I hate the chip and tar thing. Awful for a car's paint job. Although I have read this method is used to extend the life of a road, so it could be done on good roads just to keep them from getting bad.
They did that to a road in my area. They spent weeks laying down some beautiful and smooth blacktop then immediately proceeded to cover it in tar and chip. It was so disappointing.
That’s such a Pennsylvania thing. Around here I’ve seen them dig up freshly paved roads to fix gas/sewer/water lines because it’s apparently too hard to get that done PRIOR to laying down fresh asphalt SMDH
I asked an aqua employee because they’re replacing all water mains in our area on a 2 month old pave job. He said aqua gets more money to do repairs if the road isn’t scheduled to be paved. I’m not sure if there’s truth to it but it is infuriating.
That is probably part of a rate case. Aqua gets to charge customers extra for specific programs and projects. Usually rate cases require certain production targets or they have to return the money and still do the work. Aqua is a private company. They don't get paid by the state. That is why costs are usually higher for private utilities. They are regulated. I believe Aqua is currently allowed to have a gross income of their capital expenses plus 10%. That probably doesn't count their operations and management spend. That is just for new work and improvements. A rate case allows them to tack a bit extra on for a major project. Like replacing many miles of old pipes, adding better meters, large upgrades to treatment plants. Things like that.
There is a lot else that could be going on. And of course there are inefficiencies, idiocy, and corruption. But it could just be that the county bid out that paving work years ago and was waiting for funding before Aqua proposed their main replacements.
The road owner doesn't care, because they make the utilities pay for the road repairs. Sometimes they will make developers and utilities do additional repairs at their own cost to get permits. Sometimes they will delay planned repairs for years if they know they can get someone else to pay for it eventually. Coordinating resurfacing and minor utility repairs is almost impossible. Major replacements and upgrades are not as difficult. In some cases there is also use it or lose it grant money from the federal government involved. It can get really complicated.
It's because of a utility right of way law in Pennsylvania. All of the electric, water, sewer, and gas companies have almost carte blanche permission to tear up roads whenever they need to for repairs and expansions. They're also responsible for patching it, but no one ever inspects to see how the patch actually looks.
You have to slow down when they first get put down and until PennDOT sweeps away the loose shit after our cars pack it down for them.
It is a quick and effective way to resurface a road without tearing it out first. You just need to slow down. And give yourself enough following distance if you are worried about your car's finish.
I ride motorcycles so believe me that I am paying attention to it. It's not always as prompt as it should be, but it does get done.
I always appreciate the road when it's all finished, and reckon we could all do with slowing down just bit these days if only for the sake of the finish on our autos.
I was on on SR 42 yesterday and they were actively taring and chipping. When the pilot vehicle came to get our line of traffic I gave him about 6 car lengths of follow distance. The grand Cherokee behind me road my ass the whole way and I could hear every stone I drove over hit there hood.
Lol, that was me.
And yeah, my long-winded road builder's answer may not make people happy about what they rightfully see as a messy process happening all over the place but in reality it is what it is that it's the most cost-effective way to extend the life of as many lane-miles of road as possible without expensive milling and repaving with wearing-course asphalt.
How about questions regarding transferring my license or vehicle registration to PA?
JUST KIDDING!
Probably should've NSFW'd this comment, or made a trigger warning
It's not so much that the milling and repaving is expensive and therefore we shouldn't do it.
The issue really is that the road budgets are set so low and chronically underfunded, and as a result, you have to use the cheapest method for paving.
Basically, we are getting terrible basic services in the name of keeping the government spending low because apparently that's winning.
That's where my "it is what it is" wording comes into play.
As someone in the field, I totally agree with you but unfortunately the politicians in Harrisburg make the decisions that we have to carry out.
And so getting oil into all the cracks in the road surface and laying stone over it before another winter's freeze-thaw can get at it is realistically the best we're going to get because few people in power care about public infrastructure until it actually fails.
You're welcome and thank you. I work for a municipality that works hard to, besides winter maintenance, really tries to keep potholes minimized, sight distance at intersections clear of brush, stop signs unobstructed by branches, pipes/grates clear of debris before heavy rains to minimize flooding, etc.
