Comment on Why don't urban/suburban streets and roads use a center storm channel?
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 week ago
First, if the road floods, that would push drain clogging debris into the road, not away from it, and while many roads can operate a slight clog at the side, it becomes more problematic at the center.
Secondly, if it does clog, regardless if it was from a flood or just litter flowing into it with normal rain, some one has to go unclog it.
That someone would then either have to shut down both directions or be at risk of being hit from both directions.
Third, with the way roads are constructed, it would be a lot more expensive to design the sewers to either tolerate the loads (imagine a big heavy truck,) or burry it deep enough that the load is distributed around it anyways.
Fourth, maintenance. If something happens where you need to dig up your sewer, putting it to the side means you’re not also digging up the road. The reverse is also true.
Fifth, in freezing conditions, you don’t really want the water pooling in the center… you want it to the side, at least before it freeze back into ice.
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
This is precisely what I’m trying to understand: what gets more problematic? The driving? The civil engineering? What is the exact complexity that a center drain would introduce?
Conventional drains along the curb also need to be unclogged manually, except that the public works dept needs to get people to move their parked cars, which can also hide the problem from being easily noticed in the first place.
From seeing how my town accesses manholes located in the middle of a two-way road, they arrange two heavy trucks in a row, one before and one after the manhole. On a multilane arterial, this is a minor traffic disruption of one lane. On a quiet residential street, people just go around slowly.
I believe that roads are infact designed with the sewer and storm drain pipes directly below the traffic lanes. See my other comment. A cursory review of my town’s planning documents for a new road extension shows a cross section that has all longitudinal piping underneath the lanes, so that the manholes aren’t installed under sidewalks or the curb. I am open to seeing plans for other jurisdictions that build their pipes differently.