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Pontiac Trail between M5 and Orchard Lake Rd is pretty brutal.

I-75 service drive in the 696 interchange area. If only you could lose weight from shaking.

You can actually see it from space.

Surface roads around Michigan State were really bad the last two weekends when I was there for the girls' and boys' state finals.

4.0 tells me sections of Mack between Conner and Gratiot are about as smooth as the lunar surface.

Jefferson between Conner and St. Jean could use plenty of work, too.

In the past I'd hear people bitch about the sorry state of Michigan roads and I'd dismiss these as the folks doing the bitching were ususally also the ones to bitch that all good music stopped when Glenn Miller vanished during WW II. When people have bemoaned the condition of the roads I'd think to myself "these aren't so bad." And so it went until this year. Holy cats, but there are some brutal, brutal areas. The top of my list is Baldwin, between 75 and Walton. I cannot even describe it. Does anyone else remember Paul Street where it abutted Dearborn? Baldwin is like that: an uniterrupted stretch of giant holes and then half-assed asphalt seemingly flung from the back of a fleeing truck.

Mulligan wrote:Pontiac Trail between M5 and Orchard Lake Rd is pretty brutal.

I used to live over in the lakes area. Fuck that whole place and its overpopulation for limited infrastructure. I can drive from here to what should be 2 minutes from my mom's house in 20 minutes, and then the last half mile takes 30 more minutes at rush hour. And they'll just keep cramming more subdivisions in there until there's nowhere else to stick them. And nobody wants to pay any taxes for anything so all the neighborhood roads are just crumbled piles of cheap asphalt that was only put down 10 years ago. But you can't beat the selection of half-empty strip malls.

A coupla weeks ago I read something about how the potholes are wreaking havoc on low profile tires and/or rims, then proceeded to drive home on Larned in the dark. BAM! BAM! BAM! Of course, having just read that I was sure that I fucked my wheels up, but all was good. I'm not sure if 19-inchers are low profile anyway. Maybe just kinda low profile.

Doctor Detroit wrote:

Mulligan wrote:Pontiac Trail between M5 and Orchard Lake Rd is pretty brutal.

I used to live over in the lakes area. Fuck that whole place and its overpopulation for limited infrastructure. I can drive from here to what should be 2 minutes from my mom's house in 20 minutes, and then the last half mile takes 30 more minutes at rush hour. And they'll just keep cramming more subdivisions in there until there's nowhere else to stick them. And nobody wants to pay any taxes for anything so all the neighborhood roads are just crumbled piles of cheap asphalt that was only put down 10 years ago. But you can't beat the selection of half-empty strip malls.

A long time ago I worked out that way, and I entirely agree with that assessment. Even the people who moved there last week act like no one else should be allowed to live there. And of course they all got up in arms about the proposed expansion of Union Lake Road. Bunch of people living in denial.

Mad Max wrote:

Doctor Detroit wrote:

Mulligan wrote:Pontiac Trail between M5 and Orchard Lake Rd is pretty brutal.

I used to live over in the lakes area. Fuck that whole place and its overpopulation for limited infrastructure. I can drive from here to what should be 2 minutes from my mom's house in 20 minutes, and then the last half mile takes 30 more minutes at rush hour. And they'll just keep cramming more subdivisions in there until there's nowhere else to stick them. And nobody wants to pay any taxes for anything so all the neighborhood roads are just crumbled piles of cheap asphalt that was only put down 10 years ago. But you can't beat the selection of half-empty strip malls.

A long time ago I worked out that way, and I entirely agree with that assessment. Even the people who moved there last week act like no one else should be allowed to live there. And of course they all got up in arms about the proposed expansion of Union Lake Road. Bunch of people living in denial.

I hate living out here. It is over-populated and those who over-populate it aren't the folks I prefer to be around.

We live on a private road. The folks in this area don't seem to give a shit about road maintenance. Every time I suggest making the rounds and creating a road fund to keep our road somewhat passable, people begin to bitch. They'll say they aren't paying to keep a road maintained. I can half-understand it, as many don't pay to keep their houses nice, either.

Actually, it's East Lansing.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Detroit/comments/21ap2f/pothole_patching_crew_gets_stuck_in_a_wait_for_it/

Mad Max wrote:

Doctor Detroit wrote:

Mulligan wrote:Pontiac Trail between M5 and Orchard Lake Rd is pretty brutal.

I used to live over in the lakes area. Fuck that whole place and its overpopulation for limited infrastructure. I can drive from here to what should be 2 minutes from my mom's house in 20 minutes, and then the last half mile takes 30 more minutes at rush hour. And they'll just keep cramming more subdivisions in there until there's nowhere else to stick them. And nobody wants to pay any taxes for anything so all the neighborhood roads are just crumbled piles of cheap asphalt that was only put down 10 years ago. But you can't beat the selection of half-empty strip malls.

A long time ago I worked out that way, and I entirely agree with that assessment. Even the people who moved there last week act like no one else should be allowed to live there. And of course they all got up in arms about the proposed expansion of Union Lake Road. Bunch of people living in denial.

I was driving on Pontiac Trail tonight and hit a monstrous pothole. Didn't see it until it was too late because there are few streetlights in that nape of the neck. The impact had to bend my rims if not more. Fuck that motherfucking road.

Greenfield just north of the Lodge is still the worst I've seen. Couldn't drive more than 15 MPH for about a half mile at least. Horrible.

Van Dyke is pretty crappy too.

The channel 7 traffic map has looked like this every time I view it. This was used to show how bad the snow was the other day. Bullshit. Each and every one of these things on this map is about road damage.

^ of course the damn channel 7 site won't come up for me now so up-to-the-minute results are not available, but judging by what I see on my commute I feel that the effort to ID trouble spots is way off base. For example, the two locations called out way up on 75 are nothing, really nothing. I cannot even picture what problem they might be calling out. But at other points on the map on 75 where I know there are broken wheels waiting to happen, well, nothing.

No question that the roads out there are fucked up, really, really fucked up. And probably because the bulk of my daily drive has gone unchanged for years (I mean years) I don't hit so many of those suspension-killers. It's almost instinctual, you know, e.g. coming up on Sashabaw southbound: move to center lane; coming up on CTC: move left or right.

Mad Max wrote:

Doctor Detroit wrote:

Mulligan wrote:Pontiac Trail between M5 and Orchard Lake Rd is pretty brutal.

I used to live over in the lakes area. Fuck that whole place and its overpopulation for limited infrastructure. I can drive from here to what should be 2 minutes from my mom's house in 20 minutes, and then the last half mile takes 30 more minutes at rush hour. And they'll just keep cramming more subdivisions in there until there's nowhere else to stick them. And nobody wants to pay any taxes for anything so all the neighborhood roads are just crumbled piles of cheap asphalt that was only put down 10 years ago. But you can't beat the selection of half-empty strip malls.

A long time ago I worked out that way, and I entirely agree with that assessment. Even the people who moved there last week act like no one else should be allowed to live there. And of course they all got up in arms about the proposed expansion of Union Lake Road. Bunch of people living in denial.

I drove on Green Lake Rd in that area the other day. The condition of that road is an embarrassment.