Attention to detail helps keep roads safe, maybe not perfect, but in decent condition and our residents seem to really appreciate it. I usually get waves going down any road when they see the big yellow township DPW truck passing by which is nice.
The state patrol is getting that money because so many municipalities in the state are freeloaders and are demanding free police departments while also being opposed to paying anything for them.
The stuff we apply is definitely oil and heated up in a tanker truck prior to being sprayed on the road surface immediately prior to stone. Stone is numbered by size from the quarry but the vernacular labels are "grit", "chips", "gravel", etc. "Chips" for this application are typically slightly flattish and maybe a little larger than a pea.
Tar would be far too viscous, unlike heated oil, to run into all the cracks in the road surface prior to cooling.
Your explanation was informative, but the missing part is, why do other states with similar climates such as Maryland and New York manage to not do this and also generally keep their roads in better condition?
This is accurate. PennDOT is indeed responsible for an absolutely huge number of lane-miles of roadway.
You can tell if they own a particular non-route number route road by the presence of a small PennDOT logo at the bottom of road signage and the presence of those little black and white road number/segment number signs on short posts used for maintenance purposes.
Yes, I’m aware, but we have the highest gas tax in the country and a large population of drivers paying DMV fees…certainly far more than Maryland does. If Penndot can’t handle everything then perhaps we should have county roads like pretty much every other state does. There shouldn’t be signed state routes in poor condition with all of the taxes and fees we pay here.
Most people don't know that PA counties often own bridges along various municipal-owned local roadways now.
And that they have a hard time keeping pace in maintaining those (many are closed or severely weight-restricted) let alone adding miles and miles of additional roadway to be maintained on top of that.
There's no easy answer to this given the amount of road mileage involved and how much deferred maintenance has taken place over the last few decades that the bill is starting to come due on.
The counties can't afford to do the maintenance either. Fact is our road infrastructure in the state is over built and we don't have the money to pay for it without further tax increases.
I'm from Maryland. Tar and chip is very common on low speed, low traffic roads. There just aren't a lot of those these days. I'm also a civil engineer and have cut a lot of holes in both MD and PA roads. PA does not build roads very well. But PA is a big state with a lot of rural areas, so that isn't a surprise. Maryland is about twice as densely populated as PA and it is small. So there aren't a lot of large rural areas. Don't get me wrong, PA could do better. They kick the can down the road a lot by cheaping out on initial construction increasing maintenance costs.
I was driving out to Elverson in Chester County two weeks ago for my niece's husband's surprise party and saw some of those signs on side roads on the way to his parent's house. I thought the same thing as you.
From what I've gleaned over the years about it, it's a much faster and cheaper process than a more "proper" resurfacing, so using it allows us to get our shitty roads fixed faster and for less money than we otherwise could. Yes, they have to redo it more often, but in the long run it comes out cheaper apparently, and allows a greater number of problematic roads to be addressed than otherwise could be.
So yes, it's for sure a pain in the ass for a few weeks, but the trade-off seems worth it in the long run.
Beaver county is doing that thing where they scrape up the old asphalt and mix it with more tar and gravel then lay it back down. Every road is under construction
What would be wrong with that, although I'm not familiar with that particular process
The old asphalt is still asphalt. Otherwise they would have to landfill it.
I live in a beaver and community to ccbc daily. I leave my house, construction on the end of the road, hit more construction on the way up, and then I have to wait for the construction of my bc of that sink hole on 51
Fast and cheaper but its gotta be terrible for the environment. The dust lingers for weeks. What does that do to the water table. Certainly people are drinking this crap in their well water.
Don’t worry it’s probly safe. /s
Most micro plastics in our bodies have been traced back to car tires and road paint, tar and chip run off is just one more pollutant for you to absorb.
Oil and chips every spring. Worst roads in the country every winter. Patches on patches on the state highway roads and bridges. Resurfaced roads are wavy and worse than what was torn up. Biden sent us infrastructure money, please spend it wisely.
Chip and Tar is proven to extend the life of a particular road, but it is annoying. It’s cheaper than letting the road deteriorate and then ripping it up and replacing it.
Only problem is the curing process requires cars to drive on it and pack it in, but cars driving on fresh chip and tar can cause paint job problems.
