Why is it so expensive and is there an alternative out there that won’t break so easily especially in the winter? My state is spending like a billion dollars a year on roads that they’ll probably have to fix in 5 years, it really seems like a huge waste of money.
Good Public transportation would fix a lot of these costs I know but what other road materials/solutions are out there?
Thank you for the answers and for putting up with my follow up questions. I’m learning a lot!
The actual material costs for roads are only a small portion of the cost.
By far the largest cost will be wages.
Resolving drainage and everything that goes under the road is more important than whatever you put on top.
Plus, asphalt is basically infinitely recyclable.
I hear people complain about prices of concrete but like you said it could be the wages. I just looked up concrete and it’s $5 for 80lbs. That doesn’t seem terribly expensive for 80lbs. How many bags do you think it would take to do an average driveway?
A pretty small driveway would be like 10 feet wide (enough for a Prius plus two feet of space on each side), 15 feet long (small yard with just enough room to park said Prius without sticking out), 4 inches deep. Quikrete has a “how many bags do you need for a 4in slab” calculator. Looks like for 80 pound bags you’re looking at 84 bags. If you can find them for $5 that puts the cost at $420, perfect for joking about over a joint after building the thing.
Just for fun, to make that driveway highway quality it would take about 3 times as much, so 252 bags and $1260.