Sunday, September 13, 2015

Oil Being Sprayed on DOE Roads

I discovered this too while riding home from the Jemez on West Jemez Road. Thanks to Mike Warren for the shout-out on the Pajarito Riders e-list. You can ride it, but its like riding on flypaper and of course once you get fresh tacky oil on your tires, good luck with all the glass shards, debris, and goatheads that will stick to your fancy racing rubber....

Pajarito road is currently impassible by bike due to fresh oil sprayed from edge to edge.  Same thing appears to be happening on E/W Jemez in neighborhood of TA-3.

Mike

Here is more from LANL.



A LANL road project currently is in progress and is expected to be complete by Friday, Sept. 18.  The Laboratory's main arterial road surfaces are being treated with an asphalt emulsion intended to extend the service life of the pavement. The following road sections will be worked on this week from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • East Jemez (Truck Route) from NM 4 to the Omega Canyon Bridge
  • West Jemez from West Jemez to NM 4 
  • Pajarito Road from Diamond Drive to NM 4.  
The treatment sets up and road surfaces are drivable within 20 minutes. Traffic control will be in place as sections are treated. Motorists should expect delays and are asked not to drive on treated areas until traffic-control personnel direct them to do so. 
 
Once dry, the road is fine to bike on. --KJS

2 comments:

JerryM said...

WTF? I wasn't planning to ride to work Monday, so I can assess the mess while driving. Saturday, I saw some spraying of West Jemez, but it was very limited in area.

My perception of LANL road work is they completely ignore cycling safety. I saw nothing on-line stating they were doing this work over the weekend.

A few additional issues: When is LANL going to do 10 feet x 2 feet of paving at the west Pajarito VAP entrance so we can cycle into the VAP without dueling with impatient, speeding Lab employees? When is LANL going to fix the steam grating at Diamond/Jemez so cyclists don't have to divert attention to avoiding the slot gaps that would cause a serious crash

These are, of course, rhetorical comments, because I already know the answer is probably never, but certainly not before I retire.

I could list more traffic safety issues that I'm tired of submitting to Safety at LANL. I have decided I will just ride defensively :-)

Jerry

Khal said...

I brought up the problem of "Tar Snakes" (see link) a couple years ago when it looked like LANL had upended a truck full of liquid tar at the main VAPs. As you say, its not clear to me either that two wheeled safety is high on the list of LANL or the DOE.

http://www.motorcycletraining.com/team-arizona-riding-tip-august-2012-take-the-bite-out-of-tar-snakes/