Can’t grade the tosca (“dirt” ) roads until they dry out. Meanwhile, a challenge to drive. Or walk. Unless you’re a dog.
Yuck.
Tag: roads
Different approaches to filling pot holes
I don’t want to seem judgmental, but
mine’s the one on top.
What? A line?
The repaving of the bus route (see here and here) has actually turned out quite nicely. Avenida Mario Ferreiria has become a pleasure to drive instead of a nightmare. I’m not sure about having a line down the middle of a two-lane road in Uruguay, though, given the challenge so many drivers have deciding whether to drive in a lane or on a line.*
*0:50 here if you missed it
Pothole gods
There must be pothole gods. Or demons. Or entities.
Otherwise — now that our road is fixed and well-drained — why do all the potholes (pozos, same word as well) form right around our driveway?
Today a little kid — just-removed-the-training-wheels little — fell in one of them. Mama cajoled him, stopped his crying, encouraged him back in the saddle to ride on.
And perhaps admonishing him: next time, be careful around THOSE PEOPLE’s driveway.
Further road destruction
The very next day, even further destruction from the detoured buses.
Road repair and destruction
What do you get when you divert buses in order to repair the road they’ve destroyed?
Different destroyed roads.
Street repair
Someone did a nice job of “tiling” a wading-pool-sized puddle that has developed.
Unbelievable?
Before I even got out of bed, I heard machinery in the road. Looked out to see a large truck with a replacement length of plastic culvert. Oh nooo … the definition of insanity and all that.
But wait! It’s smaller (40 cm vs. 50 cm)! It’s got sufficient cover not to be crushed by the weight of a truck!
And it’s …
… done!
¿Solucionado?
Thought the street is still a muddy mess, we got a surprise today when a backhoe appeared and installed plastic culverts, potentially (there remain a few unresolved upstream/upstreet issues) creating a workable drainage system. Whether the plastic culvert, with only a shallow covering, will sustain the weight of trucks full of bricks or tankers from the barimétricos (septic pumpers) remains to be seen.
At the far (downhill) end, you can see the ripples indicating that real flow is going on. The swamp is draining. Given caveats, this represents a great improvement over the last “repairs,” during which the weight of the grader broke the concrete culvert, over which it then spread a fresh load of tosca (pulverized rock), which of course completely blocked the culvert, preventing any drainage. Yours truly opened that up and restored drainage, at the cost of presenting a slight danger to motorists.
It‘s really funny to look at these photos. This place looks so third-worldy. I had the same reaction when I took perhaps my favorite photo in Mexico, without the benefit of being able to see what I was taking a picture of (to not scare momma-or-pappa bird).
Seven years ago. Wow.
Road “repair” — looking ugly
Here we go again…fresh tosca (rock dust, for lack of a better description) and the grader.
Making a mess.
As if to taunt their efforts, rain comes in torrents, turning the road once again into a river, because the “repair” has done nothing to address the crucial issue, that the drainage system is broken.
Can this end well? Stay tuned.