Thanks, PennDOT

[chim]

The story is too long to cover in its entirety. Several years ago, PennDOT decided to replace a culvert under the road in front of my place. It was a flawed project from the beginning. They made incorrect assumptions about the existing culvert and had to make changes on the fly. My biggest gripe was the installation of the guide rail along the Western end of our property. It interferes with the visibility when entering the road from our driveway and worsens the flood damage.

I voiced these concerns to them as the project progressed and met with them on site. I also went to their office in Harrisburg and was pretty much ignored both times. Normally I tend grass right up to the roadway all along our property. Some years we have water that flows far in excess of what can flow under the road. Then it runs over the road and onto our property. This happens anywhere between 0 and 4 times a year. With established grass along the road, the water flows over it without much effect. That's how it worked along the road where there was no guide rail and along my driveway.

Well, this year PennDOT came along and did me the favor of spraying Agent Orange, Paraquat or some such chemical along the side of the road at the guide rail. It's been "scorched earth" there all Spring. So on Tuesday when we got the first real rain for a while, the water washed over the road. The turbulence around the guide rail posts scoured holes around them and caused the fill they placed to wash into my yard. Some of it didn't stop in the grass and went right into the creek.

Friday was cleanup day. I spent about 6 or 7 hours removing THEIR crappy backfill from MY yard. Some experimenting with different tools, I found the best method was pulling what I could onto pile using a garden hoe. The I was able to get most of the rest with a flexible leaf rake. There were 3 and 3/4 full buckets of this stuff to haul off with the Kubota.

I've made another request for a seance with someone from the Commonwealth in hopes they don't do anything even more stupid when they come to repair the road shoulder. One can always hope. Probably 95% of the material they placed along the road will pass through a 3/4" sieve. Anyone who believes that is suitable material for backfilling along a road that floods needs to go back to school. And they should be forced to ride the short bus.

Yes, this is a rant. It should be noted that even though this situation has me PO'd, I am blessed to be able to do manual labor at 75 and one of my tractors has a loader There's always a bright side. Even if some Tylenol must be popped form time to time.

Pictures:

High water on Tuesday AM. Red arrow is the power pole for reference. Blue arrows are the 6" tall side walls of my bridge over the creek.

Tuesday afternoon after the water receded.

3 from cleanup Friday

 

[jimh406]

Fwiw, the local power company replaced our underground power lines and left a mess last fall along our unmaintained by county road. It was too late to fix before Winter. In any case, I fixed it this Spring. No, they shouldn’t have left it that way, but complaining doesn’t get it fixed.

Good to have the way to fix it.

 

[Survivor]

Sounds like our stupid damn county.

 

[D2Cat]

It's just the way things are. We don't like paying taxes, so we get a workforce that is not the best. The workers, the foreman, the whole bunch.

We have county operators who have a quarter million dollar machine and can't put a crown on a gravel road, or clean a ditch properly. Operator is not trained properly and foreman doesn't know if what the operator does is correct or not...... It's everywhere!!!!!

 

[Scm]

We don't like paying taxes, so we get a workforce that is not the best.

I disagree with this.
Paying (extorting) more wont fix the problems.

 

[jimh406]

I agree it's not how much we are paying. Some people just don't care whether they are government or private company employees.

 

[skeets]

I feel your pain, PennDOT in their infinite wisdom figured they were CUT NEW DRAINAGE ditches along the high way. I have no control over that but they not only cut the ditch but cut out the end of my driveway, so there was a 6 inch deep 24 inch wide ditch to drive through to get on the road. And yes they took a bunch of my 2B along with them and the riprap. So I called the office which is about 2 miles from me, and was told file a damage complaint with the state. I asked how long before they would fix it the answer I got was,,, Your guess is as good as mine

 

[Daren Todd]

We had an issue when the county replaced a culvert down stream from us. County requires a minimum of an 18" culvert which they installed.

Nobody from the county took notice of the 36" culvert upstream from the 18" culvert. That would have clued them in on the water flow coming down that ditch.

So that 18" culvert created a damn and started flooding our driveways.

Neighbor (retired and cranky) finally got the new county judge to come out and inspect our ditches and learn about the problems they created.

Their fix was to replace the 18" culvert with a 24" culvert

 

[WFM]

So would a chain on the FEL yank thoses guardrail post out ?.
Or are they to deep

 

[NCL4701]

We have a sewer line that runs through the middle of our property, a bit over 700’ of road frontage, and a private road that services three houses so we have bunch of entities with easements. With all the developments popping up around us we’ve dealt with them quite a bit over the past 5 years or so; much more than the previous 30 we’ve lived here. Most are as respectful as they can be and attempt to avoid unnecessary collateral damage while doing what they need to do. A very few have been incompetent, careless, malicious, or some combination thereof. So far, I’ve just been thankful I have the equipment and ability to fix the damage.

Only ones that really bother me are the surveyors hired by the developers around us who will go wherever the want whenever they want, put up temporary markers wherever they want, and never have the respect to let us know they’re on the property. They have legal right of trespass here so long as they are conducting legitimate surveying activities so they aren’t obligated to advise landowners of their presence. Just last year our legislature enacted a law to prevent them from causing damage (cutting sight lines, etc) without permission. I can’t, and don’t want, to remove any permanent markers. Their temporary stakes and surveyor tape on limbs they use to help their developer clients make plans for our property after I’m dead; those I have started taking down as soon as they put them up. Partly because they never come back to take them down when they’re done with them and partly because I just don’t care for anyone having so little respect they don’t stop by the house to announce their presence before doing whatever even if they have the right. If I see them on the property, I have also started making them prove they’re conducting legitimate surveying activities in compliance with the statute so at least I know who they’re working for. I don’t expect the courtesy of notice from people working on the public road right of way, but if you’re coming into the interior of the property, say something.

