Major road construction on Colon in Ajijic

No, cobbles are always laid in strips like that, it's not an indication that it's the finished roadbed. I imagine they will now cobble the strips on the side. Or, in Sayulita, they got fancy on the main road into town and did alternating strips of cobbles and pavers.

Looks as though you'll be parking on the eastern most strip  for east side of street parking...appears to be more space on the right.  Didn't they do this on another block of Colon years ago?

If you remember years ago when they 'first' put pavers on Colon south of Hildalgo they did just that!  Put the pavers down the middle such that when cars were parked on the east side, a car driving down Colon could NOT put both tires on the pavers....parked cars were covering up the east lane of pavers.

I have never understood what goes through the minds of road engineers in Mexico.

They are currently paving a formerly dirt road not far from my house in Sayulita. It's only a block long, has maybe 10 houses on it, and a couple of businesses. It is, however, a connector road between the main street into town and the highway to Punta de Mita. For some daft reason, they decided to put sidewalks on both sides of the street, which leaves not enough room for 2 cars from opposite directions to pass if there are any cars parked on the street, which of course there will be. A sidewalk on one side of the street would have been perfectly adequate for pedestrians, instead there are now going to be traffic back-ups.

They did exactly the same thing on another street in town that is about 8 blocks long. I had to drop someone off there the other day, and even though one side of my car was up on the sidewalk, cars could barely get around me. And there was no one walking on the sidewalks on either side of the street for blocks. So what is the sense of sidewalks on both sides of a street that people need to park on, leaving not enough space to get around a parked car?

Those tire tracks look about dead center to me which doesn't leave enough to park on either side. The old portion above this block has the tire tracks (flagstone) way over to the east side making parking on the west side obvious.

Mudgirl.......at least they are paving your roads......lol.

Upon closer inspection the tire tracks are further to the west.

RickS wrote:If you remember years ago when they 'first' put pavers on Colon south of Hildalgo they did just that!  Put the pavers down the middle such that when cars were parked on the east side, a car driving down Colon could NOT put both tires on the pavers....parked cars were covering up the east lane of pavers.

Fine by me.

As a pedestrian I have no interest in smooth pavers allowing idiots to drive at a high speed on any village street. I see enough speeders now going down Colón and Revolución, as well as on cobbled streets in cars whose suspension is meaningless to its owners.

They just need to put in effective topes like they do everywhere else in Mexico. I don't buy the "we don't want nice roads because people will speed excuse". Every other town with nice roads doesn't seem to have this problem. I was in the equipale town, Zacoalco de Torres, a couple of months ago and they have streets that put this municipality to shame. They are actually all paved with asphalt.

I don't agree that asphalt paved roads are "nice roads."

Our last home in US was on a brick street laid in the early 1900s.  Some nearby towns paved over their brick streets; that change is now very much regretted.  

In the 1990s cities began banning paving over brick streets.  But the brick streets that were paved over are lost forever.

I'd hate it if Ajijic made the same mistake.

BisbeeGal wrote:I don't agree that asphalt paved roads are "nice roads."

I second that opinion.  But for some reason the cobblestone roads in the village have been left to deteriorate badly... more so, I think, than the roads say in Chapala proper and even Jocotopec for that matter (I know, different Municipality!).

Maybe the designation of 'World Heritage Site'... or whatever it was recently anointed as.... will lead to better upkeep of the roads within.  Maybe.

"Mudgirl.......at least they are paving your roads......lol."

It's cobblestones, not asphalt paving.

No where have I suggested that our roads should be done in asphalt. I just pointed out that another local town had better roads which happened to be asphalt however even that would be better than the pot-holed, sand covered, gravely, dust creating, suspension destroying nightmare that the streets in Ajijic have become. I have driven all over Mexico and have yet to find a town, city or village with worse roads in their downtown core than here.

Mudgirl, you are the one that used the term "paving" in your post above.

Pete, read here,

https://theguadalajarareporter.net/index.php/news/news/lake-chapala/59724-ajijic-s-calle-morelos-repairs-raise-eyebrows

Ajijic’s Calle Morelos repairs raise eyebrows
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Published: 27 April 2023 Written by GR Staff
While Chapala Mayor Alejandro Aguirre appears to be leading a frenzied street improvement campaign throughout the municipality, the project initiated on Ajijic’s Calle Morelos last Monday has raised eyebrows among many townspeople.

AJIJIC’S CALLE MORELOS HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR REPAIRS THIS WEEK. PVC DUCTS HAVE BEEN INSTALLED UNDERGROUND TO REPLACED AGED AND DAMAGED SEWAGE PIPES.

Business operators located on the last block of the central artery leading to the waterfront have expressed distress that work was initiated with no prior notice, in detriment to their clients.

Other inhabitants, particularly those advocating the preservation on typical cobblestone village thoroughfares, are miffed that their opinions were not taken into account beforehand and remain wary that the appearance of the refurbished street will clash with the traditional style.

