Your favorite state as far as road conditions/hardware

[KEK Inc.]

What's your favorite state as far as road hardware and general maintenance?  (You may answer two separate states if you like the road hardware in a state that you think poorly maintains their roads.) 

Personally, I like WSDOT's hardware.  The streetlamps are neat and more or less subtle.  I'm not a big fan of the obnoxious dome lamps.  I also like Washington's new design for sign bridges.  They were first implemented in the '90s, if I recall, but they're quite basic and look much better than a lattice structure sign bridge. 

I-90 through Mercer Island, probably has to be my favorite stretch of artificial road-hardware use in the country. 

[agentsteel53]

Alaska does an incredible job at keeping their roads in good condition, given the elements they have to contend against.

in Anchorage, we got 16 inches of snow in about 12 hours (4pm to 4am or so) and by 10am the roads were completely passable. 

frost-heaves, another fact of life this far north, are next to nonexistent on the primary routes, implying frequent (annual?) re-grading. 

[J N Winkler]

frost-heaves, another fact of life this far north, are next to nonexistent on the primary routes, implying frequent (annual?) re-grading.

Not necessarily.  It is not the cold which puts stress on pavements:  it is the cycling between frozen and thawed states.  A place which remains continuously frozen in winter (like much of Canada) will have less trouble keeping pavements in good order than one (like much of the northern continental US) where freeze-thaw cycles are frequent in the winter.

BTW, do you mean "resurfacing"?  "Re-grading" typically applies to gravel . . .

[oscar]

BTW, do you mean "resurfacing"?  "Re-grading" typically applies to gravel . . .

Many of Alaska's primary routes are gravel (especially in the northern areas most vulnerable to permafrost heaving), though not around Anchorage.

Around Anchorage, pavement maintenance is OK, but as you note it doesn't have the kind of continuous freeze-thaw cycling that besets, say, Pennsylvania. 

[roadfro]

If I recall correctly, frost heaving is more typical in PCC pavements, as slabs are tied together into individual units. Since asphalt is more flexible and uniform, I think you're likely to see more in the way of cracking and potholes under freeze-thaw conditions. Frost heaving and other conditions related to freeze-thaw cycles should be next to non-existent on graveled/graded roads.

Areas like Canada and Alaska typically remain cold enough that freeze-thaw cycles are either non existent, or happen gradually and infrequently enough to generally be a non-issue.

[Riverside Frwy]

I have to go with Atlanta, GA. Their freeway system is complete and nice. Plus I-85 thru there is nicest 12/14 lane freeway I've ever seen. The HOV lanes are also what California's HOV lanes SHOULD BE.

[agentsteel53]

Atlanta will forever receive demerits from me for the biggest gaffe in road signage I have ever encountered: a dead-end street with a concrete barricade covered in a black tarp - only about fifty feet past a "speed limit 35" sign.

yep, I came across it in the middle of the night.  Came about two feet away from hitting a four-foot-high concrete wall!

[architect77]

I have to go with Atlanta, GA. Their freeway system is complete and nice. Plus I-85 thru there is nicest 12/14 lane freeway I've ever seen. The HOV lanes are also what California's HOV lanes SHOULD BE.

I was just in Atlanta, and I'm happy to report they've started using the big fat font again on huge overheads downtown. They started using tabs also.

Their hardware is far from the best however. They don't even cantilever over the road anymore, just pathetically raising some signs waaay over on the right side of the hwy. All of the overheads are tilted down toward the roadway too. I guess it helps the reflectivity, but I've never seen any other state do this. No lights on any overheads, and while some of you like the uniform height and size of Georgia's overheads, it's hard to fit a lot of text on them.  Probably why they adopted that skinny font back in the nineties. I'm happy now with the new oversized fat font.
I don't like how they changed 5 wide and comfortable lanes long ago into 6 skinnier ones as they added the HOV lane.
I do like all of the traveltime info updates though.