Most drivers make a point of crossing over the bricks instead of trying to stay on the paved section. I know semis have a problem but cars and pick ups are doing the same thing. Just taking a short cut. The truck drivers don’t even try to keep it on the pavement.

“The traffic circle surface has an “undulating” look”

Sounds to me like the drainage system under the bricks was not installed as designed or the geotechnical work was not done correctly. The fact that they are talking about adding more drainage points to problems in the design. Was the geo-technical work done in house or by an outside firm. If the latter they should be on the hook for repairs not the taxpayer.

The sidewalks at the old College Heights shopping center come to mind of what can happen to a brick paving surface if the base is not done properly. I have also seen cobblestone streets in Europe that are centuries old that are still in good shape.

Dumbest thing ever made its to small for the size of the trucks using it,lose the bricks and cement it

the roundabout is a great idea to control traffic. the amount of space provided and the design which would allow for the size of vehicles was not satisfactory. why do we seem to have poor results to construction projects when it comes to city projects?

A heavy layer of concrete would be better for heavy truck use. Don’t spend money on fixing this every year! Bite the bullet and re-do it properly!

I’ve been short-cutting straight over the pavers lately because there is a GIANT POTHOLE in the roadway!!! A stitch in time could have saved nine…

No surprises here. There were some **potholes** in the same area last year.

Seems we just cant get it right. Why use bricks in the first place??? We see grass growing through the bricks all over town.

“a Few Bricks Short of a Road” … nice one… :-)
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Exactly lonesome sparrow.

One thing though; drainage under a road is not a normal requirement. In fact, it is likely also not a risk free solution. That being said, it looks like this was a place to include one.

Sounds like a College Heights type subsurface condition problem.

We have to keep in mind that a layer of sand and fine aggregate with pavers as a surface “seal” is not exactly impervious to water.

Somebody made a design/quality control mistake, that’s for sure.

So what else is new. This just goes along with the potholes. This is not california we have cold and freezing weather. But I guess City Hall is comfy and cozy no need to worry.
Cheers

Our roundabout was designed for truck traffic to drive over the brickwork apron. It is a feature rather than a design flaw and it works quite successfully for those following the rules of the road.

…When the path is clear of debris of course. ;-)

Junco ……

The design/installation flaw is readily apparent from the picture, unless it was intended that bricks come out like that and the road surface unulates after a couple of years in service.

When you buy a shirt, and the thread unravels at seams at the elbows after a few weeks of wear, that is a design/manufacturing flaw.

The product is not fit for the purpose intended. Very simple.

The debris? You mean the borken parts of the installation? This is not exactly deposited debris.

It is difficult to imagine that anyone assumed there would be a surface seal achieved with the installation of brick pavers, so there must have been some sort of drainage implemented or at least imagined. How any sort of drainage in an installation such as this could remain frost free is beyond me. Without a heat source, any surface-subsurface drainage within a couple of feet of the surface will freeze eventually. Witness: potholes all over the city roads. Solution: dig down to a t least four feet, build back up again with compacted layers of gravel, rebar and concrete. Then the problem will shift to the joint between the new concrete and the asphalt. Maybe do the whole thing in concrete?
metalman.

Sherry needed the bricks for her garden.

Concrete won’t work because it gets destroyed by salt.

Just ban trucks from using the bridge. Force them to use the 5th ave route.

“That geo technical work included a system that uses sound waves to plot images of what is, or isn’t , below the ground”

Maybe they should have done this before the project started. I say fire all the engineering and construction firms and put an ad in the paper for some Roman road builders as their work lasts for a millennium:-)

This should be redesigned and rebuilt. The center of it should be only a couple of inches higher than the outside and it does need a proper base to begin with. Also, complete asphalt should be used for the surface. Remember this brick work was an add-on, after the intitial design didn’t work because it was too tight a circle for trucks. Duh!! I don’t know who designed this intially, but they and their superiors should go back to school and learn the basics.
I wonder who is designing the other roundabouts the city is planning?

Under $10,000? Well maybe for another ‘patch up’ job. Sometimes I think this so called ‘City’ does things the way they do, just so they can keep people employed ‘fixing’ them. Their philosophy makes no sense to me at all.

“I wonder who is designing the other roundabouts the city is planning?”

They should quit planning those right now. We do not need to spend the money on them. Low priority.

Can’t use concrete because the salt will erode it? What material do you think the pavers are. They are not stone pavers.

If the surface is undulating like the olympic medals, as it says, the problem is more than just upper level frost.

When soils are porous, water will generally not collect. With pavers that are not set in concrete, there is much more surface water that does not run off but filters through on the spot.

okay if you say so.

For these kind of pavers to work in a high traffic area they have to be tightly confined laterally and on solid non-frost susceptable well compacted clean free draining base course so they can’t move. If even one brick breaks or moves enough so that it can pop out … the whole thing will rapidly unravel if it keeps getting traffic. Problem is that when this circle was first built, some bright spark allowed traffic over the intermediate concrete curb between th bricks and pavement before either had been placed. Without lateral confinement the concrete curb was already broken and had lost its ability to confine bricks properly before they were placed. Add a less than perfect base course and heavy traffic during saturated conditions and voila … you get what we see.

Rather than go for the questionable aesthetics of having a ring of pavers, better versions go with concret or pavement for both outer parts of the ring … and can use stamped concrete or even stamped asphalt if an architectural look is still required for the trafficed inner ring. But, given our climate and heavy truck loads, a robust well compacted clean free draining gravel structure is still required for a chance at a reasonable service life.