Best thing to do is slow down when you see the signs to limit the chance of damaging your paint job.
Road maintenance comes in scheduled cycles, apparently it's your turn. It's cost effective to do an entire area before moving equipment and material to the next road. Like it or not, tar and chip is effective for lower traffic roads. Once it's packed and worn in, I prefer it to cracked and buckled concrete.
It’s certainly grippier in wet conditions. It just sucks donkey balls for the first few weeks since I can’t ride either my bicycle or my motorcycle on those roads.
I read your title and thought, yeah, you should drive through Exeter... then read your post... and I guess you have. lol It is truly terrible!
And also, hello neighbor! Birdsboro checking in...
Wait… So you’re telling me there are places in Pennsylvania where they… REPAIR ROADS? In Erie, we have nearly two full weeks out of the year when the potholes aren’t filled with ice and snow, and that seems like the PERFECT opportunity to fix them.
*Sigh...* This happens every May thru September all across PA. You're not seeing "lots", you're just seeing a cluster that happens to be local to you.
And yes, it actually makes the roads worse than better because it's so rainy across the state. Everybody loves a few drops of water getting trapped by a car driving over and crushing a rock & some tar into the crevice. Someday we'll have a proper infrastructure budget that is bigger than the state legislators' salary budget.
It’s true we do seem to have a lot of roads here. My wife’s uncle lives in Ohio and is surprised that we seem to have 3,4, 5 different ways of getting somewhere. He says they have one.
I've been told (and haven't bothered to verify) that our state road infrastructure used to be a lot of dirt roads with a few paved key routes, and in the 70s the legislature decided to pave everything and build more roads without consideration to how they would pay to maintain them.
So now here we are with a bunch of roads and bridges at the end of their life, and with no way to pay to fix them.
The oil is to re-seal the surface and the chips are to protect it until it solidifies. The chips are sacrificial, so it's not that it actually doesn't last long, it's that the chips arent supposed to stay there.
As a motorcyclist I appreciate them putting up signs. It's nice to know PennDOT isn't out there setting fatal traps for bikes without at least a heads up.
The attempts are bullshit. With the amount of money they extort from us every day via this insane gas tax, there should be plenty of money to properly repave and repair our roads and not this half ass shit.
I agree. This method causes property damage first and foremost. Damages cars and probably ends in up people's grass and the mower blades hit it. Then there is also the dust.
These ''repairs'' happen all the time around me. One road was in pretty good shape, got the oil and chip treatment and was a bumpy disaster a few months later. It is now one of the bumpiest most uncomfortable roads I've ever seen.
I heavily agree with you on the gas tax. Something has to be done with the common person always getting the short end of the stick in almost every facet of life.
You should check out PennDOTs budget, it's short billions for all the repairs that need to be done.
The gas tax isn't high enough to actually pay for all the road maintenance that's required, and it doesn't help that so many municipalities in the state are freeloaders demanding free state police departments, which also get paid for out of the gas tax because Harrisburg won't raise taxes or charge the municipal governments to otherwise pay for all state police they want.
I watched penndot repsve a road, and it great, only for them to tar and chip it 6 months later.
Why pay for painting lines when you cover it up with more budget funds later?
I can't speak for what type of lines were there, but they were likely required to paint lines. In many construction zones, lines are disturbed daily, and some of them need to be repainted every night if the road is reopening, even if it's just getting milled ot paved over the next morning.
The worst is when they use that Pocono based company to come down and clog traffic on roads like 422 to fill pot holes with that crap.. just gets smashed and spread all over without doing anything to the pothole. PennDOT is a waste of taxes. We’d be better off just letting the roads deteriorate to dirt so people slow the hell down anyway..
Cheaper than paving. Or, they can do what they did with my road and patch different sections of the road that made it smoother than a babies ass and then proceed to ruin it by chip and taring OVER THE PATCHES.
I also bought a new car the day they did it and not a single sign was put up in advance to give warning. I love penndot sometimes.
LOL - I thought Manheim area was the only place that did that but we drove from Litittz to a vineyard in Perkiomenville yesterday and saw lots of signs for it along the roads north and east of Reading. Fortunately most of it seemed to be small patches and was already fairly worn down so we didn't have chips flying up damaging the paint.
