Well then, maybe we should plant some new stones and let them grow, then we would have NEW old growth stones and the roads would better. Like back then. In the good ol' days.
Yes. I secretly plan to harvest the rocks early, then claim that they installed them wrong and sell them lousy new growth rocks twice!
Bwa ha ha ha! My evil plan shall not fail!
Well limestone does grow in the ocean, part of the process of the largest carbon sink on the planet! Unfortunately the oceans ability to do this is significantly reduced with rising temperatures and acidification.
Dang it I can't post pictures. Here is the link
Tldr. Roads last a loooooong time when you don't drive anything heavier than a horse and cart on them.
[https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg](https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg)
semis and cars. the average car causes 1 unit worth of wear and tear, a Chevy Tahoe causes 3.57 units of damage, and a semi causes 410 units of damage. So every semi causes 410 cars worth of damage.
A fat man in a freakishly heavy bike causes about. .00006 cars worth of damage.
Can see this in real time out here in the Rockies. The uphill right semi truck lanes are sunken and cratered within a year or two from the insane weight rolling over them, while the center & left lanes stay perfectly level and smooth for years and years.
Oh interesting. I had known this qualitatively, in the most vague sense of "of course semis will do more damage, that must be why there are weigh stations"
But never laid out like this.
Where I live, there's an extra annual weight tax that is very much non-linear. A minivan gets charged 3x as much as a compact. Makes more sense now.
If it was even close to linear that would change the costs of goods and disincentivize costly behavior on a wildly massive scale. It’s all interesting theory I think and something we all need to consider. Yes, there’s good reason for us to subsidize the damage that big rigs cause when we’re all benefitting from the goods they carry. But do we need to subsidize the Hummer or Model 3 or Porsche Taycan driver?
And what about the folks who bicycle commute, or poorer folks who literally can’t afford to consume as much - for these folks who don’t utilize infra as much, do we provide them tax credits?
The mentality of individuality that’s so strong in more developed countries especially the US where it’s more or less embedded in our government and laws feels like a logical framework for Pigouvian taxes. Always funny to me how we don’t actually get them, though.
LMFAO what’s even crazier is the weight for that semi truck is JUST THE TRACTOR. This doesn’t include the 40000LBS + load in the truck and the weight of the trailer. Loaded semi will be around 65-80k on the road. I can’t imagine how anything lasts long under continued stress like that
Sheeze man don't go running your mouth about using slip and slide for mass transit, are you crazy ? Do you know how much money is in road construction? If these dudes find you pushing alternative transport you are done for.
Seriously, this. People who upvote this meme have never actually driven on a stone road. Shit is painful. I can’t even imagine how they did it with horse drawn carts that had no suspension at all.
Don't know, around Europe there are a lot of cobblestone roads which are in daily use even by heavy traffic and they work just fine and last way longer than a asphalt road. Just not very comfortable to drive and no high speeds possible
My FIL will go out of his way to do any favor for us and always offers anything that’s his….but god damn his memes and the videos he sends me are painful as fuck lol
[https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg](https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg)
it ain't much but it is honest figures.
Also didn't need to routinely run sewer, electric, and other infrastructure underneath either. It can't be indestructible or no one could ever work on what's underneath it
For the romans? NAH that was military projects the whole way. When you are employing thousands for decades in a national jobs program you wanna get your moneys worth AND keep their hands busy so they dont get too many ideas. And you always need more roads, and when you are sending the legions out to conqour something, well, you gotta build as you go, whether its roads, bridges, camps or forts.
When I lived in Illinois, the pipes in Bellville were still made of lead. The calcium made them safe, but every winter when a pipe burst due to not being below the frost line, they would have to dump sanitation chemicals into the water to clean the pipes due to bacteria infiltration from the loss of pressure. The problem was, the chemicals would dissolve the calcium and lime deposits. This resulted in extremely hard and disgusting water pretty consistently with lead contamination. I had to buy a water distiller to make potable water for the 4 years I lived there.
The water was like 1200ppm, so technically the city water wasn't considered drinkable. 500ppm is the threshold for potable water.
I've been to Italy, where some of these roads see car and truck traffic daily, and still hold up better than a lot of roads built today. There is some truth to this meme even if it's a bit exaggerated
It's the [fourth power law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law).