I guess I’m rambling off topic a bit with a rant at this point, but living on 70 acres with a pile of neighbors on development size lots, the asking permission is a big deal to me. Just a couple days ago, I was mowing up by the road and our closest neighbor lady was on her way to town. She stopped her car, flagged me down, and cautiously approached like she wanted something but was afraid to ask. I’ve spoken to her husband/boyfriend/man many times but never heard her speak. She said she was trying to get some native pollinators started in the old garden plot on their place (they have about 3 acres) and wanted to know if she could get some seed off the milkweed in our field beside her house. Told her that would be fine. There’s only a little patch of it and I was planning to mow around it to let it go to seed. And so long as she asked first, she could look for other natives she might want and get seeds or cuttings or whole plants. Obviously relieved, she said, “Thanks, that was really easy.” She was scared to ask but her man told her if she wanted some wildflower seeds just ask me. Told her I don’t doubt some of the neighbors said I’m not nice. If you fish in the pond, or put up a deer stand, or park cars in the field by the road, or dump yard debris and old tires in the edge of the woods, or ride ATV’s on the trails, or use the sewer line for a running track, or a lot of other stuff without asking I’m not nice. But if you ask, there’s a really good chance you could do all that except dumping yard debris and old tires.

 

[chim]

Daren, that's similar to what happened here. The main creek comes under the road 30-40 yards West of my property. The culvert they replaced was an auxiliary path for the water. When the normal path becomes overwhelmed the water goes over the East bank and floods a field. The road is then a dam.

They had plans for replacement of two pipes with larger ones. Since nobody from the "design team" bothered to peer into the existing pipes, they didn't know the pipes were seeing were a temporary repair from years before. There was a concrete box culvert under the road that originally had end walls and a handrail. A major flood undermined the end walls, so PennDOT removed them and stuffed a pair of culvert pipes in each end. In the end, the replacement was less capable than the original box culvert that was probably installed in the early 1900's.

 

[Spam Bot]

Our driveway, where it meets the road, has always had water washing down it, and it never did much damage. This year, the town road about 30' washed out along the edge of the road where it intersects with our driveway. The town came by and repaired the asphalt, but when they got to our driveway, they put a speed bump to direct the water past our driveway into the neighbor's undeveloped lot. A few years ago, they installed a stop sign at the end of the driveway. They tried to do it about 20 years ago, and I informed them that it was an illegal sign. This time, they erected it when we were away. I can't wait for some cop to try to give me a ticket for going through the stop sign without stopping.

 

[Daren Todd]

Daren, that's similar to what happened here. The main creek comes under the road 30-40 yards West of my property. The culvert they replaced was an auxiliary path for the water. When the normal path becomes overwhelmed the water goes over the East bank and floods a field. The road is then a dam.

They had plans for replacement of two pipes with larger ones. Since nobody from the "design team" bothered to peer into the existing pipes, they didn't know the pipes were seeing were a temporary repair from years before. There was a concrete box culvert under the road that originally had end walls and a handrail. A major flood undermined the end walls, so PennDOT removed them and stuffed a pair of culvert pipes in each end. In the end, the replacement was less capable than the original box culvert that was probably installed in the early 1900's.

Ive been involved with several boxed culvert repairs around the state. I'm renting them equipment to bypass the creeks or river so they can rip put the old stuff and pour new boxed culverts.

It's usually the counties that have the major brain farts around here with driveways.

 

[Daren Todd]

Our driveway, where it meets the road, has always had water washing down it, and it never did much damage. This year, the town road about 30' washed out along the edge of the road where it intersects with our driveway. The town came by and repaired the asphalt, but when they got to our driveway, they put a speed bump to direct the water past our driveway into the neighbor's undeveloped lot. A few years ago, they installed a stop sign at the end of the driveway. They tried to do it about 20 years ago, and I informed them that it was an illegal sign. This time, they erected it when we were away. I can't wait for some cop to try to give me a ticket for going through the stop sign without stopping.

We had the town we lived in, in Vermont put up a 4 way stop at the end of our driveway.

The issue was in the winter during storms. Our driveway was a 1/2 mile straight up a 7% grade. It leveled off about 1/2 up the hill, then went into a second hill that was a 7% grade.

You would have to run the intersection to make it up the hill, and if you were coming down, you would usually slide out into the intersection before stopping.

There have been a couple times where a cop was stopped at the intersection or watching traffic pulled off at the side of our driveway during the storm where I've come blasting through that intersection at 45mph to make it up the hill

We had a new sheriff one day watching the intersection when I blew through it during a snow storm.

He kicked his blue lights on, turned around, and came up the hill behind me.

About a 1/2 hour later, he comes walking up to the house wondering if I could come down with gramps tractor and pull him out of the ditch. He made it 3/4 of the way up and couldn't go any further. Then the cruiser started sliding back down the hill, so he had to ease it into the snow bank/ ditch.

He also understood why I ran the stop sign