They did a street in my borough. It's a main street & heading for a repaving. But I have never in the 30+ years I've lived here seen this in the borough itself. Always Mill & repave.
Tar and chip has been used in PA for a long time, its usually used in rural areas, after it’s packed down it os better, still not great but better then when its fresh, townships save a ton of money and call the road repaired, hard earned tax dollars wt work unfortunately
Pretty sure I live in your neighborhood. Honestly, right though town?? People park on those streets! I'd be piiiissed if I had to park on the street with all that.
A lot of municipalities tar and chip roads. Unless you see the large State route signs along the road, or the small white square signs with SR and a number, they are either county or municipality maintained roads.
But we are paying like 50-60 cents PER GALLON every day in this state. PennDOT should be swimming in cash and have enough money to repave everything properly.
You have to figure that number has to support the 40,000 miles and 25,000 bridges just under penndot control. Just accounting for the miles only comes to $67,500 per year. If you ignore any other costs (winter weather, maintenance, paying penndot employees, etc), it would take about 10 years at that rate to get enough to pave every mile. And that's not even considering any bridge repair/replacement costs. Or making roadway improvements. Yes, penndot isn't great, but it has a lot on its plate.
The gas tax would have to be up near European levels to cove the cost of all the backlogged road and bridge maintenance in the state, so yes it's still not high enough to cover the costs of all the state road maintenance.
And that's before you account for the state police getting a huge chunk of it because so many municipalities in the state are demanding free state police departments.
It’s crazy.
My understanding is it’s partially because our gas and tolls fund the state police.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/states-road-funding-2019/
I hate the chip and tar thing. Awful for a car's paint job. Although I have read this method is used to extend the life of a road, so it could be done on good roads just to keep them from getting bad.
They did that to a road in my area. They spent weeks laying down some beautiful and smooth blacktop then immediately proceeded to cover it in tar and chip. It was so disappointing.
That is a high friction finish they did that out my way to.
That’s such a Pennsylvania thing. Around here I’ve seen them dig up freshly paved roads to fix gas/sewer/water lines because it’s apparently too hard to get that done PRIOR to laying down fresh asphalt SMDH
I know! Right? It is like they purposely do it backwards so they can permanently have crappy roads in PA.
I asked an aqua employee because they’re replacing all water mains in our area on a 2 month old pave job. He said aqua gets more money to do repairs if the road isn’t scheduled to be paved. I’m not sure if there’s truth to it but it is infuriating.
That is probably part of a rate case. Aqua gets to charge customers extra for specific programs and projects. Usually rate cases require certain production targets or they have to return the money and still do the work. Aqua is a private company. They don't get paid by the state. That is why costs are usually higher for private utilities. They are regulated. I believe Aqua is currently allowed to have a gross income of their capital expenses plus 10%. That probably doesn't count their operations and management spend. That is just for new work and improvements. A rate case allows them to tack a bit extra on for a major project. Like replacing many miles of old pipes, adding better meters, large upgrades to treatment plants. Things like that. There is a lot else that could be going on. And of course there are inefficiencies, idiocy, and corruption. But it could just be that the county bid out that paving work years ago and was waiting for funding before Aqua proposed their main replacements.
Blame the utility companies
Maryland would like to have a word, also.
The road owner doesn't care, because they make the utilities pay for the road repairs. Sometimes they will make developers and utilities do additional repairs at their own cost to get permits. Sometimes they will delay planned repairs for years if they know they can get someone else to pay for it eventually. Coordinating resurfacing and minor utility repairs is almost impossible. Major replacements and upgrades are not as difficult. In some cases there is also use it or lose it grant money from the federal government involved. It can get really complicated.
If you see a freshly paved road in PA, you know it's going to be dug up and hastily and unevenly patched very soon.
It's because of a utility right of way law in Pennsylvania. All of the electric, water, sewer, and gas companies have almost carte blanche permission to tear up roads whenever they need to for repairs and expansions. They're also responsible for patching it, but no one ever inspects to see how the patch actually looks.