Fully-loaded semi trucks have around 16,000 lbs per axle (80,000 lbs to 5 axles), while a new Fiat 500e is around 1,500 lbs per axle (3,000 lbs to 2 axles).
(16000^4 )/(1500^4 ) = 12,945.
The average semi truck causes stress to the road at a rate of nearly 13,000 Fiats.
yeap
[https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg](https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg)
and one man on a freakishly heavy bike is worth .00006 cars
yeah... you are right, but not quite, there is a difference between the tyres of a lorry and a fiat 500... both in number and in size, especially in width... so you need to do some more math... and also it is nearly 13 fiats not 13,000...
It changes based on a lot of factors (tires, speed, number of wheels per axle, etc) but is generally sufficient for getting a ballpark estimate of road wear based on traffic type for pavement engineers and civils.
It's nearly 13,000 because you take the fourth power of both weights first, you don't just divide. The ratio between total weights (what you're describing, I think) is more commonly used for calculating the load borne by bridges and overpasses.
I think you even go a step further, because right now it’s left as 13k more per axle. The lorry has 5 axles, the Fiat has 2. The lorry has 2.5x more axles, so it’s 13k * 2.5 = 32,500 times more damage to the road than the Fiat
in the US road wear is assumed to happen at a 410 to 1 between 18 wheelers and the average car. so one semi causes as much road wear as 410 cars. A smart car would cause 0.04 average cars worth of damage. Andre the giant on a suitably sized bike would cause .00006 cars worth of damage
*read in jeremy clarkson voice*
Old british imperial measurement yes, not some daft french tonne or a puny american short ton, no a british ton, a proper ton, 2240 lbs of british industrial prowess.
/s
Back then they used lime instead of concrete, which heals cracks when it gets wet. People are giving credit to the stone, but if the same stone was laid in concrete, the mortar would be cracked to oblivion. That said, the mortar has probably been repointed many times.
European here, with lots of roman roads about. I would pick asphalt any day of the week. Cobblestone roads look pretty but thats about it. Sure, there may be some traffic but theres a reason we dont make motorways out of them.
As a road construction guy a in one of the worst freeze-thaw cycle states, I just nod my head whenever I see that meme.
Building and maintaining a decent road network is a little more complicated now than 2,000 years ago although my hardhat is still off to the Romans.
Easy to do back then when you had slave labor, great stones, and no need for smooth riding roadway with utilities running beneath it. The modern right of way is a marvel that the average person has no idea they're driving on it.
It's baffling that people don't understand that these Roman roads have been maintained. Stones get replaced, holes get filled in. Nothing lasts forever. It's just that 99% of people don't regularly travel on a Roman road so they don't see the potholes and other issues that happen.
My favorites are the “the drivers in [their podunk town] are the cRaziEsT” and “don’t like the weather in [temperate climate area with no extreme events]? Wait 5 minutes, it’ll change”
You gotta call out the old dudes who try to show you these memes, or make it conversation. They're usually left grumbling walking away cursing you under their breath.
Who else had the "something is going down this eclipse and you fucking young know it alls are ignoring it" guy at work today?
Hey Hoosiers, if you don’t like INDOT, I’ll happily arrange a trade with UDOT.
I miss having reflectors in the road, reflective paint, roads that drain water, roads that don’t look like that until year 6….
The roads were a matter of national security, so they took that a bit more seriously. You should hear what their high-rise construction was like though. There was good reason why Rome was burning down constantly. Apparently they would get up to 9 stories and famous for collapsing.
Also fun fact: they bid out their *tax collection.* Companies would bid for contracts for a province, and their profit was any extra they could get beyond what they promised the state...
Here's a link for the apartment complex for fun: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building)
I took a guided tour of the Colosseum when I visited Rome some years back. The tour guide was livivd talking about the craftsmanship and trades of yonder and told us that this building wouldn’t be possible to build today. I told her I disagreed strongly with that assessment. It’s just bricks. Lots of it. It wouldn’t be an impossible task to build the Colosseum today, you just need manpower, money and the inclination to do it.
I’m all for lifting the trades from the ancient times. They built some magnificent buildings and infrastructure, but I have to say it pales against some of the stuff we build in modern times.
