What impact does weather and terrain have in the way Transit designs roads?
The terrain adds hugely to the cost of building roads. Once you have done the expensive earthworks for a road it is very expensive to realign it or try to make it higher or lower. It’s also expensive to cut through hills or build up roads over wet or coastal areas. Weather makes a big difference to maintenance costs. Hot weather can cause bleeding (this can occur when the road surface gets hot and goes molten), snow and ice can crack the road, and in wet weather water can get under the surface of the road and break it up. Roads also have a camber (each side of the road slopes away from the centreline at a rate of about 3%) to let stormwater run off as fast as possible.