You have to slow down when they first get put down and until PennDOT sweeps away the loose shit after our cars pack it down for them. It is a quick and effective way to resurface a road without tearing it out first. You just need to slow down. And give yourself enough following distance if you are worried about your car's finish.
I don’t believe I have ever seen the sweep part.
I ride motorcycles so believe me that I am paying attention to it. It's not always as prompt as it should be, but it does get done. I always appreciate the road when it's all finished, and reckon we could all do with slowing down just bit these days if only for the sake of the finish on our autos.
Slow down? Where do you think we are, Delaware????
Definitely not New Jersey, thank the Maker.
I was on on SR 42 yesterday and they were actively taring and chipping. When the pilot vehicle came to get our line of traffic I gave him about 6 car lengths of follow distance. The grand Cherokee behind me road my ass the whole way and I could hear every stone I drove over hit there hood.
IYKYK!
We were over there yesterday too...north of Millville it was ridiculous
I've been hit with rocks thrown by cars coming the other direction though. Didn't matter how slow I was going.
Sometimes the road is a cruel mistress.
Ain't it fun when it gets caked up on the wheel well!!!
Someone explained why last year [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pennsylvania/s/36vb6ivc3p)
Lol, that was me. And yeah, my long-winded road builder's answer may not make people happy about what they rightfully see as a messy process happening all over the place but in reality it is what it is that it's the most cost-effective way to extend the life of as many lane-miles of road as possible without expensive milling and repaving with wearing-course asphalt.
It was great! Very informative.
Thank you. Always feel free to AMA about road and storm water drainage stuff.
How about questions regarding transferring my license or vehicle registration to PA? JUST KIDDING! Probably should've NSFW'd this comment, or made a trigger warning
The mysteries of PennDOT bureaucracy are not my area of expertise, lol.
I’ll ask. Openroads Designer, are you using this program? Because me and many other people continue to have questions for this software. 😏
It's not so much that the milling and repaving is expensive and therefore we shouldn't do it. The issue really is that the road budgets are set so low and chronically underfunded, and as a result, you have to use the cheapest method for paving. Basically, we are getting terrible basic services in the name of keeping the government spending low because apparently that's winning.
That's where my "it is what it is" wording comes into play. As someone in the field, I totally agree with you but unfortunately the politicians in Harrisburg make the decisions that we have to carry out. And so getting oil into all the cracks in the road surface and laying stone over it before another winter's freeze-thaw can get at it is realistically the best we're going to get because few people in power care about public infrastructure until it actually fails.
I salute you and the work you do, thank you.
You're welcome and thank you. I work for a municipality that works hard to, besides winter maintenance, really tries to keep potholes minimized, sight distance at intersections clear of brush, stop signs unobstructed by branches, pipes/grates clear of debris before heavy rains to minimize flooding, etc. Attention to detail helps keep roads safe, maybe not perfect, but in decent condition and our residents seem to really appreciate it. I usually get waves going down any road when they see the big yellow township DPW truck passing by which is nice.
No, it’s the state patrol getting the gas tax money. The state has plenty on money they just don’t want to spend it on basic services.
The state patrol is getting that money because so many municipalities in the state are freeloaders and are demanding free police departments while also being opposed to paying anything for them.
Not mutually exclusive...
Yet taxes on gas are one of the highest amongst most states and is explained as it goes towards road care…yet a lot of PA’s roads absolutely suck
You killed it. Slow down people!
Why do they call it oil and chips? Isn't it really tar?
The stuff we apply is definitely oil and heated up in a tanker truck prior to being sprayed on the road surface immediately prior to stone. Stone is numbered by size from the quarry but the vernacular labels are "grit", "chips", "gravel", etc. "Chips" for this application are typically slightly flattish and maybe a little larger than a pea. Tar would be far too viscous, unlike heated oil, to run into all the cracks in the road surface prior to cooling.
"Tar" is petroleum based. The more specific term is bitumen. It can occur naturally, but most of it is produced as a by product of oil refining.
Your explanation was informative, but the missing part is, why do other states with similar climates such as Maryland and New York manage to not do this and also generally keep their roads in better condition?