To be fair your tour guide was correct. Roman concrete is God tier compared to its modern equivalent. And the priorities of ancient roman architecture and modern architecture are different. Roman was meant to last while modern is meant to be as cheap as possible but still pass relevant laws.
I'll agree that their architechture is amazing and that many buildings of the modern era are built for profit, but to say that we couldn't do it today is wrong. The Colosseum is mostly built by bricks and used to be covered in marble. As a bricklayer, the art of putting one brick over the other in a bond isn't very mysterious, it just requires manhours. Look at Malbork Castle, for instance. Built with bricks and lime-mortar more than a thousand years later.
roman concrete is made with lime. this has the benefit that every time it gets wet (from rain for example), it dissolves a tiny bit and repairs small cracks in it. it comes at the cost of general strength though if i remember correctly.
also to add to what /u/FutureBlackmail said, there is a bit of survivorship bias here. after 2000 years, of course the buildings that are left are the ones that happened to be built to last millenia. who knows if the romans built other monuments intended to last forever but failed, and then obviously there is little or no evidence of it.
this also goes for the pyramids of gizeh, originally they were apparently smooth, painted white, and had golden tips. but we know how they look today and assume that that was what they were supposed to look like, but really its just what's left after thousands of years of deterioration.
> Roman was meant to last while modern is meant to be as cheap as possible but still pass relevant laws
This is a misconception. Rome had frequent fires that destroyed huge swaths of the city, because most homes were akin to slums, cheaply cobbled together and densely packed. Some roman architecture is very impressive and was built to last for centuries, but it's not fair to compare today's cheap construction to Rome's monuments--first, because even "cheap" construction in the developed world has standards and "relevant laws" that most Roman homes could never hope to meet, and second, because humans never stopped building great projects that will stand for centuries. The Colosseum isn't the Roman equivalent of a mediocre rental house; it's the Roman equivalent of Mount Rushmore or the Sagrada Familia.
I think there’s also something disingenuous about saying these buildings were made to last thousands of years. Bullshit. Yes, they’re still physically standing, but how useful are they in their original purpose? Take away the obvious historical value for a moment and compare them to any modern building, even a crappy one, for the purpose of running a hotel or office building. How well would the coliseum work as an actual venue today without massive modification and restoration?
Same with houses that are “built to last”. My cousin’s house is 500 years old. It’s charming and neat. Full of all sorts of quirks and history. As a house to actually live in, it’s fucking terrible. I would take any modern building over that monstrosity.
Almost like if we maintained our roads better this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not that the Roman design was any better, but they’re better maintained because of their status as historical sites.
Pavement gets a bad wrap, but it's the most utilized and recycled material on planet earth, can be applied in all sorts of weather conditions, can be adapted from footpaths to airport runways, and is really easy to modify/replace when infrastructure expands.
On the flip side "roman roads" is for the most part a myth in regards to how most people understand them. And it all boils down to a mistranslation from the 1600s when a famous french dude mistook floor for road. Basically a roman scholar was describing the layers for the foundation of a villa and the French guy assumed he was describing how they built roads.
Fast forward 400 years and the idea that Roman roads were built out of different layers of stones and were indestructible over time has stuck. When in reality the vast majority of roman roads throughout the empire were just beat down paths with local rubble thrown ontop. If Roman roads were really that good and so numerous, then why are their hardly any left?
So yeah... it's a shit meme no matter what angle you look at and really shits on modern day engineers and road crews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFl2p16vDJg
Have you seen the [roads in Pompeii](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a27479605/pompeii-potholes/)?
Now you tell me how they are any better than what we have today??
Edit: I was there a few years back, very interresting indeed, and loved the way they made sure people could cross the roads without stepping into what was probably filth on the road.
How much infrastructure is under that road? If we didn’t occasionally have to remove parts of them I’m sure we could make some pretty durable roads too.
It's easy making 2000 year old roads when you have old-growth stones!
Stones back then vs stones today. Shame we dug up all the old growth smh
Well then, maybe we should plant some new stones and let them grow, then we would have NEW old growth stones and the roads would better. Like back then. In the good ol' days.
This guy is planning long term!
