Chip sealed roads. Corpus is a giant parking lot and that parking lot is covered in chip seal. Chip seal is a cheap alternative to good asphalt which is a cheap alternative to concrete. Chip seal is a process of covering a road in rocks and then gluing them down with an oily binder in order to prolong the life of the road. The surface is loud, damages tires, is unstable for motor and bicyclists, washes off to clog drains and damage windshields and is harmful to the environment. It's lousy, cheap and temporary--the ethos of Corpus' City Council. Of course, cheap is relative. This fall the city spent over $66,000 on emulsion oil, $36,000 on pavement markings and $454,000 on the actual asphalt and aggregate. And their recent road projects include covering the good Island road to the National Seashore with chip seal to use up end of fiscal year money and also to resurface ocean drive, simply transforming it from one kind of lousy to another.
1 comment:
i TOTALLY have been wondering why corpus roads are worse than any other city roads I've been on. i also have had 2 cracked windshields in the last 2 years... both times in this city - once on a lit road and another on 'spid'. Wish I could send a bill.
Hey I like the blog - it would seem someone needs to speak for sanity.
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