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2. Of video games and publicity rights. Speaking of Doc Saturday and video games, he was one of the first that I saw to publicly censure the NCAA over its chintzy policy allowing game-makers like EA Sports to include things like "Florida QB #15," complete with all the relevant physical attributes, in its NCAA Football games without compensating the players in any way. The Louisville Courier-Journal's Eric Crawford joins the debate, with what I thought was a nice anecdote:
One of my favorites is an old version of EA Sports' NCAA Football. I like to be Michael Bush, because the former University of Louisville star, in this game, is Superman.
He can do anything. Bounce off tacklers. Run over them. Run through walls of defenders.
Almost every time I play, I think about that moment when Bush went down against Kentucky in the first game of his senior season. And it occurs to me that even while the real Bush was struggling pretty seriously with recovering from that broken leg, little cyber Michael, courtesy of EA Sports, just kept running.
And then there's this: While Bush's financial future was very much in doubt as he sweated his way back through rehabilitation, little cyber Mike kept drawing royalty checks for the NCAA, which has a rights deal with EA Sports.
Fortunately Bush's bounced back (think too of Willis McGahee's horrendous injury, or, say, Tyrone Prothro). One sticking point though with the analysis. Crawford repeats a supposed "problem" with paying players a licensing fee: what to do about the best players (i.e. most highly marketable) versus the bench-warmers? Crawford offers another solution: put the money paid into a trust that is there for players who graduate. I like that idea, and I also don't see why you have to grant the licensing fees based on who is the best player or not.
Sure, EA really just wants Reggie Bush or Tebow, not the benchwarmer on USC's or Florida's roster, but the NCAA, the Universities, and EA should just negotiate a flat fee for use of the whole roster (though giving some players an opt-out, which could create issues). The important point is that the players get something, not that Tebow or Bush gets more than their backup. Plus, if you do the trust idea contingent on graduation, then the player can actually help his teammate who might not have a pro-future when the all-star goes to the NFL: his money remains in the trust, thus enlarging the share for the others.
In any event, what makes this so bizarre is that if you used literally anyone else's likeness, besides an NCAA athlete, the company would have to pay. Yes, companies would be most likely to use a famous person, but it is not permissible to use a person's likeness or identity to promote some other product without their permission. The state of the law isn't quite uniform apparently, but
The Right of Publicity prevents the unauthorized commercial use of an individual's name, likeness, or other recognizable aspects of one's persona. It gives an individual the exclusive right to license the use of their identity for commercial promotion.
Unless of course you're an NCAA athlete.
3. Football Outsiders: Contrary to popular wisdom, Rex Ryan and the Baltimore Ravens "rush" four or fewer players 64% of the time. Yet they nevertheless rushed (i.e. blitzed) five or more "far more than the average team."
4. Trojan Football Analysis continues its wonderful series on Chip Kelly's Oregon rushing attack. The series: Chip Kelly's comments on his run game, inside zone, outside zone, fly sweep, counter, and video of the counter. (Also see this three part bit on a possible midline option or "mystery play" from Oregon: one, two, and three.) For a preview of what you'll find at TFA, check out the cutups of Oregon's offense below.
5. Why is there so much holding in football? It's an issue of the risk of having a penalty called on your holding versus what you have to gain (avoiding a sack, big run play, etc). Money quote: "The bottom line is that the probability of detection at which committing holding is worthwhile is when it is about 4/5 the chance a pass rusher will get a sack if he beats his blocker."
6. Blutarsky chimes in on Spurrier, in response to my recent post on the Ol' Ball Coach. Make sure to check it out due to the good comments (no, I'm not referring to my own).
7. You're watching inferior football and you don't even know it, says Residual Prolixity. Bonus: RP reviews The Pro Football Chronicle: The Complete (Well, Almost) Record of the Best Players, the Greatest Photos, the Hardest Hits, the Biggest Scandals & the Funniest Stories in Pro Football by Dan Daly and Bob O'Donnell.
8. Rollbamaroll reviews The Junction Boys.
9. Who are the most influential sports columnists? Dan Shanoff culls the list from Mediaite's new "power grid" feature.
10. Oldie but goodie: Roger Ebert ripping Jay Mariotti for quitting his job at the Chicago Sun-Times over getting passed over for a column idea.
11. Happy birthday to Mr. Orson Swindle of the Sporting Blog and Every Day Should Be Saturday. The internet does thank you. I started blogging before EDSBS, but without Orson and several others, I might not still be doing it. (Plus go buy the Gators Gridiron 2009, of which he was the editor and I a lowly contributor.)