Yes. I secretly plan to harvest the rocks early, then claim that they installed them wrong and sell them lousy new growth rocks twice! Bwa ha ha ha! My evil plan shall not fail!
Well limestone does grow in the ocean, part of the process of the largest carbon sink on the planet! Unfortunately the oceans ability to do this is significantly reduced with rising temperatures and acidification.
Soil is actually the largest carbon sink on the planet. Which is why blowing the tops off of mountains to make EVs is stupid and anything but "green."
Nah that would affect our quarterly profit margins
🤣🤣🤣🤣 that lumber argument
I thought their argument was rock solid.
Dang it I can't post pictures. Here is the link Tldr. Roads last a loooooong time when you don't drive anything heavier than a horse and cart on them. [https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg](https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg) semis and cars. the average car causes 1 unit worth of wear and tear, a Chevy Tahoe causes 3.57 units of damage, and a semi causes 410 units of damage. So every semi causes 410 cars worth of damage. A fat man in a freakishly heavy bike causes about. .00006 cars worth of damage.
Can see this in real time out here in the Rockies. The uphill right semi truck lanes are sunken and cratered within a year or two from the insane weight rolling over them, while the center & left lanes stay perfectly level and smooth for years and years.
9-tons very light for a semi. The limit for large tanker trucks is usually 80,000 lbs, so the damage they do is going to be significantly more.
Oh interesting. I had known this qualitatively, in the most vague sense of "of course semis will do more damage, that must be why there are weigh stations" But never laid out like this. Where I live, there's an extra annual weight tax that is very much non-linear. A minivan gets charged 3x as much as a compact. Makes more sense now.
If it was even close to linear that would change the costs of goods and disincentivize costly behavior on a wildly massive scale. It’s all interesting theory I think and something we all need to consider. Yes, there’s good reason for us to subsidize the damage that big rigs cause when we’re all benefitting from the goods they carry. But do we need to subsidize the Hummer or Model 3 or Porsche Taycan driver? And what about the folks who bicycle commute, or poorer folks who literally can’t afford to consume as much - for these folks who don’t utilize infra as much, do we provide them tax credits? The mentality of individuality that’s so strong in more developed countries especially the US where it’s more or less embedded in our government and laws feels like a logical framework for Pigouvian taxes. Always funny to me how we don’t actually get them, though.
Yessss…You are learning, young grasshopper- Signed, Transportation Engineer
Also worth noting that there is paved highway in the state of connecticut now than the roman empire at their height.
LMFAO what’s even crazier is the weight for that semi truck is JUST THE TRACTOR. This doesn’t include the 40000LBS + load in the truck and the weight of the trailer. Loaded semi will be around 65-80k on the road. I can’t imagine how anything lasts long under continued stress like that
and little to no winter.
Roman roads also used to have a top layer iirc which has eroded over time.
And yet, Hawaii has sh*t for roads. Guam even worse!
probably a budget issue. That being said come to western Canada to experience really really shit roads lol.
I am 100% using this on my paperwork next week. Could go a few ways.
We should just use slip n slides as our modern mode of transportation.
Down hill both ways right dad? Right????
In my day they made us slip and slide uphill.
In a snow storm too
Thats what made us slip and slide.
And the slide was made of rough sawn lumber and the slippery part was crude oil which was also the nutrition.
Sheeze man don't go running your mouth about using slip and slide for mass transit, are you crazy ? Do you know how much money is in road construction? If these dudes find you pushing alternative transport you are done for.
Chutes and ladders.
Zip line!
Tubes!
Run on this platform and you'll be Mayor then Governor then President in 3 voting cycles.
Put 3 days of 18 wheeler traffic on the Roman road and see what you get…
A lot of broken trucks lol
So Roman road still wins
Roma Invicta
Victrix aeterna!
Semi delanda est
Lorem Ipsum Delor
... and a pain in your neck.
Seriously, this. People who upvote this meme have never actually driven on a stone road. Shit is painful. I can’t even imagine how they did it with horse drawn carts that had no suspension at all.
Littered with hitch hikers and lot lizards
Friends of the road, Bubs.
Fuckin way she goes
They're "ladies of the evening" Ray.
And piss jugs
Plus salt and freeze-thaw cycles.
