Rural Road Repair- The Hemorroid Highway

Kyle_in_Tex · Jan 19, 2013

Yes, there is a road which is a shortcut between Giddings and College Station the locals call the Hemorroid Highway. The worst of it lies in the adjacent county and has potholes that you could put half a large beach ball into. I finally went online to the said county's website and shot off an email which ended up with the appropriate county commissioner. I told him that the road is in dangerous condition and that somebody was going to have an accident. He replied and told me they need 2 days to patch holes and that the road would be closed for repairs next Tuesday. I thanked him for the "heads up".

So hopefully, it gets repaired and maybe, just maybe the squeaky wheel will get some grease.

Just wondering if any of you have had success alerting the powers that be to bad road conditions and if they got fixed.

jinman · Jan 19, 2013

If we call the county barn and complain, they will come and grade our road. However, our road crosses the county line before it gets to the highway, so we have to call both counties. Wise County does a fairly good job, but Montague County uses road base with lots of silt and then they grade it into the ditches. We have muddy rutted roads when it rains, but well graveled ditches.

dave1949 · Jan 19, 2013

Our town selectmen sent out a survey last year asking if the winter road maintenance (plowing, sanding) was good enough or not. I think this was in the interest of saving some of the town budget, salted sand is expensive to buy. Of course they can't win, because if someone slides off the road, then obviously it wasn't plowed and sanded enough.

dmccarty · Jan 19, 2013

I have not had enough concern about a road's condition to complain but I have called in two dead trees hanging over the roads. In both cases, the tree was removed within 24-48 hours.

Later,
Dan

forgeblast · Jan 20, 2013

My property line is the line between two townships. They both use a turn around on my property to turn around when plowing. Township that I live in is awesome, grades the road right, came out in the middle of a storm to unplug a culvert, and gave me their home phone numbers in case of an emergency. Great guys all around.
Township below me is horrible, does not grade, fill in pot holes or plow very often. I have had to go over their head to get basic maintaince of our road done.
I first sent them a letter with pictures of the areas in question, told them I would answer any questions.
waited a week no answer no one came to check the road (we had bedrock showing in area and the ruts were making the road almost impassible).
So I emailed the pictures to my representative, and after a google search found pa dot head of rural roads and emailed him the pictures. The next day the road was being worked on.
If the road is that bad go to the top.

ronjhall · Jan 20, 2013

Wish the good comments could be expressed about our county road commission. One of richest counties in MI. They have 750 miles of gravel Hemorrhoid roads. Mine is one of them. :thumbdown: Call about a problem gets you put on a list that might be addressed within a year. They do plow snow within 2 days of a snow storm.

Western · Jan 20, 2013

jinman said:
If we call the county barn and complain, they will come and grade our road. However, our road crosses the county line before it gets to the highway, so we have to call both counties. Wise County does a fairly good job, but Montague County uses road base with lots of silt and then they grade it into the ditches. We have muddy rutted roads when it rains, but well graveled ditches.

I have to say, Wise County has been the best maintenance prone I have ever seen. My road was calich'e(sp), then 3-4 years back out of the Blue, they topped it, surprising since it's a dead-end with few people living on it. After that, they resurfaced most of the rural roads from the SW corner of the county to HWY 114. It may just be my precinct not sure (P4 I think), but the commissioners seem to make lucid, thought out decisions here with the available $$.

Some of the worst roads I've seen in Texas, are in the municipalities. well I-20 from West Dallas to past Greenville is pretty bad.

300UGUY · Jan 20, 2013

ronjhall said:
Wish the good comments could be expressed about our county road commission. One of richest counties in MI. They have 750 miles of gravel Hemorrhoid roads. Mine is one of them. :thumbdown: Call about a problem gets you put on a list that might be addressed within a year. They do plow snow within 2 days of a snow storm.

Livingston county found 3 million in their maintence budget for the Latson rd interchange. The are actually talking about returning some paved roads to gravel, they say they don't have the money to fix the paved roads. I think they are forcing the townships to pass millages for road repair.

mikim · Jan 20, 2013

Had a wood bridge over the creek....scary need of repair....took pics emailed them to county engineer....2 weeks later state inspectors were there and a couple months after that a new concrete bridge. Maybe sometimes it's just a matter of ..do they know?

JimRB · Jan 20, 2013

When I call or visit the road department they are out within a week, but all they need to do is drive the grader up and down a 3/4 mile road. Sometimes they dump some gravel. Last time I fussed that the edges of the road are higher than the road. True on one section which meant 300 feet of run off washing out one guy's driveway every time there was a good rain. They made a mess of the edges of the road but they always make a mess, just a bigger mess. But the guys driveway did not wash out in 5 days of rain and few inches fallen. Those two hand dug water run outs worked. By the way either another guy on the road or I do some basic dressing. I think had been a year since the county had been out to drag. We tend to make less of a mess than the county workers.

One of the wood bridges is now blocked next county down. We can still get our bicycles across but the big rocks they blocked the road with stop the cars, trucks and horse wagons. At another bridge they put in one or two new oak boards. I supposed they will fix that first bridge sometime in the next year, maybe. It is just one way of a few in to or around a WMA.