12. Why aren't people complaining yet about inflated sports salaries?
13. Michael Lewis on AIG: Thank you, Joe Cassano.
14. Economic Principals: "Now We May Perhaps to Begin?"
15. A fitting end. How is it possible for a man to look perpetually uncomfortable yet still we want to hang out with him? So it goes with Mike Leach. (Ht Dawgsports.)

subset: commoncrawl


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Johannesburg (CNN) — At sunset, the smell of food simmering in dozens of pots starts to fill the air on 15th Avenue.
Soon after, as if summoned by the aroma of meat and spices, a steady stream of cars starts rolling in, pulling up to the food stalls and carts where local women armed with serving spoons prepare to ladle out portions of South African comfort food — ox tripe known as mogodu, chicken feet, beans and maize dusted with spicy pepper.
A woman in a red dress loudly licked her lips as she waited to collect several containers full of food.
"Its food from the homeland," she said as she then hurried away to her waiting car. "My husband's going to be very happy."
The neighbourhood that hungry South Africans flock to on Monday nights is a township called Alexandra, or Alex. This densely-populated district is often associated with poverty and crime.
South Africans pray for Mandela Incredible legacy of Nelson Mandela
Squatters, many of them immigrants from other sub-Saharan countries in Africa, live in wretched conditions in shacks and derelict industrial buildings on the edges of the township, and within view of Sandton, one of the city's wealthiest, leafy enclaves.
Twenty-five-year-old Maurice Modipa wants to change the township's negative image.
"More than anything, I want to put Alex on the map," he said.
"In terms of getting people into Alex and change the stigma that we have, I just want people to see it from my point of view."
Modipa and his brothers are transforming their father's small liquor store into a nightclub that they hope will one day offer panoramic views of Alexandra township.
Their bar — called "Stoep," which is a South African term for the veranda where locals gather next to the house — is part of a larger attempt to attract members of the country's rising black middle class back to the townships.
Workers at Stoep set up amplifiers and haul in cases of beer under the watchful eye of 66-year-old Shimmi Modipa, who first started selling beer to his friends at this property decades ago, when it was little more than a collection of shacks on 15th Avenue.
"I used to call it 'Amstel Lounge,' because it's where we used to entertain myself, my friends and visitors," the elder Modipa said.
Deep inequalities
In the days of apartheid, Modipa said the white minority-ruled government confined black South Africans to the township after dark. He also said it was difficult to start a business, since white-owned banks refused to issue loans to blacks.
And though the poverty that is visible today in Alexandra reflects the deep income inequalities and high unemployment that continue to plague South Africa, Modipa said this working class neighborhood has come a long way in the last 20 years.
"There were no tar roads, there were just gravel roads.There were no sewage systems … in the olden days [we had] bucket systems," Shimmi Modipa said.
Pointing to the paved road outside his family's bar, Modipa said, "We are still saying thanks, thanks, thanks. My thanks to our Papa Madiba," referring to Nelson Mandela, the first democratically-elected black president of South Africa, who has been lying in critical condition for weeks in a hospital in Pretoria. "Mandela made this possible."
By 9pm, loud dance music was blaring from amplifiers in the Modipa bar. Patrons arrived on roaring motorcycles, in Mercedes sedans and expensive sport utility vehicles They swayed to the music in the bar's unfinished open structure, sipping beer and whiskey and munching on chicken feet, apparently oblivious to the winter chill.
Maurice Modipa danced and played DJ behind a laptop with big headphones on his ears.
The customers who used to drink beer at Stoep have changed dramatically in the last decade.
"We know quite a few people who have made something of themselves…economically," Maurice Modipa said later.
The scene of affluent South Africans returning from wealthy suburbs to the poor township for a taste of their roots was a homecoming of sorts.
This uniquely South African night out showed much progress has been made since the end of apartheid, and highlighted how far the country still has to go to overcome its deep social and economic challenges.
Source: Ivan Watson|CNN


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For other uses, see Asphalt (disambiguation). Note: The terms bitumen and asphalt are mostly interchangeable, Asphalt Road Construction in Germiston except where asphalt is used as a shorthand for asphalt concrete. Natural bitumen from the Dead Sea Refined asphalt The University of Queensland pitch drop experiment, demonstrating the viscosity of asphalt
Asphalt (/ˈæsˌfɔːlt, -ˌfɑːlt/), also known as bitumen (UK English: /ˈbɪtʃəmən, ˈbɪtjʊmən/,[1] US English: /bɪˈt(j)uːmən, baɪˈt(j)uːmən/)[2] is a sticky, black, and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used.