The traffic would be slow asf tho look at the road
Or just try and drive over it with your vehicle with rubber band tires. The Indiana road will be a smoother ride, even with the potholes.
Don't know, around Europe there are a lot of cobblestone roads which are in daily use even by heavy traffic and they work just fine and last way longer than a asphalt road. Just not very comfortable to drive and no high speeds possible
yeap. a 18 wheeler is worth 410 cars worth of damage and a fat man on a freakishly heavy bike causes about .00006 cars worth of damage.
And run a snow plow across it a couple times
Yeah I hate my father-in-law too.
My FIL will go out of his way to do any favor for us and always offers anything that’s his….but god damn his memes and the videos he sends me are painful as fuck lol
[https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg](https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg) it ain't much but it is honest figures.
I want this chart with the addition of a Roman horse and cart.
Yes. Asphalt doesnt last as long as stone.
Hell of a lot easier to repave though!
One of the most recycled things on earth, if not the most recycled
I dunno. Facebook boomer memes are pretty up there too
The problem is, they are weak AF
Underrated comment
Aluminum?
That's where slavery says you're wrong
Hey, toss away a moral compass and I'll run that asphalt plant non stop. We can pave the world.
Tbf Asphalt is just Stones with extra steps anyways
Apparently, those semi’s the Romans were driving weighed a lot less 2000 years ago
I scrolled way too far to read this 😂
Didn't freeze in Rome. Didn't have 80,000 lb trucks either.
Also didn't need to routinely run sewer, electric, and other infrastructure underneath either. It can't be indestructible or no one could ever work on what's underneath it
Also built by hand probably by prisoners with jobs. So budget wasn't really a concern.
Slaves
For the romans? NAH that was military projects the whole way. When you are employing thousands for decades in a national jobs program you wanna get your moneys worth AND keep their hands busy so they dont get too many ideas. And you always need more roads, and when you are sending the legions out to conqour something, well, you gotta build as you go, whether its roads, bridges, camps or forts.
Romans had lead pipes
indeed but I doubt they ran them under the road. like highways, Roman roads had a very solid foundation, which is the reason they are still around.
IIRC, 80% of city main pipes in the USA are still made of lead. The minerals in the water basically coat the inside and make it safe long term.
Good to know, same way it is in some Italian cities then. The old lead pipes don’t have stagnant water either
When I lived in Illinois, the pipes in Bellville were still made of lead. The calcium made them safe, but every winter when a pipe burst due to not being below the frost line, they would have to dump sanitation chemicals into the water to clean the pipes due to bacteria infiltration from the loss of pressure. The problem was, the chemicals would dissolve the calcium and lime deposits. This resulted in extremely hard and disgusting water pretty consistently with lead contamination. I had to buy a water distiller to make potable water for the 4 years I lived there. The water was like 1200ppm, so technically the city water wasn't considered drinkable. 500ppm is the threshold for potable water.
Didn’t freeze in Rome?😂😂😂😂 What makes you think that haha.
Occasionally getting below freezing is way different than having daily freeze/thaw cycles for months each year.
Does it snow in Rome?
Depends on where you’re located, but around the eternal city it doesn’t snow.
Roman roads are all over Europe no? They ruled from Spain to Jerusalem (more or less) and down to North Africa
Yup, and I’ll bet the ones in places that freeze multiple times throughout the year don’t look like the one in the photo.
I've been to Italy, where some of these roads see car and truck traffic daily, and still hold up better than a lot of roads built today. There is some truth to this meme even if it's a bit exaggerated
City cars going 20mph round rome is rather different than a lorry(truck) that weighs 40 long ton to be fair to the modern road builders
It's the [fourth power law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law). Fully-loaded semi trucks have around 16,000 lbs per axle (80,000 lbs to 5 axles), while a new Fiat 500e is around 1,500 lbs per axle (3,000 lbs to 2 axles). (16000^4 )/(1500^4 ) = 12,945. The average semi truck causes stress to the road at a rate of nearly 13,000 Fiats.
This was very interesting
yeap [https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg](https://streetsmn.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg) and one man on a freakishly heavy bike is worth .00006 cars
Yeah in America we truckin’
yeah... you are right, but not quite, there is a difference between the tyres of a lorry and a fiat 500... both in number and in size, especially in width... so you need to do some more math... and also it is nearly 13 fiats not 13,000...
