The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: October 2, 2006

241 comments on DrumBeat: October 2, 2006

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dinopello on October 2, 2006 - 1:44pm

Weather might be an issue, skilled labor certainly, and attitude (long term vs short) - I think you hit them all.

Although I have been to other European cities (not German) where they had pavers hundreds of years old, only they did have slight uneveness to them. This is one of the reasons that sturdy walking shoes are helpful. We now adhere to ADA (American with Disabilities Act) that I think requires a certain smoothness to all surfaces and it was this requirement also that I think drove Arlington to go back to concrete.

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expat on October 2, 2006 - 2:28pm

Certainly there is a lot of variation between recently laid, consistently produced bricks and things done hundreds of years of ago - there is a lot of variation in Germany too.

But with some experience in pushing people in wheelchairs here, I can say that the German sidewalks definitely stand up well to comparison.

It also occurs to that Germans use fairly heavy and largish bricks in general, while the stones I have seen in American are quite small.

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neon9 on October 2, 2006 - 2:56pm

There is a German company, Uni (or Uni-eco) that has patented a paver with a small spacer that leaves a gap between laid pavers, to allow more water to infiltrate into the soil. Neat idea, they are sold worldwide now I believe.
The key with pavers and indeed any pavement is the base. I think inproper base preparation is often the reason you see them fail.
They are going down my street now and tearing up and repouring 5-20 foot lengths of concrete sidewalk where the sections have heaved, mostly due to tree roots.

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josephdietrich on October 2, 2006 - 3:16pm

<q>there is a lot of variation in Germany too</q> You can say that again. The roads and bikeways in Kreis Koblenz are mostly awful for a road bike compared to the roads in Niedersachsen (or for that matter southwestern Indiana).

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241 comments on DrumBeat: October 2, 2006

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