The primary use (70%) of asphalt Sailor Asphalt Paving Company Inc is in road construction, where it is used as the glue or binder mixed with aggregate particles to create asphalt concrete. Its other main uses are for bituminous waterproofing products, including production of roofing felt and for sealing flat roofs.
The terms "asphalt" and "bitumen" are often used interchangeably to mean both natural and manufactured forms of the substance. In American English, "asphalt" (or "asphalt cement") is commonly used for a refined residue from the distillation process of selected crude oils. Outside the United States, the product is often called "bitumen", and geologists worldwide often prefer the term for the naturally occurring variety. Common colloquial usage often refers to various forms of asphalt as "tar", as in the name of the La Brea Tar Pits.
Crocodile cracking
Naturally occurring asphalt is sometimes specified by the term "crude bitumen". Asphalt Road Construction Its viscosity is similar to that of cold molasses[6][7] while the material obtained from the fractional distillation of crude oil boiling at 525 °C (977 °F) is sometimes referred to as "refined bitumen". The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the world's reserves of natural asphalt in the Athabasca oil sands, which cover 142,000 square kilometres (55,000 sq mi), an area larger than England.
The word "asphalt" is derived from the late Middle English, in turn from French asphalte, based on Late Latin asphalton, asphaltum, which is the latinisation of the Greek ἄσφαλτος (ásphaltos, ásphalton), a word meaning "asphalt/bitumen/pitch" which perhaps derives from ἀ-, "without" and σφάλλω (sfallō), "make fall". Asphalt Driveway Sealing Cost the first use of asphalt by the ancients was in the nature of a cement for securing or joining together various objects, and it thus seems likely that the name itself was expressive of this application. Specifically, Herodotus mentioned that bitumen was brought to Babylon to build its gigantic fortification wall.[11] From the Greek, the word passed into late Latin, and thence into French (asphalte) and English ("asphaltum" and "asphalt"). In French, the term asphalte is used for naturally occurring asphalt-soaked limestone deposits, and for specialised manufactured products with fewer voids or greater bitumen content than the "asphaltic concrete" used to pave roads.
The expression "bitumen" originated in the Sanskrit words jatu, meaning "pitch", and jatu-krit, meaning "pitch creating" or "pitch producing" (referring to coniferous or resinous trees). The Latin equivalent is claimed by some to be originally gwitu-men (pertaining to pitch), and by others, pixtumens (exuding or bubbling pitch), which was subsequently shortened to bitumen, thence passing via French into English. From the same root is derived the Anglo-Saxon word cwidu (mastix), the German word Kitt (cement or mastic) and the old Norse word kvada.
In British English, "bitumen" is used instead of "asphalt". The word "asphalt" is instead used to refer to asphalt concrete, a mixture of construction aggregate and asphalt itself (also called "tarmac" in common parlance). Bitumen mixed with clay was usually called "asphaltum",[13] but the term is less commonly used today.[citation needed]
Toll road
In Australian English, "bitumen" is often used as the generic term for road surfaces.
In American English, "asphalt" is equivalent to the British "bitumen". However, "asphalt" is also commonly used as a shortened form of "asphalt concrete" (therefore equivalent to the British "asphalt" or "tarmac").
In Canadian English, the word "bitumen" is used to refer to the vast Canadian deposits of extremely heavy crude oil,[14] while "asphalt" is used for the oil refinery product. Diluted bitumen (diluted with naphtha to make it flow in pipelines) is known as "dilbit" in the Canadian petroleum industry, while bitumen "upgraded" to synthetic crude oil is known as "syncrude", and syncrude blended with bitumen is called "synbit".[15]
"Bitumen" is still the preferred geological term for naturally occurring deposits of the solid or semi-solid form of petroleum. "Bituminous rock" is a form of sandstone impregnated with bitumen. The tar sands of Alberta, Canada are a similar material.
Neither of the terms "asphalt" or "bitumen" should be confused with tar or coal tars.[further explanation needed]
See also: Asphaltene
The components of asphalt include four main classes of compounds:
The naphthene aromatics and polar aromatics are typically the majority components. Most natural bitumens also contain organosulfur compounds, resulting in an overall sulfur content of up to 4%. Nickel and vanadium are found at <10 parts per million, as is typical of some petroleum.
The substance is soluble in carbon disulfide. It is commonly modelled as a colloid, with asphaltenes as the dispersed phase and maltenes as the continuous phase.[16] "It is almost impossible to separate and identify all the different molecules of asphalt, because the number of molecules with different chemical structure is extremely large".
