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Thumb of Michigan | Yes, that's what happens generally in at least a 4 county area "Here".
In another post, I mentioned that sizing tubes was in the top 5 most contentious issues the Road Commission deals with. Pulling shoulders, without a doubt, is #1. First off, its got to be done. No matter what happens in the winter, gravel tends to gravitate to the outside with normal traffic. Pretty soon, you have a berm. Then you have water in the road, and water in the road is a problem. Now, "here" the issue is that theres about 30 days worth of work that needs to be done on shoulders and about 10 days (if you're lucky) to have the right conditions to do it. No different than when you have 10 days of corn planting left, and 3 days to get it done. Speed takes over when finesse is whats really important.
There are some good operators, and some that get too aggressive. Its a fine line sometimes, too. My county pulled the shoulders with graders with a disk retriever attachment exclusively for many years. Those aren't the best tool all the time, though. County east of me has been using 3 pt tractor mounted road maintainers, they work better. They're faster, they tend to not move big clods, and the feather the material way better than a grader. My county started running a 3 pt grader a couple years ago, hope they eventually go to more of them.
FWIW- my county also began spraying the road edges with glyphosate and 2-4-D in a 3' shielded band with a pick up sprayer rig. This is only on primary paved roads, but it works really well. After a couple years of spraying, theres no sod or other green plant material left, all the grader is pulling is gravel. | |
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My roadside sod rant....my county road commission feels the need to harvest every spring
