[quote name='914_teener' date='Feb 3 2022, 02:56 PM' post='2979257']
[quote name='wonkipop' post='2979240' date='Feb 3 2022, 10:44 AM']
[quote name='914_teener' post='2979043' date='Feb 2 2022, 12:16 PM']
I am in Northern AZ part time where in the Winter it's very common to have snow.

Mostly they use ground pumice as salt is a killer for road surfaces and concrete long term...(I'm a civil engineer). The snow is short lived there genereally but sometimes NOT in my north facing driveway. When I resruface the driveway I'm looking into a paver systems and some type of radiant heating to de-ice it.

As everyone may know by now, bridge appraoches are notorious for icing becuase of the massive thermal mass of the concrete which tends to ice once it reaches gradient temperature. The uses of clorides like salt do massive damages to those approaches and particulary steel structures with concrete decks built back in the seventies.

It's cheap yes but long term the true cost of degradation of roads and bridges is in the billions of dollars.

Be responsible and learn how to drive. I don't expect anyone else to pay for my negiligence in that regard.

One of the reasons I got the Macan P car....AWD on demand. It's an amazing handler in snow with the right tires.
[/quote]

yes - there has been a few bridge collapses in recent years in the USA.
salt and reinforced concrete or steel are not best of friends.
that all catches up as you say.
then its a very big bill and a lot of pressure on govt. budgets to fix it.
these things have a habit of starting to all fail at the same time too.

awd makes a lot of sense in northern regions of the usa.
(makes sense anywhere when you think about it).
[/quote]


Traffic control is all about liability. The Northeastern US uses a lot of salt because....it's a cheap way to de-ice and they have prolonged periods of freezing and sometimes subfreezing temperature.

In AZ...they put a sign well before the bridge warning you....and if you didn't know this about bridge approaches during freezing periods then you should. Normallly the periods of freezing temps don't last as long, so they use crushed pumice instead. Not great for the windshield though, but it's better for the roads and bridges.


That bridge that failed recently wasn't designed to last more than 50 years and the City that was in charge of it ---Pittsburg...likely didn't have the money to pay to fix it.

We'll see what the NTSB comes up with.

I'ts just blind luck nobody was killed.

Shame on the city of Pittsburgh, nothing short of a miracle nobody was seriously injured or killed. Here in Sunny Buffalo the forecast is about 30 hours of steady snow.
Best bet is to steer clear of the idiots, cause there are many

Before you cast stones: 9.4% of bridges in NY Congressional District 26 (home to Buffalo) are currently structurally deficient.

Look up any state/district here.

That bridge in Minneapolis always scared me when I was a kid even though I knew there was no reason to be scared. Then it kinda fell down. Luckily I was long gone by then.

I'll stand by my stones. The bridge was under the jurisdiction of the City of Pittsburgh and fell on the Interstate under FWHA jurisdiction. In 2017 they changed the overall rating for bridge evaluation by limiting it to cetain key elements instead of overall.

So if anything there that failed wasn't technically a key element...then it didn't make that list.


The bridge that failed in Pittsburgh was overall a "4" so thus...didn't rate to be closed. I suspect it will be a while before the NTSB report comes out but I'll bet they'll be looking closely at how the rating system relates to the poor soul or company that did the inspection. Not long ago a guy was drifting down the Mississippi River and saw and documents a huge crack in a tension strut on the I-40 Bridge. Turns out it had not long ago been inspected by ONE guy. They changed that rule too...that two people had to inspect.

Off track here or else Clay will close the thread down...

Get AWD P car and learn to drive

Also avoid the bridges on that list if you can.

I've been on it's sister bridge. It's in New Mexico and it crosses the Rio Grande.

It moves a lot when a big rig drives over it at 70 MpH.

Getting back to salt.... My wife worked for a local watershed association and provides me with the information on brine:
1. Overall, it's more expensive - needs tanks, special spray systems and its water so less impact per pound of active (brine) ingredient.
2. It reduces impacts on local runoff by applying it directly to where it's wanted and doesn't bounce/get smashed and swept into the local streams. In NJ's Great Swamp the salt levels get quite high after salting episodes
3. Overall, it's not as effective though were it's applied (targeted areas only) it does well and there aren't those large piles left with the rock salt spreaders start or stop.
My solution is just to stay home, but then I now have that option.....

I used to deliver pizza in a dodge Omni during 50 year blizzards back in Minnesota. You don't need 4 wheel drive until you get in trouble (for most driving, Ithaca, hilly places etc are different). Until you get in trouble it just makes you drive faster than you probably should. I remember driving to college in my 82 imperial. I stopped in the middle of the highway and opened my door to check out how thick the ice I was. Easily 1/2 inch. Just kept driving. Nice and slow, 200 miles. When I drove my 540 to Rochester NY during a storm I remember two things, the suvs in the ditch, and the guy behind me losing it, probably betting if my V8 rwd 255r40r17 equiped bmw can handle it, so could his front wheel drive Nissan or whatever it was. I take snow tires seriously, the blizzaks on that thing we're awesome and not cheap. Even my explorer has snow tires.

Snow tires are the bomb. My WRX with a set of snows could go anywhere so long as the snow was not deep enough to start ripping off body panels.

With the Challenger I just have the stock all season tires, but it does not get driven in the snow.

The 4Runner has a set of Wildpeaks which, though marked with the "three peak" rating for snow truck tires - they suck in comparison to actual snow tires. My WRX felt more planted then my 4Runners does, though my 4R can chew through a LOT deeper snow.

Zach

I live in the low desert in So. Cal, and we have sand on the roads all year long...Just in case.

That hurts. We have 8 inches of old snow with a tenth of an inch of ice on that covered by 3 inches of rain/sleet heading in to probably 4-8 inches of snow overnight. It's starting to feel like I won't see my fun cars till June...

I remember the discussion when I lived in Michigan many years ago about salt. Salt was cheap and road clearing was different budget from road repair. They did a big study on salt alternatives and found they were just effective and caused less road damage (and car damage as well). However because repair budget was a different budget from removal they were not going to use alternatives even though it would be lower total cost, different budgets. Unfortunately we have so many things that we don't look at the total cost of, only the short term of what is least expensive now.

john