Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Drought is Cracking Mississippi Highways

Trent Avenue, also known as SR 290, near the intersection
with Starr Road.
It's not the freeze-thaw cycle that Mississippi officials are blaming for the poor condition of their highways, but drought. Yes, drought, according to the SunHerald, allegedly the culprit behind cracked highways there.

Maintenance crews are patching the worst cracks, but long-term repairs will have to wait until the state has some significant rainfall, Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) employees say.

Mississippi soils contain several types of clay that expand when wet and contract when dry, similar to the freeze-thaw cycle that messes up our local roads. The shrinking causes a void between the clay and the asphalt and when traffic goes over it multiple times, cracks form.

Cracks are particularly bad on rural highways lined with trees. MDOT says a mature tree can absorb 100 gallons or more of water on a hot day.


Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/traffic/article117520608.html#storylink=cpy
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SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.