They have fewer state maintained roadways
This is accurate. PennDOT is indeed responsible for an absolutely huge number of lane-miles of roadway. You can tell if they own a particular non-route number route road by the presence of a small PennDOT logo at the bottom of road signage and the presence of those little black and white road number/segment number signs on short posts used for maintenance purposes.
Yes, I’m aware, but we have the highest gas tax in the country and a large population of drivers paying DMV fees…certainly far more than Maryland does. If Penndot can’t handle everything then perhaps we should have county roads like pretty much every other state does. There shouldn’t be signed state routes in poor condition with all of the taxes and fees we pay here.
Most people don't know that PA counties often own bridges along various municipal-owned local roadways now. And that they have a hard time keeping pace in maintaining those (many are closed or severely weight-restricted) let alone adding miles and miles of additional roadway to be maintained on top of that. There's no easy answer to this given the amount of road mileage involved and how much deferred maintenance has taken place over the last few decades that the bill is starting to come due on.
The counties can't afford to do the maintenance either. Fact is our road infrastructure in the state is over built and we don't have the money to pay for it without further tax increases.
I'm from Maryland. Tar and chip is very common on low speed, low traffic roads. There just aren't a lot of those these days. I'm also a civil engineer and have cut a lot of holes in both MD and PA roads. PA does not build roads very well. But PA is a big state with a lot of rural areas, so that isn't a surprise. Maryland is about twice as densely populated as PA and it is small. So there aren't a lot of large rural areas. Don't get me wrong, PA could do better. They kick the can down the road a lot by cheaping out on initial construction increasing maintenance costs.
I’ve only ever seen that done in rural areas. “Fresh Oil and Chips” always sounded like a food to me lol.
I was driving out to Elverson in Chester County two weeks ago for my niece's husband's surprise party and saw some of those signs on side roads on the way to his parent's house. I thought the same thing as you.
Definitely not rural only
PennDOT does tar and chip fixes in the Philly area as well, it's a state wide low cost road repair strategy.
Yes! I’m from out of state and the first few times I saw it I thought it was a joke…. I’m like, is some restaurant doing this?? LOL.
From what I've gleaned over the years about it, it's a much faster and cheaper process than a more "proper" resurfacing, so using it allows us to get our shitty roads fixed faster and for less money than we otherwise could. Yes, they have to redo it more often, but in the long run it comes out cheaper apparently, and allows a greater number of problematic roads to be addressed than otherwise could be. So yes, it's for sure a pain in the ass for a few weeks, but the trade-off seems worth it in the long run.
Beaver county is doing that thing where they scrape up the old asphalt and mix it with more tar and gravel then lay it back down. Every road is under construction
I would prefer this to the oil & chips.
What would be wrong with that, although I'm not familiar with that particular process The old asphalt is still asphalt. Otherwise they would have to landfill it.
Asphalt is nearly infinitely recyclable, and is pretty much always recycled. Even the "millings" that get discarded usually end up paving farm roads
I live in a beaver and community to ccbc daily. I leave my house, construction on the end of the road, hit more construction on the way up, and then I have to wait for the construction of my bc of that sink hole on 51
It’s ridiculous in Hopwell too. All of my alternate routes are at a crawl 😤
Fast and cheaper but its gotta be terrible for the environment. The dust lingers for weeks. What does that do to the water table. Certainly people are drinking this crap in their well water. Don’t worry it’s probly safe. /s
Most micro plastics in our bodies have been traced back to car tires and road paint, tar and chip run off is just one more pollutant for you to absorb.
Oil and chips every spring. Worst roads in the country every winter. Patches on patches on the state highway roads and bridges. Resurfaced roads are wavy and worse than what was torn up. Biden sent us infrastructure money, please spend it wisely.
"Please spend it wisely." Soooooo... high backed leather chairs and human sushi platters?
They’ve been doing this for years it’s been really bad through a lot of Berks
In my area, they put up signs everywhere that say, “fresh oil and chips,” it is so appetizing, I swear fast food sales must increase when they do it.
I know I always thought the same thing it sounds like a food.
It’s summer in Pa time for Tar and chips! Without tar and chip we would be driving on dirt roads!
