The Chainlink

Pothole Nomenclature

Time for another bumper crop of potholes, and instead of thinking there is one with my name on it, I've decided to name them first. Here's my categories for potholes:

Asphalt Acne: rough, rumbly surface, not too deep, just damn annoying
rip in the space-time continuum (long broken seam)

The Post-Hole: about 10 inches a round, but about 10 feet deep.

Crater Lake: a puddle with a nasty surprise, it may begin with Acne but degrade into Post-Holes or worse.

Humpback Whales: Those odd lumps at bus stops, the wheels create a big swale of pavement.

Broke Bike Mountain: Anytime Streets and San fills a pothole to create a mound.

The Rip in the Space-Time Continuum: long narrow trenches along the seams in the road.

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Permalink Reply by Tank-Ridin' Ryan on February 19, 2011 at 7:17pm

Wow.

 

Apparently it's a SUV-and-traffic-light-swallowing sinkhole.


S said:

Ask and you shall receive

Tank-Ridin' Ryan said:
Are there pictures?  SUV-eating sinkholes definitely need to be documented.

Barry Niel Stuart said:
Last summer, on Oakland and north in Milwaukee's East Side, we had the Mother of All Sinkholes.  It was so big that it swallowed up a traffic signal and a Cadillac Escalade SUV.  This hole took a couple of months to fill in, but before that could happen, the traffic signal and the SUV had to be fished out.  Problem was, the Escalade had a practically full tank of gas when it fell into the sinkhole.It took about a week of constant running before the Escalade finally ran out of gas.  I saw the extraction of both traffic signal and Escalade.   Its owner has since gotten a new one.
Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on March 19, 2011 at 2:37pm
1/4 mile NORTH?  Seriously?  That section was torn down to the base and repaved just a few years ago.  Is it really cratered out already?

Michael A said:
A buddy of mine donated a fairly new set of zipp 404's to a huge pot hole on Sheridan..... About 1/4 mile north of plaza del lago
Permalink Reply by Eric Stuck on March 20, 2011 at 8:10am
What about train tracks? Very similar to "Rip in the Space-Time Continuum". Fault Lines?
Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 20, 2011 at 10:46am

I like those buried tracks on Elston right at the main entrance/stoplight to Home Depot.  They stick up out of the ground like some ancient fossilized dinosaur bones exposed to the air once more after being buried since the Jurrasic era.

 

Weird that they didn't pull them out of the road when they removed the line and instead just paved right over them like that.  It's hard to get good help...

 

I imagine if the pavement keeps moving around in that area like is has been that eventually the edge of the rail could really mess up a tire/rim if hit wrong.

Eric Stuck said:

What about train tracks? Very similar to "Rip in the Space-Time Continuum". Fault Lines?
Permalink Reply by Allen Wrench on March 20, 2011 at 1:31pm

There are lots of areas where the rips in the space time continuum come from old tram tracks laid in the often cobblestone streets under a few inches of pavement. Ever wondered why the crummy part of the pavement is just exactly where you want to ride? That used to be about where most people wanted to alight from the tram. 

 

The tram tracks wouldn't bother me if there were trams running on them. Plenty of infrastructure down there, I guess. Oops- I mean 'light rail'.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on March 20, 2011 at 1:48pm
I think "fault lines" is an appropriate name for railroad crossings or old rails that are becoming unburied.

Eric Stuck said:
What about train tracks? Very similar to "Rip in the Space-Time Continuum". Fault Lines?
Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on March 20, 2011 at 1:50pm

You can find dozens of those spots if you ride in the right locations.

Got another example:  all the rails at weird angles on Kingsbury south of North Ave.


Allen Wrench said:

There are lots of areas where the rips in the space time continuum come from old tram tracks laid in the often cobblestone streets under a few inches of pavement. Ever wondered why the crummy part of the pavement is just exactly where you want to ride? That used to be about where most people wanted to alight from the tram. 

 

The tram tracks wouldn't bother me if there were trams running on them. Plenty of infrastructure down there, I guess. Oops- I mean 'light rail'.

Permalink Reply by Ross Martinek on March 25, 2011 at 9:32am
I look at them the way a WWII pilot looked at flak—best to go around whenever possible!
Permalink Reply by E A on March 25, 2011 at 2:49pm
I did this kind of work one summer too - rating the roads in the Chicago area counties! I wish I could have the authority to rate the roads again and present my finds to CATS (as it was called back in the day)

Liz said:

Back in college I interned in a public works department.  Part of the job of the interns was to drive around the village streets rating pavement and then using a special GIS linked program with some formulas for overall pavement quality.  The results would be color coded and presented at village meetings to determine which streets would get repaved.   In the hours spent rating pavement we came up with the following nicknames:

 

Cookie - for raveling (losing the top layer of asphalt) since cookies crumble

Pirate - for large patched sections

Squirrel - small patched sections

Zebra-lateral cracking (perpendicular to the direction of road)

Giraffe-longitudinal cracking (along the length of the road)

Momma, pappa, and baby gaitor cracks

Canyon - sink holes (deep holes around sewer lines indicating poor backfill)

Rollercoaster - rutting

 

These seemed much more cleaver in college.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on March 28, 2011 at 8:28pm
We have a problem

Sarlacc.
Think Star Wars.
Permalink Reply by Barry Niel Stuart on April 1, 2011 at 3:54pm
One way to get rid of the Humpback Whale is when a street is due for repaving, to install a concrete bus pan at the stop.  Concrete doesn't melt like asphalt when the diesel engine of a bus is sitting over it.  This idea has worked out well in Milwaukee.
Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on April 3, 2011 at 4:04am

The Humpback Whale is caused by the wheels turning against soft (melted) asphalt - it only happens in the summer.

 

The Humpback Whale's cousin, Ulcer Humpback, is caused by freeze and thawing the Humpback Whale - it happens in the winter.

Barry Niel Stuart said:

One way to get rid of the Humpback Whale is when a street is due for repaving, to install a concrete bus pan at the stop.  Concrete doesn't melt like asphalt when the diesel engine of a bus is sitting over it.  This idea has worked out well in Milwaukee.

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