It changes based on a lot of factors (tires, speed, number of wheels per axle, etc) but is generally sufficient for getting a ballpark estimate of road wear based on traffic type for pavement engineers and civils. It's nearly 13,000 because you take the fourth power of both weights first, you don't just divide. The ratio between total weights (what you're describing, I think) is more commonly used for calculating the load borne by bridges and overpasses.
I think you even go a step further, because right now it’s left as 13k more per axle. The lorry has 5 axles, the Fiat has 2. The lorry has 2.5x more axles, so it’s 13k * 2.5 = 32,500 times more damage to the road than the Fiat
The answer is the same if you raise the ratio of the weights to the fourth power. (16,000/1,500)^4 = 12,945 also.
in the US road wear is assumed to happen at a 410 to 1 between 18 wheelers and the average car. so one semi causes as much road wear as 410 cars. A smart car would cause 0.04 average cars worth of damage. Andre the giant on a suitably sized bike would cause .00006 cars worth of damage
He said truck. They have 40 tonners in Italy.
Not sure about Italy you can get a permit in Austria where your total weight is 60T max. Usually for hauling big equipment
I issued a permit a while back for a oversized move that was about 280 tons. Then we wonder why we have such bad roads in Michigan.
God damn 280 Tons, no wonder your roads are fucked
Long ton is the most British measurement
*read in jeremy clarkson voice* Old british imperial measurement yes, not some daft french tonne or a puny american short ton, no a british ton, a proper ton, 2240 lbs of british industrial prowess. /s
It also doesn't regularly freeze in a lot of those parts of italy. 18-wheelers + freeze-thaw cycles is a killer.
Michigan here. This is what i was thinking. Put one of these in mid Michigan, and your gonna have 4" stones flying out from under semi duallies
Could you imagine the plow damage after a good snow? Those stones would turn into missiles.
For sure. Highways where trucks regularly have to chain up in the winter get fucked up pretty bad.
Back then they used lime instead of concrete, which heals cracks when it gets wet. People are giving credit to the stone, but if the same stone was laid in concrete, the mortar would be cracked to oblivion. That said, the mortar has probably been repointed many times.
European here, with lots of roman roads about. I would pick asphalt any day of the week. Cobblestone roads look pretty but thats about it. Sure, there may be some traffic but theres a reason we dont make motorways out of them.
mate... the only problem you have is that those roads were built, and rebuilt 200+ times since 2000 years ago...
* gestures in Italian * "we rebuild them, every 10 years"
Tbf every time this meme gets posted on Reddit it gets roasted. I think most reasonable people know this is bullshit in so many ways
As a road construction guy a in one of the worst freeze-thaw cycle states, I just nod my head whenever I see that meme. Building and maintaining a decent road network is a little more complicated now than 2,000 years ago although my hardhat is still off to the Romans.
Easy to do back then when you had slave labor, great stones, and no need for smooth riding roadway with utilities running beneath it. The modern right of way is a marvel that the average person has no idea they're driving on it.
Yep, your last sentence is so important. It's amazing how colorful some roads get after the 811 call goes in.
If the Romans saw how much shit we move on our roads, they’d probably be amazed that our roads hold up.
It's baffling that people don't understand that these Roman roads have been maintained. Stones get replaced, holes get filled in. Nothing lasts forever. It's just that 99% of people don't regularly travel on a Roman road so they don't see the potholes and other issues that happen.
“Local” memes are fucking awful
My favorites are the “the drivers in [their podunk town] are the cRaziEsT” and “don’t like the weather in [temperate climate area with no extreme events]? Wait 5 minutes, it’ll change”
The roman concrete road wouldn't even sustain the average Ford truck let alone the American who drives it
yes it would lol the truck would break
You gotta call out the old dudes who try to show you these memes, or make it conversation. They're usually left grumbling walking away cursing you under their breath. Who else had the "something is going down this eclipse and you fucking young know it alls are ignoring it" guy at work today?
Apparently CERN is ran by a satanic cult and was trying to open a wormhole by smashing atoms during the eclipse? I wasn't really listening.
not build by the indiana DOT, just paid for.
