On top of that, there are several other states that mimic Ca. New York comes to mind. I equate driving from Conneticut into New York the same as Oregon into California. Soon as you cross the state line it's pot holes and bad lanes as far as you can see. We joked about it a lot travelling from Hartford Airport and driving into New York. Too funny
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2012 Kodiak 300BHSL Ultimate with Fall Edition Package
2003 Ford Excursion V10
The original freeway designs did not take a lot of things into consideration that they do now. For example the first freeways were in the Los Angeles area and some of those freeways are still in their original format. There is an onramp to one of the oldest freeways down there that has a very short run up area to get up to speed to merge. But the fun part is if you get up to speed and the rude Los Angeles drivers won't let you in, then you run into a giant concrete wall. Back in the 50's they didn't think about things like that. Much of I-5 through central California is actually fairly new as freeways go. I remember sections of it opening back in the 70's. When it first opened people were running out of gas all the time because there were stretches hundreds of miles long with no services.
2004 National Tropi-Cal T-350, Class A, Triple slide, 330 HP Cat DP. 2006 Dodge Dakota 4x4 or
2002 Harley FLSTF Fat Boy on a Trailer or
2004 Polaris Quad on the Trailer
Came home yesterday from near Shasta, Got on I5 in Anderson (10 miles south of Redding). The roads wern't to bad - other then where construction was getting ready for the summer, the patched areas are REALLY bad, looks like they are going to repave over the summer.
California is bad. We choose to spend money on other things (not making a political statement here, just stating a fact that is neither right or wrong) and let road infrastructure deteriorate. Even the patch jobs are rougher at times that the original problem.
There has been a small effort to smooth out some sections of road by scraping smooth that do good. I-5 south of Kettlemen City has seen a huge improvement over 8 years ago and they are doing a massive rebuild there. However, south of Sacramento to Stockton is HORRID right now. I took my TT out for its first run (I live in Sacramento) and thought I was going to literally run off the road when I hit the rough pavement at 55. Take Hwy 99 between the two cities for now as they are only a few miles apart in each city connected by a cross-town connecting freeway that adds only 10 minutes total to your trip, but saves the wear of the rough I-5.
wgriswold wrote: I have noticed that the area under the overpasses is particularly bad and I try to move to the left when approaching them. Does anyone know why these areas are in such poor shape when compared to the awful state of the rest of the road?
Clearance issues. If you pave over the current road, its adds an inch or more to the pavement surface, decreasing an inch or more to the overhead clearance. You would need to change all your clearance charts or scrape the road down to maintain. Just easier to leave alone.
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Jayco 29QBH 2012
First Year with an RV of Any Type
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A couple of winters ago we came back from AZ. through Ca.. We traveled on 99 from Bakersfield to Stockton and then over to I5. We pulled over for the night in a little town called Chowchilla and noticed the 5ver was acting funny when we pulled in to the campground. Looked at it and realized the spring shackels were broke from all the pounding. Man that was rough. That fiver we had did not take to rough road very well and there was a disarray of things inside after that trip. I would still like to visit Cal. again but my first impression was kind of dulled by the rough roads.
2000 H.R. Imperial 38wds rr8r roadmaster, isc 350 cummins
2007 Chevy Trailblazer, Blue ox towbar
Ready Brake with breakaway.
vladen wrote: Im sure they are collecting the revenue for it.
My BIL is a highway engineer for the Feds. Overweight trucks are the cause of 99% of the damage on highways. Over the years, truckers have been able to get their LEGAL loads up well above what the highways are designed for. There is a big disconnect in the system as the loads are increasing, but the funding sources are NOT keeping up with the loads. Add to that problem trucks are VERY often running over the limit and with so few enforcement officers, they often get away with it.
There is another disconnect there as companies "request" that truckers carry too much weight and the truckers don't have much choice, but it's the trucker who gets in trouble when their truck is found overweight.
Add to that the disconnect that "delaying" road repairs saves money NOW, but makes things that much more difficult to fix "the next time", causing even more delays in getting things repaired. On a year-to-year basis, the change is not that easy to see. After 5+ years, the road just falls apart and everyone points the finger at someone else.
So because of all these disconnects, our highway system is falling apart and on one wants to fix it (or at least no one wants to commit money to the issue).
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