was fine (as opposed to yesterday when it was almost back to Jones Sausage Road). Hopefully it will continue.

 

I was in Garner yesterday getting my vehicle serviced and was talking with a Garner PD officer. He was saying all they are doing is repaving and not even doing a widening project.
You'd figure if they were going to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars and taking upwards of three plus years, they would widen the darn road as well as repaving it. Got to love NC DOT.

 

They're doing a lot more than repaving. They're actually rebuilding the road - ripping out all of the existing asphalt and concrete and starting with a new base. Apparently the concrete base is deteriorating because something they used in the mix.

 

</rant on>
Repave/rebuild, whatever, they need to widen it at the same time. Raleigh is still a growing city and I would not want to hear in another decade that they have to go and widen it. Kill two birds with one stone. But then again this is North Carolina, they never took into account the amount of traffic they were going to have when they merged two lanes of the 70 bypass into the two existing lanes of I-40 west bound. Doesn't take a civil engineer to figure that out.
When they rebuilt US-1 through Cary didn't they go and widen it and even make changes to on/off ramps at Walnut street?
</rant off>

 

The reality is they cannot ever seem to get funding to expand a road until it is shown to be too far over capacity so by the time they complete the expansion it is already approaching the need for another expansion. The politicians are not going to spend that kind of money in anticipation of need in the future especially with the budget issues they have now.

 

If you think this stuff is bad you should spend a few years in Charlotte. It's an hr commute each way from the lake to downtown and from south charlotte to downtown. The roads will never be wide enough.

 

I believe there will be some bridge work completed as well.