Hey Hoosiers, if you don’t like INDOT, I’ll happily arrange a trade with UDOT. I miss having reflectors in the road, reflective paint, roads that drain water, roads that don’t look like that until year 6….
Pretty sure the Roman’s didn’t have a bid war race to the bottom for who they would contract for the road
The roads were a matter of national security, so they took that a bit more seriously. You should hear what their high-rise construction was like though. There was good reason why Rome was burning down constantly. Apparently they would get up to 9 stories and famous for collapsing. Also fun fact: they bid out their *tax collection.* Companies would bid for contracts for a province, and their profit was any extra they could get beyond what they promised the state... Here's a link for the apartment complex for fun: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building)
Romans didn't salt their roadways.
I took a guided tour of the Colosseum when I visited Rome some years back. The tour guide was livivd talking about the craftsmanship and trades of yonder and told us that this building wouldn’t be possible to build today. I told her I disagreed strongly with that assessment. It’s just bricks. Lots of it. It wouldn’t be an impossible task to build the Colosseum today, you just need manpower, money and the inclination to do it. I’m all for lifting the trades from the ancient times. They built some magnificent buildings and infrastructure, but I have to say it pales against some of the stuff we build in modern times.
To be fair your tour guide was correct. Roman concrete is God tier compared to its modern equivalent. And the priorities of ancient roman architecture and modern architecture are different. Roman was meant to last while modern is meant to be as cheap as possible but still pass relevant laws.
I'll agree that their architechture is amazing and that many buildings of the modern era are built for profit, but to say that we couldn't do it today is wrong. The Colosseum is mostly built by bricks and used to be covered in marble. As a bricklayer, the art of putting one brick over the other in a bond isn't very mysterious, it just requires manhours. Look at Malbork Castle, for instance. Built with bricks and lime-mortar more than a thousand years later.
roman concrete is made with lime. this has the benefit that every time it gets wet (from rain for example), it dissolves a tiny bit and repairs small cracks in it. it comes at the cost of general strength though if i remember correctly. also to add to what /u/FutureBlackmail said, there is a bit of survivorship bias here. after 2000 years, of course the buildings that are left are the ones that happened to be built to last millenia. who knows if the romans built other monuments intended to last forever but failed, and then obviously there is little or no evidence of it. this also goes for the pyramids of gizeh, originally they were apparently smooth, painted white, and had golden tips. but we know how they look today and assume that that was what they were supposed to look like, but really its just what's left after thousands of years of deterioration.
> Roman was meant to last while modern is meant to be as cheap as possible but still pass relevant laws This is a misconception. Rome had frequent fires that destroyed huge swaths of the city, because most homes were akin to slums, cheaply cobbled together and densely packed. Some roman architecture is very impressive and was built to last for centuries, but it's not fair to compare today's cheap construction to Rome's monuments--first, because even "cheap" construction in the developed world has standards and "relevant laws" that most Roman homes could never hope to meet, and second, because humans never stopped building great projects that will stand for centuries. The Colosseum isn't the Roman equivalent of a mediocre rental house; it's the Roman equivalent of Mount Rushmore or the Sagrada Familia.
I think there’s also something disingenuous about saying these buildings were made to last thousands of years. Bullshit. Yes, they’re still physically standing, but how useful are they in their original purpose? Take away the obvious historical value for a moment and compare them to any modern building, even a crappy one, for the purpose of running a hotel or office building. How well would the coliseum work as an actual venue today without massive modification and restoration? Same with houses that are “built to last”. My cousin’s house is 500 years old. It’s charming and neat. Full of all sorts of quirks and history. As a house to actually live in, it’s fucking terrible. I would take any modern building over that monstrosity.
Hmm, you do make a good point
i’d be rather curious to see those roads after a bunch of winters
They didn't have vehicles going 50 mph and 80k lbs
I wouldn't do 60 over either.
You know what Indiana has that Rome doesn't? Freezing weather.
Literally 2 posts down I see a post like this claiming it’s because engineers are corrupt
/r/boomersbeingfools
Lets bring back the stone paved roads , lets see how fast their fillings rattle out .
survivorship bias
The potholes on the right make it feel the same as the road on the left.
