On Wednesday, February 3, 2016 at 6:00:52 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Wed, 3 Feb 2016 11:32:10 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:

On Wednesday, February 3, 2016 at 2:17:19 PM UTC-5, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote:
Don Y wrote:

However, the lot is in terrible shape -- lots of deep pot holes,
torn sections of pavement, etc. One would almost think it
easier to rip up the existing asphalt, regrade it and then
lay *new* asphalt!

Paving over a subsurface that needs repair is throwing money away. Every crack
and pothole will reflect right through the new asphalt. Far less labor and cheap
material to rake up the old surface, roll down new roadbase and cover.

Check back with me in a year or so.

My street was a mess of patches and cracked asphalt. My town was going
to mill the surface and then lay asphalt. They changed their minds and
milled only the ends where my street meets the cross streets and then
"raised" the rest of the street with about 3 inches of fresh asphalt.
They then came back and added aprons at each of our driveways to eliminate
the lip.

We'll have to see how this works out as time goes by. The reason it may
work is that there are only 7 houses on my street and it is rarely used
as a through route - usually only when someone is lost. For now, I'm
loving the new road.
We were without pavement for a few weeks last summer as the city
tore out all the (breaking up but not terrible) 40 year old asphalt
paving on the streets in our subdivision, repairing the underying
roadbed (excavating and relaying and tamping the gravel ro a depth of
about 4 feet) then repaving.It'll be another 40 years before they have
to do it again - even being on a bus route.

A patch job would have cost about 1/4, and they'd have been back at it
in 5 or 6 years.....and likely have to do the "whole job" the second
or third time anyway - at a higher cost.

They had patched various spots on my road over the years, mostly around
the 2 man hole covers where the plows bust up the road, plus a few pot holes.

When a neighbor and I went to the town 2 or 3 years ago to complain,
we were told that there were no plans to do anything to our road for the
foreseeable future, as in not for many years. Maybe they would consider a
large patch to encompass a number of smaller degraded patches "next spring".
Come the following spring all they did was repatch the patches that got
damaged by the plow.

Then out of nowhere, we get a letter last August saying not to park on the
street during a specific week because they would be milling the road in
preparation for laying a new surface.

Well, that week comes and goes and we saw no action. When I called I was told
that they decided not to mill the entire street, just the ends, and then to
lay new asphalt over the old. "It wasn't as bad as we originally thought."

Sure, OK. I guess we'll see.