Issues in College heights are different .. thin asphalt over a far too thin dirty gravel base (if any) over a highly frost susceptable clay subgrade that does not drain. Trying to fix those areas by simple mindless repaving without replacing and puttting in a proper base and drainage is a waste of money and just adds to the endless inventory of premature failing pavements. As pointless as trying to repaint over the rust on a car without first removing the rust.

Not really rocket science … pavement engineering design 101 from the 1960’s.

Well, I have driven a gravel truck and pup around a similar traffic circle on the west side of Calgary (very near Olympic Park). It is designed exactly the same way, and there are no visible problems.

I am able to drive the circle easily, rarely putting my trailer wheels on the “bricks”! The circle is in perfect shape.It is however a little smaller than the one in Prince George.

So maybe these idiots that design this $#!+ for Prince George should come down to Calgary and get a lesson or 5. Don’t use the freeze thaw excuse, because Calgary is known for the CHINOOKS that come through during the winter. It is a constant freeze thaw here.

have a great potholed day…..

John

Dont forget that the City put in the Round About because they did not have the money to reinforce the North end of the Cameron St Bridge and put in stop lights. The North End of the bridge would have had to be upgraded in order to hold the weight of the vehicles going North waiting for the light to change.

How soon we forget. The City having spent the $11 Million dollars on the bridge, then decided to put in a round-about, and use the money from the roads budget. Then to ensure that pulp mill road joined up with the roundabout in an efficient manner, they took another $1.5 million out of the parks and recreation fund and built a new bridge over McMillan Creek, using the excuse that the culvert had to be replaced. So in fact the **new** Cameron St. Bridge actually cost about $14 Million dollars, as opposed to the $11 Million they initially stated.

Surprise, surprise. In addition there is the same amount of traffic to-day (or less) than there was when they built the bridge. Their forcast was for an increase from 8000 vehicles per day when they built the bridge, to 14000 vehicles per day by 2014. They better get the lead out if they hope to acheive 14000. (Have no idea where the additional 6000 vehicles a day will come from)

All this BS because Kinsley and the boys did not want to pay out $750,000.00 to repair the old bridge and keep it working for another 10 years more or less.

Another reason why we have no money to repair our roads.

Have a nice day.

Are you kidding me Palopu? I was born and raised in Prince George, and I have seen some really ridiculous projects over the years. One was when the then City engineer, Ernie Obst recommended that the TAX PAYERS of Prince George spend $900,000.00 to give that old wooden bridge 15 more years of life, to a bridge that was not capable of doing the job. They brought in some exotic wood from Africa for the deck, that couldn’t stand up to the cold. Several years later they spent more money on the same wood, but thicker this time for two strips where our tires went. That was about 25 years ago, and you are still going on about it after its long gone. When I was a little kid, that old wooden bridge was two lanes, yep, many a mirror went into the river on that crossing. (and if you doubt that, look in the history books)

Get over it Palopu, you and I have had this conversation before! I am getting sick of hearing from you about what could have been and what is now. The wooden bridge is gone, the concrete is in place,and the money is spent, and I think it is awesome. Now if we can teach people how to drive a traffic circle in Prince George, we may be able to turn Nechako River water into gasoline.

There ain’t enough paper produced in Prince George to do a spread sheet of all the potholes c/w photo’s there are in Prince George, and this is the only one worthy of a photo? Shame I say!!

“The North End of the bridge would have had to be upgraded in order to hold the weight of the vehicles going North waiting for the light to change.”

Are you telling us that if there were to be some sort of traffic holdup on the north end of the bridge such as an accident or a stuck vehicle, and vehicles, including trucks, were to progressively line up on the bridge stuck there until the road is cleared, that the bridge would collapse?

So are these the same engineers who designed the roundabout to fail?

Come on, tell me that is just a local yarn.

it sounds like a yarn well spun to me gus!

Palopu has been right from day one on this bridge-traffic circle thing. Myself however I was wrong. I said the bridge was in the wrong spot and agreed they should have repaired the old bridge, but I said the traffic circle would never work, and that was wrong. The traffic circle works great. Its brick design however is a major flaw.

A loaded B-train is carrying 63,500kg… to make that semi-circle with enough twist so that the off track of the trailers doesn’t take out the curbs entering or leaving the traffic circle… it puts extreme wear and tear on the road surface. I’ll bet there is not other traffic circle this tight anywhere that takes the weight of unit twisting over the stone work. Its as good as it gets with brick work… if we want to keep it brick work it will have to repaired seasonally at high cost to the tax payer.

About two weeks ago some small pieces let go… maybe one inch by brick width… from there the rest just unraveled. It wasn’t the freeze thaw that did the damage, it was loaded heavy b-trains eventually working loose a piece or two with the help of some natural water runoff. It will happen again.

I bet the design with brick work would work in most other intersections in the city that don’t have regular heavy industrial traffic… the water for the most part ran off well… maybe a repair like this once every ten plus years under normal vehicle load weights and frequency.

Solution IMO is to concrete the whole inner circle… do it right so it can stand up to the heavy trucks that will be crossing it every few minutes night and day. Concrete is nice as it attracts solar heat and doesn’t ice up well… my driveway is concrete and it doesn’t get ice on it all winter, its like having a heated surface.

I hope the city does it right and uses concrete to fix an otherwise great functioning traffic circle.

Palopu, I prefer the local yarn that has the roundabout being built as an intelligent alternative to traffic control lights. That roundabout is great, I love it. Now if the city would build more of them in appropriate intersections there would be a lot fewer stops and starts not to mention the dreaded “idling” that the city wants us to eliminate.
metalman.