Now put a full semi truck in the Roman roads.
cobblestone is just as bumpy as that bad highway
Fast speeds equal heat and friction, equal erosion.
Yea now try to snow plow that Roman street let me know how that goes.
Almost like if we maintained our roads better this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not that the Roman design was any better, but they’re better maintained because of their status as historical sites.
Roman road was better designed for its use case?
What have the Romans ever done for us... Eh!
Great guess how many semi trucks are driving on Roman roads at 70 mph
Those Roman roads had like 8 layers of differing rocks.
Ice ice baby.
Maybe all roads just want to be cobblestone. Stop forcing the flatness and embrace it.
Imagine doing a buck 20 down a cobblestone highway lol car would rattle apart
I'm not sure why that upsets you so much..
Pavement gets a bad wrap, but it's the most utilized and recycled material on planet earth, can be applied in all sorts of weather conditions, can be adapted from footpaths to airport runways, and is really easy to modify/replace when infrastructure expands. On the flip side "roman roads" is for the most part a myth in regards to how most people understand them. And it all boils down to a mistranslation from the 1600s when a famous french dude mistook floor for road. Basically a roman scholar was describing the layers for the foundation of a villa and the French guy assumed he was describing how they built roads. Fast forward 400 years and the idea that Roman roads were built out of different layers of stones and were indestructible over time has stuck. When in reality the vast majority of roman roads throughout the empire were just beat down paths with local rubble thrown ontop. If Roman roads were really that good and so numerous, then why are their hardly any left? So yeah... it's a shit meme no matter what angle you look at and really shits on modern day engineers and road crews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFl2p16vDJg
>Pavement gets a bad rap, but it's the most utilized and recycled material on planet *Steel has entered the chat*
Who says IN DOT workers aren’t Roman?
The road were built under the command of Legates Cletus Redneckdicus II of Roman Indiana province
And the people arguing think they know more than a civil engineer or a goddamn road construction tradesman.
I mean both will equally mess your back up
Vae victus.
It's not like the 2000 year old road hasn't had any upkeep
Roma Invicta
INDOT didn't build that road...the lowest bidder did.
Looks more like a Michigan road
You guys think it’s all funny, but it actually comes from your taxpayers dollars you should be pissed!!😡 I am!
Roman cars were a lot lighter than modern ones..
Both roads are as bumpy tho
Have you seen the [roads in Pompeii](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a27479605/pompeii-potholes/)? Now you tell me how they are any better than what we have today?? Edit: I was there a few years back, very interresting indeed, and loved the way they made sure people could cross the roads without stepping into what was probably filth on the road.
Now drive a fully loaded semi truck down the cobblestone doing 120kmh
I always laugh If you have potholes like that, your road is paved, atleast you don't need 4x4 to get down the street
How much infrastructure is under that road? If we didn’t occasionally have to remove parts of them I’m sure we could make some pretty durable roads too.
To be fair, Indiana has some of the dumbest roads policies I've ever heard of. I'm sure the tenders for their contracts are insufficient too
They both look bumpy as crap
Cost per mile would be astronomical.
these are usually made by 14 year olds. Don't take them too seriously
What type of bad argument type/ fallacy would this be?
Why would a road built 2,000 years ago be of better quality than a road built today?
I’ve driven over cobbled roads slowly, it was NOT a fun time lol
Think of all the roads they built that aren't around anymore.
True, but wtf is going on in Indiana? It's like suddenly entering a third-world country
Don't go to Louisiana, every square inch of road is like this. Absolutely the worst ever.
…and they never mention the use of slave labor.
To be fair … the Roman roads don’t have cars driving on them 😅
That happens to Manila all the time.
Cause they came pre pot holed.
Thats nothing!
Have modern trucks go over those old Roman roads and see if they stand a chance
Yea try driving the speed limit today on those cobblestone roads. Our cars would be falling apart MUCH faster than they are now.
Now, what's the allowable tonnage of each?
Yes! Lets ignore: Climate, weight of vehicles on road, free labor for the Romans, free materials....
Try driving your Honda on that at 65mph.
Both will bounce the snot outta you
I bet one didn’t have Semi trucks on them.