During the past year, there have been periods when the gravel roads in Oakland County seemed to have been in bad shape. Why?
One of the biggest problems faced with gravel roads is the freeze/thaw cycle we sometimes experience in January, February or March. There is little we can do to smooth a road when it thaws, turns to mud, gets rutted, and then quickly freezes again. We can’t grade a frozen road or a road that is mud. About the only thing we can do under these conditions is bring in gravel to fill the worst potholes. But, because placing gravel is very labor-intensive and time consuming, we can only do a small fraction of the problem areas. This problem can also be compounded if we also experience heavy snowfalls or unseasonably heavy rains during the same time. The heavy snows require that we devote much of our efforts to salting and plowing roads, which means we can’t focus on repairing gravel roads. Meanwhile, heavy rain can further erode the already-rough gravel roads.
