DelDOT Contractor Makes 2nd Try at Fixing Bad Rumble Strips
DelDOT contractor carries out a 2nd test to fix improperly installed rumble strips on Thursday on Route 9 near Lakeview Boulevard. Photo credit: DelDOT.
On Thursday, DelDOT contractor Safety Improvements LLC made a second try at fixing improperly installed rumble strips (see image above).
The second test took place on the eastbound side of Route 9, west of Lakeview Boulevard near Lewes (map).
A first try at fixing the bad rumble strips failed, but led to last Thursday’s second effort.
Several weeks earlier, Safety Improvements made a first try at fixing the bad rumble strips on Route 24 near Robinsonville Road (see image at right). Bike Delaware evaluated the fix and, reluctantly, reported back to DelDOT that it was a failure. The patch material formed mounds that were not flush with the surrounding pavement and was, as a result, effectively unrideable.
For the first test on Route 24, DelDOT’s contractor used a hand-operated, gas-powered tamper to fill in the rumble strips. For the second test on Thursday, the contractor used a roller.
Rumble strips, also known as sleeper lines, rumple strips, audible lines and growlers are a safety countermeasure for preventing “run-off-road” (“ROR”) motor vehicle crashes. They are recommended by the Federal Highway Administration.
Safety Improvements improperly installed rumble strips along approximately 2 miles of Route 24 and Route 9 in Sussex County, resulting in road shoulders where the remaining rideable pavement is now less than the minimum of 4 feet wide required by state policy. DelDOT’s chief traffic engineer Mark Luszcz called the problem a glitch in a $1.3 million statewide contract.
Thursday’s test was a second effort to use a new patching product to fix the bad rumble strips. If the patch approach doesn’t work, the 2 miles of road shoulder will have to be milled out and paved over, a more costly fix.
CALLING ALL CYCLISTS: Please check out the location of the new rumble strip patch and let us know whether the test was successful. Is it rideable?
RELATED:
• DelDOT Says It Will Fix Improperly Installed Rumble Strips
• DelDOT admits bumpy bands were improperly installed (Cape Gazette)
• Statewide Rumble Strip Installation Contract (DelDOT)
• Rumble Strip Brochure (DelDOT)
• Rumble Strips and Stripes (FHWA)
• DelDOT’s Bicycle-Friendly Rumble Strip Policy (DelDOT)
10 Responses
sweet planning and zoning brah
Anything but a complete milling and repave will be a failure. Those patches will come undone over time and will be bumpy right from the start. Any roadie worth his 700×25 tires would instinctively know this.
Andrew, FYI:
http://www.bikede.org/2014/07/26/second-trys-the-charm/
(The second patch seems to have worked.)
Ride your bikes on the sidewalk and stay off 2 lane roads with no shoulder. The bumps were right get bigger tires if you can’t handle the bumps.
William Harrington But what if you live on a 2 lane road with no shoulder (so there is no way to “stay off” it)?
Um, this is wrong in so many ways. For one thing, where have you been hiding? The rumble strips were milled into a shoulder and a bike lane, not a two lane road with no shoulders. If they’d been put in a travel lane on a road with no shoulders, would you tell motorists to shut up, get off that road, and get bigger tires if they can’t handle the bumps? Is that what you tell yourself when you encounter a pothole? Second, riding on sidewalks is dangerous, and statistics confirm this. It is also illegal in a number of jurisdictions. And third, sometimes the two-lane road is the best or only way to get somewhere for a cyclist, just as it is for a motorist. Motorists need to grow up and stop whining about cyclists and a few seconds lost if that (that they would spend doing what?–no, you’re just not the VIP you think you are, so take a deep breath). Compared to motorists in a number of other developed countries, American drivers are big babies. It’s born out in our rate of traffic fatalities, and I’m not talking about cyclist fatalities either.
I can’t imagine your reaction to Amish buggies using the travel lanes (which they do in much of PA, as most roads there do not have shoulders). They take up at least 3x the width of a bicycle. I suppose they need to get on the sidewalk too, even if there aren’t any, you idiot.
I couldn’t have said it any better Frank Warnock.
[…] Infrastructure news from DE. DelDOT Contractor Makes 2nd Try at Fixing Bad Rumble Strips First try just turned the holes into bumps, second try was reasonably smooth, good show! Of course […]
I’m 46, lived in De all my life. Deldot has no clue on how to fix or maintain our roads. Maybe Maryland can train them , they have nice roads. But I guess it’s too expensive when it takes 4 people with 1 shovel to fill a pot hole. Really!!!