They have to inspect roads here a lot

As far as I can remember, roads in DC were never shut down to be inspected. They were closed for repairs or to allow parades or what not, but never for preventative inspections. They seem to do this in Seattle all the time.

Back in the spring they shut down the Viaduct for a weekend (imagine the Whitehurst Freeway if it ran from G'town to the SW Waterfront), and this weekend they are shutting down one of the floating bridges (imagine if I-66 were a bridge from East Falls Church to Tysons).

In principle I think I'm okay with closing roads to inspect them, but it makes me wonder whether Seattle is just WAY to cautious, or if DC just didn't care whether their roads were in danger of collapsing. It's probably a little from Column A and Column B. Regardless, it annoys me because there will be lots of traffic when I go play golf tomorrow.

Seattle, where the roads are paved with boulders

Back in May, 2004 I flew to Houston with my dad to pick up a car he purchased on Ebay and drive it back to DC. At one point on the trip back we were stopped by a "drug interdiction" police officer and our car was casually searched for drugs. (This is a story enjoy telling to all the lawyers I know, as it sets off hours of exceedingly terrible debates about whether there was probable cause for the officer to search our car. I then sneak away to the bar and try to find non-lawyers.) Anyways, to combat the boredom of 1200 miles of open road I kept something of a diary, mostly keeping track of how many Cracker Barrels and Waffle Houses we passed (answer: lots).

I also kept track of which states had good pavement and which states did not, as my dad's Porsche transmitted every nook and cranny directly to our butts. I don't have the list handy, but Texas road were abysmal, as were Alabama and most of I-81 in Virginia. Tennessee roads were pretty nice, as was the 15 mile stretch of Georgia we passed through.

I was thinking about that trip on my way to Target this afternoon. As far as I can tell, I-5 in Seattle is paved with the same cobblestones found on some roads in Georgetown. You can actually see big, round stones in the aggregate used to pave the roads. At highway speeds the coarse pavement makes the car shake like the anti-lock brakes are on (if you've ever slammed your brakes and felt the vibration, you know what I mean). What's worse is that the pitch of the road noise coming from my tires is such that it blocks out all mid-range tones coming from my stereo system, making the music I'm listening to sound as if it's being played in a toilet: a lot of bass, some treble, and nothing in between. It's brutal.

I have no idea if this is prevalent in other parts of the state, but my initial ranking for Washington state roads is bottom quartile.