Who has heard of an inverted road?

[Baitball Blogger]

They were a subpar way of moving stormwater along the middle of the road. Saved money for the developers because they didn't have to lay down a rainwater drainage system. In today's world, my city doesn't allow them in new developments.

From what I know of inverted roads, you should visibly see the "V" shape in the road. But, I could be wrong. If you don't do it right, those of us who get water sloshed on our lawns are never going to be able to grow grass along the edge of the street because of saturation problems.

Anyone have experience with these?

[QED]

1. Do you mean with the higher part in the center?

We had a road like that here - I assume it was to drain rain water from the monsoons off the road. The road has been redone and I can't remember if it's still the same. I drive a different way to my job now.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. The opposite. A "V" shape.

Water goes down the middle of the road, because, otherwise, it ends up in the yards, where it saturates the ground and makes it impossible to even grow an ordinary lawn.

[mnhtnbb]

3. I have one running right through the middle of my yard in my new house.

The developer graded the yard to a V--away from the foundation of my house (on the right in the first photo) and away from the retaining wall that shores up the house next door which sits several feet above the grade of my yard. When it pours down rain, water literally flows like a river from the front gate through my yard to the drain situated behind my house which then empties to the retention pond behind my house. I am not allowed to change the grade. So, I paid a handyman to put a river rock path in the "footprint" of exactly where the water was flowing. It has helped to distribute the water when it rains. But when it pours, I still have a river running through my yard--now channeled--in my river rock path.

From the front gate



to the middle of the courtyard



to the back gate

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Now that's impressive.

We will have to make a choice soon, on the best way to send water from the back of the house to the sideyard. I think underground drains with clean-outs will work fine. Frankly, your yard looks like it could use them as well. You have more of a slope than we do.

[FuzzyRabbit]

4. The development where I live has inverted roads.

The rain water gets funneled down the middle of the road. There are storm drains every half block or so that capture the runoff. It seems to wok OK, except to walk across the road you have to walk through an inch or so of water. In my opinion, crowned roads are much better.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Crowned roads with Miami gutters.

We also have those.

[csziggy]

7. No experience but I found an article about it

In PDF format: http://www.flcaj.com/pdfdocs/streetdesign1.pdf

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Those pictures show the situation.

The first is the crown road with Miami gutters on the side. The second is the inverted road. Also shows the wear and tear that usually occurs, with the road deteriorating in the middle. It's a bad design, but when you have poor City leadership for decades, it's what typically happened in Florida in the older developments.

And, I suspect that they didn't invert the road enough in the middle when they recently repaved our road. But I won't know if I'm right until the first heavy rain. It concerns me because we did have a section of our lawn which was impossible to grow anything but crab grass because of the saturation problem. I was hoping the new paving of the road would fix the problem. Don't know if it will. It's a wait and see.

[csziggy]

9. Yes, I was interested in how they work

I remember when they paved the road in front of our house when I was a kid. They crowned the road, without the little concrete edges in the images. It didn't bother us - our house was up an incline - but some of the neighbors complained about the overflow into their yards, plus when the hurricane came, their yards were flooded.

Soon I have to get our very long driveway improved. I haven't decided if we'll get it paved or what, but I've decided it will have to be crowned so it diverts the water off to the sides. All we have to worry about is directing the flow across the pastures since we're on a farm. But it was good to see an alternative, even if it's one I won't use.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. I find this kind of thing very fascinating. Not only because I enjoy knowing the right way to do

things, but because it never ceases to amaze me how this City and our Association (sometimes in collusion) can really fuck things up.

Though, I will say that the City is exemplary whenever they come to inspect the work we do on our house. It's never a problem because my husband always wants to go the extra mile to do it right.

[haele]

11. I've seen them before on old cobble roads.

Typically in older towns located in fairly wet climates where there weren't a lot of sewers. Mainly to keep carriage ways clean and push any waste away from buildings that lined the streets, down to some form of drainage system that could carry it away from the town (typically in the poor or "industrial" section)
Problem was when it was dry, someone had to go around pouring water and sweeping the waste when it piled up too high.
With the advent of better sidewalk design, the inverted street drainage gave way to under the sidewalk drains, and most communities went away from that sort of road design.

Haele

[Baitball Blogger]

12. They were still approving this kind of road in Florida in the eighties.

And that drainage system where everything was supposed to divert everything through street drainage didn't even happen until the turn of the century.

The City's early problems were attributed to having City attorneys who believed that it was okay to have public and private conflicts of interest and too many commissioners tied to the real estate and development industry. And later, it was all compounded when "civilians" joined the chaotic world, because they were too easy to "induce." That' the Florida suburban story.