H-Town Man Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 (edited) 21 hours ago, editor said: It feels weird. Familiar, but unfamiliar at the same time. It's like swimming through a repeating dream. Some things are new and unexpected, and some are right where I left them. On a related note — seriously, couldn't you guys fix the roads while I was gone? Shepard, Kirby, Allen Parkway, Texas Avenue, and a bunch of others all have the same potholes in the same places. My pothole-dodging muscle memory came back for all of them. And the railroad crossings! If po-dunk Oshkosh, Wisconsin can get the railroads to upgrade all of its train crossings to make them smooth, surely Houston could do the same. It looks like 90% of the infrastructure tax dollars are spent on ever-widening freeways, and almost nothing goes to the neighborhoods and roads that most people use every day. Sure, the freeways are nice and wide and smooth. But the majority of the streets are atrocious. Some of them wouldn't even be legally considered "streets" in some of the places I've lived. And it's not just me being a jackwagon. I moved here because my wife's company opened a new location. That location brought people from three other cities to Houston, too. Everyone agrees that the streets are garbage. I mentioned it to someone in my building, and the go-to excuse seem to be "Well, the city is built on weak soil. In fact, it's mostly sand, so everything shifts." You know what is built on sand? Las Vegas. Phoenix. Albuquerque. They're built on freaking deserts. The streets are mostly beautiful. And don't point fingers at hurricanes. Nevada has earthquakes. The difference is that in Nevada, the streets are paved with concrete slabs instead of being 15 layers of cold-patch asphalt. Where are all the road tax dollars going? /END RANT Houston isn't built on sand, it's built on clay (with some sand), which fluctuates over time and is a more serious problem for roads and building foundations. There's a reason landscapers put sand under paving stones when they want them to stay put. I think the places out west that have sand also have bedrock, which is even better. All the rainfall doesn't help either. Makes the soil expand and contract. Edited September 16, 2021 by H-Town Man 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samagon Posted September 17, 2021 Share Posted September 17, 2021 (edited) but we can dig under the clay and get to a solid foundation right? lol Edited September 17, 2021 by samagon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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