re: Civil Engineers - Sectional Concrete vs. Continuous Asphalt Pavement

Poor concrete highways go gah thump gah thump gah thump until you're ready to pull your eyeballs out

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Texas can afford to do concrete because their highways aren't funded by a single tax that has remained stagnant for 40 years.

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Texas has no income tax and has recently cut their property tax. ANd the sales tax in Texas is lower than La.

Do your homework. Texas spends less per school. per student per vehicle pn the road yet they have better schools and outcomes and better roads.

They are just more efficient with their tax money.

In Texas local and state governments are not job programs like Louisiana.

Until we fix that nothing will work like Texas and Florida and Tennessee.

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Texas can afford to do concrete because their highways aren't funded by a single tax that has remained stagnant for 40 years.

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It’s worse than being stagnant, it’s been diminishing for 40 years. It’s worth something like 40% of what it was worth last time it changed.

We have the 11th largest state highway system in the country (despite being the 33rd-largest state by land area), and the 10th most bridges per mile of public road in the country. While I haven’t done the math, I would bet we are #1 or close to it in percentage of public roads owned by the state and number of bridges per mile of state-owned roads. Plus shitty soil conditions to go along with it. With funding that has been effectively reduced every year since 1990.

..and we wonder why our roads suck.

They just redid my street and it's sectional concrete. Pisses me off because asphalt is so much smoother for a low traffic residential road. Brand new road and my car is bouncing around just as much as it was before.

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Louisiana has a 40-year old gas tax. That's all that funds roads. Texas dedicates much more to its roads, such as tolls.

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That 40 year gas tax is a misnomer. That 4 cent tax only funds a specific list of projects like the 4 laning of US 90 and other major US routes that cross the state, seldom used Audubon Bridge, Huey P widening, etc. Construction of US 90 between Terrebonne and Morgan City started in the 1990’s and took a majority of funds as it was a pay as you go program with little to no debt. The program is called TIMED.

By the 2000’s US 90 was finished but construction estimates ballooned on the other projects beyond what the pay as you go could afford, so the state bonded the money out to finish the projects using the future revenues to service the debt using low interest bonds at the time.

I think there are only a few projects that didn’t get funding during the bond because construction costs continued to grow beyond what was available. One of these is the 4 lane between Bogalusa and I-12. I think there is one or 2 sections left and a new section opened last year.


The rest of the 16 cent gas tax goes to Transportation Trust Fund for DOTD spend on highways and maintenance and a time state police. Some estimates point that an increase of 14 cents per gallon is needed to bring that tax even with inflation to 1990’s funding levels.

I have suggested on this forum a mechanism in the state for local governments to pass their own gas taxes for regional infrastructure mega projects. One these would could be all the parishes in the US 90 corridor passing a 10-15 cent gas tax to convert US90 to I-49. Another region could be the capital area to fund the new Mississippi River bridge. Shreveport Region last gap in I49 or rerouting 49 to the loop which needs some work because the SW Loop while it is a freeway does not meet current interstate standards.


Another funding idea could come from the Feds, in a doubling of the federal gas tax to be used on new interstate construction or maintenance on existing interstates before obsolescence. But Washington would freeze over before anything like that would pass since the US spends on projects without thinking about where the money comes from as though there is an endless stash of cash to fund these projects. Maybe now instead of sending billions to the Ukraine it can be spent here.

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Absolutely not. It becomes a slush fund to shower upon swing states and patronage heavy places like Illinois. ARIRA was funding an interchange outside of Chicago nearly a mile from the Interstate because it was a feeder into another intersection where traffic entered the actual Interstate, etc. Ton of ARIRA signs were up in IL, PA, NJ, and OH, and I saw few or none in hard red states. ETA, yes, I know, it's a different funding mechanism than you proposed, but Federal control of money doesn't work out well.

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If you do it federally, Congress could specify funds to only go to the state where the funds were generated. If Louisiana collected 1 billion in gas tax, Louisiana gets a billion in gas tax to spend on a federal project.

None of this putting it in all one pot where the Feds decide the projects and divvy it up based on projects where Senators or House Members pull favor and get one state more funding than another.


Just an idea.

As has already been stated, it's the base. 10-15 yrs ago they were re-making a portion of I-85 between Ala line and Atlanta. I swear they must have put down a foot of asphalt before paving it with concrete. I think when crete is laid over stone, dirt etc, that will eventually wash out leading to cracks at the joints.

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Asphalt, once it starts to alligator crack, no amount of maintenance will keep it from coming back, or spreading.

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What are your options once it does on a parking lot?

Do you lay a membrane barrier over it than a new layer of asphalt?

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Tarps99

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Very well written summary of Louisiana’s poor current highway funding and construction allocation landscape.