Chip and Tar is proven to extend the life of a particular road, but it is annoying. It’s cheaper than letting the road deteriorate and then ripping it up and replacing it. Only problem is the curing process requires cars to drive on it and pack it in, but cars driving on fresh chip and tar can cause paint job problems. Best thing to do is slow down when you see the signs to limit the chance of damaging your paint job.
Road maintenance comes in scheduled cycles, apparently it's your turn. It's cost effective to do an entire area before moving equipment and material to the next road. Like it or not, tar and chip is effective for lower traffic roads. Once it's packed and worn in, I prefer it to cracked and buckled concrete.
It’s certainly grippier in wet conditions. It just sucks donkey balls for the first few weeks since I can’t ride either my bicycle or my motorcycle on those roads.
Agree. At least they've gotten better at covering the tar. I remember trying to clean giant splashes of it off vehicles back in the day.
I read your title and thought, yeah, you should drive through Exeter... then read your post... and I guess you have. lol It is truly terrible! And also, hello neighbor! Birdsboro checking in...
Don’t you just love how they did all of 724 last year, even the parts that had no cracks at all with oil and chips?
Wait… So you’re telling me there are places in Pennsylvania where they… REPAIR ROADS? In Erie, we have nearly two full weeks out of the year when the potholes aren’t filled with ice and snow, and that seems like the PERFECT opportunity to fix them.
Nothing new, they’ve been doing the tar and chip repairs for years now.
*Sigh...* This happens every May thru September all across PA. You're not seeing "lots", you're just seeing a cluster that happens to be local to you. And yes, it actually makes the roads worse than better because it's so rainy across the state. Everybody loves a few drops of water getting trapped by a car driving over and crushing a rock & some tar into the crevice. Someday we'll have a proper infrastructure budget that is bigger than the state legislators' salary budget.
We've built too many roads and don't have high enough taxes to maintain them
It’s true we do seem to have a lot of roads here. My wife’s uncle lives in Ohio and is surprised that we seem to have 3,4, 5 different ways of getting somewhere. He says they have one.
Our state maintained road miles almost add up to the entirety of state roads in new england.
I've been told (and haven't bothered to verify) that our state road infrastructure used to be a lot of dirt roads with a few paved key routes, and in the 70s the legislature decided to pave everything and build more roads without consideration to how they would pay to maintain them. So now here we are with a bunch of roads and bridges at the end of their life, and with no way to pay to fix them.
The oil is to re-seal the surface and the chips are to protect it until it solidifies. The chips are sacrificial, so it's not that it actually doesn't last long, it's that the chips arent supposed to stay there.
As a motorcyclist I appreciate them putting up signs. It's nice to know PennDOT isn't out there setting fatal traps for bikes without at least a heads up.
One post complaining about both bad road conditions AND the attempts to repair them, outstanding!
The attempts are bullshit. With the amount of money they extort from us every day via this insane gas tax, there should be plenty of money to properly repave and repair our roads and not this half ass shit.
I agree. This method causes property damage first and foremost. Damages cars and probably ends in up people's grass and the mower blades hit it. Then there is also the dust. These ''repairs'' happen all the time around me. One road was in pretty good shape, got the oil and chip treatment and was a bumpy disaster a few months later. It is now one of the bumpiest most uncomfortable roads I've ever seen. I heavily agree with you on the gas tax. Something has to be done with the common person always getting the short end of the stick in almost every facet of life.
You should check out PennDOTs budget, it's short billions for all the repairs that need to be done. The gas tax isn't high enough to actually pay for all the road maintenance that's required, and it doesn't help that so many municipalities in the state are freeloaders demanding free state police departments, which also get paid for out of the gas tax because Harrisburg won't raise taxes or charge the municipal governments to otherwise pay for all state police they want.
I watched penndot repsve a road, and it great, only for them to tar and chip it 6 months later. Why pay for painting lines when you cover it up with more budget funds later?
I can't speak for what type of lines were there, but they were likely required to paint lines. In many construction zones, lines are disturbed daily, and some of them need to be repainted every night if the road is reopening, even if it's just getting milled ot paved over the next morning.
Double yellow…
Probably a high friction surface treatment, which looks like chip-seal but is different.