According to a posting on the government’s Facebook site, the project has entailed ripping up the cobblestone and flagstone surface and replacing the old asbestos sewage pipes with wider PVC ducts. The street will be resurfaced with stamped concrete and tire tracks made out of rectangular pavers similar to those used in the crosswalks found in the center of town.

The decision will likely arouse controversy, as happened ten years back when the cobblestones along two blocks of Colón, Calle Parroquia and another block of Marcos Castellanos were replaced with stones set in concrete and segments of stamped concrete. The public stink gave rise to the town’s pro-cobblestone/no cement movement and a Human Rights Commission recommendation to City Hall calling for consultation with citizens prior to future public works projects.

Despite ardent opposition to that earlier project, the street upgrade has held up over a decade of heavy vehicular traffic and abundant runoff of summer rains, without pot hole damages and the need for repairs.

"Despite ardent opposition to that earlier project, the street upgrade has held up over a decade of heavy vehicular traffic and abundant runoff of summer rains, without pot hole damages and the need for repairs"

This part of that article is hard to argue with. What was done appears to be working.... illogical tire-track placement notwithstanding.

"Mudgirl, you are the one that used the term "paving" in your post above."

Yes, I was just clarifying that it isn't asphalt paving. As far as I'm aware, and as far as the dictionary definition, paving can refer to any material used to cover over dirt roads- paving stones, bricks, cobblestones, concrete, asphalt, whatever. In fact, the earliest usage of the word was in the 15th century, so would have likely been stone.

BisbeeGal wrote:

As a pedestrian I have no interest in smooth pavers allowing idiots to drive at a high speed on any village street.  I see enough speeders now going down Colón and Revolución, as well as on cobbled streets in cars whose suspension is meaningless to its owners.  

You sort of contradicted yourself there. If they speed down cobbled streets, they're going to speed regardless of the road surface.

I like the look of cobblestones, but they really are hard on car suspensions, whether you are speeding or not.
"Quaint" is all very nice, but cobblestones were from a pre-car era and were used because that's what was readily available. Topes work well to slow down traffic, although they also increase air pollution, as everyone has to slow way down for them. What's nice is when city planners create car-free areas for pedestrians, but we don't see that idea implemented much.

I remember reading an article in Canada years ago, about some new or expanded highways which were being proposed, where the author said, "Building more roads to "solve" a car traffic problem is like loosening your belt to "cure" obesity."

SunFan wrote:I remember reading an article in Canada years ago, about some new or expanded highways which were being proposed, where the author said, "Building more roads to "solve" a car traffic problem is like loosening your belt to "cure" obesity."



That quote predetermines that cars are as undesirable as obesity. Is that true?

SunFan

No, I don't think it's saying that cars are undesireable. It's saying that you don't deal with a "too much" problem by not acknowledging that it's a "too much" problem and trying to accommodate the problem. Instead you try to come up up with solutions which mitigate the problem. In the case of cars, improved public transportation, ride sharing, and so on cut down on traffic issues, cut down on pollution, and ultimately, if it's done smartly, is cost saving. For instance, the Mexican combis are great. People can walk a few blocks to where the combi stops, they make stops every couple of blocks, they come by very frequently, and they aren't expensive.

Conversely, where I used to live in Canada, a small city on Vancouver Island, they brought in public transport, but in a really stupid way. They had these huge city buses, which were only ever a quarter full, because they ran on a schedule where they only came by like once an hour. It wasn't convenient at all- they really only worked for people who were retired and had nothing much to do, and could afford the time to wait for a bus, or arrange their schedule to catch it when it came by, or for people who didn't have a car and had no other way to get around, so had no choice. I would have liked to be able to take the bus when I lived there, but it was just too inconvenient when I was a busy mom with a lot of running around to do.
It would have been much smarter to have mini-buses and have them run on a schedule where they came by every 20 minutes- many more people would have availed themselves of them rather than taking their own car across town.

mudgirl wrote:

BisbeeGal wrote:

As a pedestrian I have no interest in smooth pavers allowing idiots to drive at a high speed on any village street.  I see enough speeders now going down Colón and Revolución, as well as on cobbled streets in cars whose suspension is meaningless to its owners.  

You sort of contradicted yourself there. If they speed down cobbled streets, they're going to speed regardless of the road surface.

I like the look of cobblestones, but they really are hard on car suspensions, whether you are speeding or not.


 

Not a contradiction, simply pointing out that some jerks speed now on cobbles as they don't care about pedestrians or their car's suspension. With paved asphalt, the number of speeders and their rate of speed will doubtlessly increase.

Cobbles are not detrimental to your car's suspension if you drive at a proper speed. Have owned cars in Ajijic Centro since 2008 and never had a suspension issue.

Haven't had a suspension problem, but then, we don't speed. When we lived in SMA some years ago, the streets in general were not cobbled, but had pavers. I'm not crazy about the idea of "quaint" being an over ruling factor in streets. This isn't 1823.

Deleted. Misread the Post.

They have put in high curbs on each side so there will be no parking on this bottom section. They still have enough materials on site to do another block, maybe more.