[seldom_seen]

It could be quite a short time before the road system dilapidates in to something that is not useful for cars and trucks. There are very many benefits to this though:

The highway/road system will be fit for bicycles and horses, mule teams. Now it is only fit for high speed, high pollution, fossil fueled vehicles going nowhere fast. Kunstler wrote the "Geography of Nowhere," but it is not a cliche.

High speed transportation wipes out the sense of space and time. As lovely as it is to fly from San Francisco to London in one day. It is more a novelty than any sort of accomplishment. The world has been reduced to a global grid of walmart/starbucks/mcdonalds reachable from anywhere at anytime. There are many who accept this as the "status quo." As if frequent travel on jet planes, and cross country interstate highway trips are some sort of accepted and permanent state of our civilization.

The reality is that reality it is flleeting. Most people reading this will not be flying on planes anywhere at anytime very soon. The airlines will go under and so will the highways.

The displacement of fossil fuels will be met by the replacement of space, time and location. For everything we lose, we will gain more.

[grampybone]

With the cost of everything rising, especially oil and oil based products, city governments are going to eliminate spending on some things at the expense of other things. I would expect road repair to be pushed to lower on the priority list.

[Cloud9]

After the big time contractors go broke and their lobbyist can no longer influence legislatures, the states will rediscover chain gang labor squads. Convicts will do much of the repair. During the great depression being unemployed and a nonresident was a crime. County work farms abounded.

[kjmclark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')t's not just 18 wheelers that chew up the roads. In colder climates you have potholes develop from the water freeze/melt cycles.

[Heineken]

This issue is one of those enormous, under-the-radar icebergs. (So too are all other kinds of infrastructure maintenance, including home maintenance as I mentioned in another thread.)

I wonder if the lightweight, relatively-low-power alternative vehicles people are talking about will be able to negotiate the future's crumbled roadways.

The irony could be that only the Jeeps, Hummers, and F-250s will be suited for those roads---vehicles that few will be able to afford to drive.

Mountain bikes could do it too, perhaps (in the hands of strong, younger people), but they will be part of the collapsed economy.

[Cloud9]

When the million dollar projects begin to slide, a lot of asphalt plants will shut down. The the smaller plants will turn out twenty to thirty tons a day. That will patch most of the pot holes. In a county wide area.

In Florida we are not above filling holes with limestone and shell. A lot of back roads are clay or shell.

My dad helped build most of the roads in Highlands County. I was running a motor grader when I was 12. I do have a little background in this area

[Ludi]

The county stopped repairing our one-lane road, and instead just put up "Caution: rough road" signs.

It'll be interesting to see how degraded the road gets before they fix it, if they ever do.

Oh well, maybe it will slow people down a little.......

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')he county stopped repairing our one-lane road, and instead just put up "Caution: rough road" signs.
It'll be interesting to see how degraded the road gets before they fix it, if they ever do.
Oh well, maybe it will slow people down a little.......

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', ' ') Locally we will be able to use the roads for a generation or maybe even two.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', ' ') Locally we will be able to use the roads for a generation or maybe even two.

[Peleg]

This is an issue that used to get talked about around here under the moniker 'Peak Infrastructure.' It is a knock on effect of rising prices and therefore peak oil. Just like Peak Airlines. Now Peak Labor is actually it's own issue that is related to the size and skill of the baby boomers asit exits the system there will be a job crunch and many of us youngin's once thought that would mean a nice wage inflation and plenty of career opportunities. Now with peak oil coming on strong it looks like the economy will shrink and absorb our advantage.

The infrastructure issues goes beyond just roads. All types of needed maintenance is behind schedule. Sewerage systems, roads, bridges, ballparks, nothing will get funded like that when the economic downturn gets severe enough. So how long does it last? That is the key. Some roads will last 60 years in a place with no thaw freeze cycle and relatively light traffic. The major roads where I am from are all made to last and they do pretty well. It is the just not so major ones that are freeze/thawed and pounded with wandering big rigs that may suffer. I've noticed much less patching getting done the last few years, so this has not started yesterday.

Travel at highway speeds would probably be impossible for most smaller cars on most roads here within a decade without any maintenace. Some part of the roadway would become dessicated.

Yeah the term peak is much more pervasive in the issues we face than alot of people mention. There are industries that are expecting massive shortfalls in labor and skill as the baby boomes retire in the next decade or so, many are trying to get them to work longer now (Peak Labor.) You mentioned peak infrastructure. What about peak law enforcement? Peak Airlines we are seeing happen. What about peak community, as people's hearts grow ever colder, sitting in front of that tube watching the world they were told would last forever disintegrate before there eyes. That is why we decided not to upgrade to digital. By that time there is'nt going to be anything non-narcotic on TV. I'll localize, re-constitute and be at peace.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peleg', ' ')All types of needed maintenance is behind schedule. Sewerage systems,

[dissimulo]

Around here, the county crews have had to cut back on trimming roadside vegetation. The roads will be overgrown from the sides long before the surface becomes unusable. Maybe we'll all be driving in one lane tunnels under the brambles.

[DantesPeak]

I don't have the answer to the lead question but the cost of road maintenance will be many mulitiples soon of what is was as recently as the 1990s. Plus that's going to get worse over time.

It's my WAG that the embedded cost of oil, in infrastucture such as buildings and highways, is very low - maybe $20. This allows industry and transportation to function fairly efffectively even as oil approaches $140. However this leaves us with a huge replacement problem when fixing a road will cost many times its orginal price.

Although distant country locations may help keep your distance from zombie hoards, highways most used for trucking are still going to get the highest priority on repairs - otherwise food won't get to market fast enough. Residential country roads will start to get bumpy first.

[3aidlillahi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peleg', ' ')All types of needed maintenance is behind schedule. Sewerage systems,

[outcast]

Isn't the highway trust fund also supposed to go bankrupt in a couple years on top of this?

[Heineken]

I've been steeped in this doom shit for about five years now, and the bad news is now overwhelming even me. I've never seen anything like it. Have you ever known a time when developments were worse? I haven't. Even the 1970s recession seemed mild compared to what's coming at us. The 1960s were turbulent and violent but we always knew where our next meal was coming from.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'I')'ve been steeped in this doom crap for about five years now, and the bad news is now overwhelming even me. I've never seen anything like it. Have you ever known a time when developments were worse? I haven't. Even the 1970s recession seemed mild compared to what's coming at us. The 1960s were turbulent and violent but we always knew where our next meal was coming from.

[eric_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')he county stopped repairing our one-lane road, and instead just put up "Caution: rough road" signs.
It'll be interesting to see how degraded the road gets before they fix it, if they ever do.
Oh well, maybe it will slow people down a little.......

[MC2]

I have a long driveway that I paid to have "surface-treated" (crush and run) around 15 years ago, and have, until the past year, maintained with those 50 lb bags of asphalt patch you can get at Home Depot. Well, last year they doubled in price! So, I've gone to using redi-mix concrete (sacrete), mixing in a wheelbarrow and patching that way. I wouldn't be surprised to see more concrete roads in the future - stuff wears pretty well.

What we're going to have to have is a really large push back toward rail - probably be a huge capital project and who knows where the money will come from - and get these damned trucks off our interstates. They are causing 90 per cent of the problem. It's simply insane to move goods by truck these days. Trucks are for that last 50 miles.

Peak Oil should take care of all these little problems soon.