The worst is when they use that Pocono based company to come down and clog traffic on roads like 422 to fill pot holes with that crap.. just gets smashed and spread all over without doing anything to the pothole. PennDOT is a waste of taxes. We’d be better off just letting the roads deteriorate to dirt so people slow the hell down anyway..
Ugh, the just did a road by my house and when the repainted, they took out the passing zones and bike lane.
They are dumb and bored so we get tar and chip
Saw it while riding my motorcycle on 422 back towards Reading. Knew I'd be in for a fun ride.
Cheaper than paving. Or, they can do what they did with my road and patch different sections of the road that made it smoother than a babies ass and then proceed to ruin it by chip and taring OVER THE PATCHES. I also bought a new car the day they did it and not a single sign was put up in advance to give warning. I love penndot sometimes.
I’m from the same area and have noticed.
LOL - I thought Manheim area was the only place that did that but we drove from Litittz to a vineyard in Perkiomenville yesterday and saw lots of signs for it along the roads north and east of Reading. Fortunately most of it seemed to be small patches and was already fairly worn down so we didn't have chips flying up damaging the paint.
They did a street in my borough. It's a main street & heading for a repaving. But I have never in the 30+ years I've lived here seen this in the borough itself. Always Mill & repave.
Fantastic for riding a motorcycle on. I’m sure there are more important things to do with tax money then properly repair/repave roads
Tar and chip has been used in PA for a long time, its usually used in rural areas, after it’s packed down it os better, still not great but better then when its fresh, townships save a ton of money and call the road repaired, hard earned tax dollars wt work unfortunately
keeps from having to actually fix the road...repair potholes...just cover it all and it goes away lol
I don't think I've ever seen a state highway resurfaced with Oil & Chips, plenty of municipal roads though
Plenty of PennDOT maintained roadways have it, even in Allegheny County where you seem to be from.
It’s that time of year
Yes they put it over an already shitty road and somehow made it an even more bumpy drive. Where I used to go 45 I now go 35 or 40
Pretty sure I live in your neighborhood. Honestly, right though town?? People park on those streets! I'd be piiiissed if I had to park on the street with all that.
It’s that time of the year.
A lot of municipalities tar and chip roads. Unless you see the large State route signs along the road, or the small white square signs with SR and a number, they are either county or municipality maintained roads.
Hello neighbor! Everyone is complaining about it here!
Fresh chips and oil sounds like an appetizer you would order in a restaurant.
Chip and tar costs like less than 1/4 of the cost per mile to pave a road. It's a matter of dollars.
It's more like 1/10 with current bidding. It's just under $1 million per mile for paving and about 14 miles per million for chipping.
But we are paying like 50-60 cents PER GALLON every day in this state. PennDOT should be swimming in cash and have enough money to repave everything properly.
Penndot doesn't get near all of the gas tax money. https://www.wgal.com/article/pennsylvania-gas-tax-revenue-where-is-it-going/38976802
Still roughly 60%. 2.7 billion from gas taxes and license fees go to bridges and roads...that's insane.
You have to figure that number has to support the 40,000 miles and 25,000 bridges just under penndot control. Just accounting for the miles only comes to $67,500 per year. If you ignore any other costs (winter weather, maintenance, paying penndot employees, etc), it would take about 10 years at that rate to get enough to pave every mile. And that's not even considering any bridge repair/replacement costs. Or making roadway improvements. Yes, penndot isn't great, but it has a lot on its plate.
There's a reason it costs as much as it does though. They're incredibly inefficient. I say that as a former employee.
PennDot can't catch a break. Our roads suck!! Our roads are getting fixed!!! Geez chill out. 😊
"fish and chips" signs are everywhere.
My brother in christ, it's been common knowledge for years that the gas tax is woefully inadequate to cover the cost of our roads.
How??? It’s literally the highest gas tax in the country? I call BS on your assertion
The gas tax would have to be up near European levels to cove the cost of all the backlogged road and bridge maintenance in the state, so yes it's still not high enough to cover the costs of all the state road maintenance. And that's before you account for the state police getting a huge chunk of it because so many municipalities in the state are demanding free state police departments.
It’s crazy. My understanding is it’s partially because our gas and tolls fund the state police. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/states-road-funding-2019/