Asphalt may be confused with coal tar, which is a visually similar black, thermoplastic material produced by the destructive distillation of coal. During the early and mid-20th century, when town gas was produced, coal tar was a readily available byproduct and extensively used as the binder for road aggregates. The addition of coal tar to macadam roads led to the word "tarmac", which is now used in common parlance to refer to road-making materials. However, since the 1970s, when natural gas succeeded town gas, asphalt has completely overtaken the use of coal tar in these applications. Other examples of this confusion include the La Brea Tar Pits and the Canadian oil sands, both of which actually contain natural bitumen rather than tar. "Pitch" is another term sometimes informally used at times to refer to asphalt, as in Pitch Lake.
Bituminous outcrop of the Puy de la Poix, Clermont-Ferrand, France
The majority of asphalt used commercially is obtained from petroleum.[18] Nonetheless, large amounts of asphalt occur in concentrated form in nature. Naturally occurring deposits of bitumen are formed from the remains of ancient, microscopic algae (diatoms) and other once-living things. These remains were deposited in the mud on the bottom of the ocean or lake where the organisms lived. Under the heat (above 50 °C) and pressure of burial deep in the earth, the remains were transformed into materials such as bitumen, kerogen, or petroleum.
Natural deposits of bitumen include lakes such as the Pitch Lake in Trinidad and Tobago and Lake Bermudez in Venezuela. Natural seeps occur in the La Brea Tar Pits and in the Dead Sea.
Bitumen also occurs in unconsolidated sandstones known as "oil sands" in Alberta, Canada, and the similar "tar sands" in Utah, US. The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the world's reserves, in three huge deposits covering 142,000 square kilometres (55,000 sq mi), an area larger than England or New York state. These bituminous sands contain 166 billion barrels (26.4×10^9 m3) of commercially established oil reserves, giving Canada the third largest oil reserves in the world. Although historically it was used without refining to pave roads, nearly all of the output is now used as raw material for oil refineries in Canada and the United States.
Bleeding (roads)
The world's largest deposit of natural bitumen, known as the Athabasca oil sands, is located in the McMurray Formation of Northern Alberta. This formation is from the early Cretaceous, and is composed of numerous lenses of oil-bearing sand with up to 20% oil.[19] Isotopic studies show the oil deposits to be about 110 million years old.[20] Two smaller but still very large formations occur in the Peace River oil sands and the Cold Lake oil sands, to the west and southeast of the Athabasca oil sands, respectively. Of the Alberta deposits, only parts of the Athabasca oil sands are shallow enough to be suitable for surface mining. The other 80% has to be produced by oil wells using enhanced oil recovery techniques like steam-assisted gravity drainage.
Much smaller heavy oil or bitumen deposits also occur in the Uinta Basin in Utah, US. The Tar Sand Triangle deposit, for example, is roughly 6% bitumen.
Bitumen may occur in hydrothermal veins. An example of this is within the Uinta Basin of Utah, in the US, where there is a swarm of laterally and vertically extensive veins composed of a solid hydrocarbon termed Gilsonite. These veins formed by the polymerization and solidification of hydrocarbons that were mobilized from the deeper oil shales of the Green River Formation during burial and diagenesis.
Bitumen is similar to the organic matter in carbonaceous meteorites.[23] However, detailed studies have shown these materials to be distinct.[24] The vast Alberta bitumen resources are considered to have started out as living material from marine plants and animals, mainly algae, that died millions of years ago when an ancient ocean covered Alberta. They were covered by mud, buried deeply over time, and gently cooked into oil by geothermal heat at a temperature of 50 to 150 °C (120 to 300 °F). Due to pressure from the rising of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Alberta, 80 to 55 million years ago, the oil was driven northeast hundreds of kilometres and trapped into underground sand deposits left behind by ancient river beds and ocean beaches, thus forming the oil sands.
The use of natural bitumen for waterproofing, and as an adhesive dates at least to the fifth millennium BC, with a crop storage basket discovered in Mehrgarh, of the Indus Valley Civilization, lined with it.[25] By the 3rd millennia BC refined rock asphalt was in use, in the region, and was used to waterproof the Great Bath, Mohenjo-daro.
In the ancient Middle East, the Sumerians used natural bitumen deposits for mortar between bricks and stones, to cement parts of carvings, such as eyes, into place, for ship caulking, and for waterproofing.[3] The Greek historian Herodotus said hot bitumen was used as mortar in the walls of Babylon.
The 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) long Euphrates Tunnel beneath the river Euphrates at Babylon in the time of Queen Semiramis (ca. 800 BC) was reportedly constructed of burnt bricks covered with bitumen as a waterproofing agent.
Bitumen was used by ancient Egyptians to embalm mummies.[3][28] The Persian word for asphalt is moom, which is related to the English word mummy. The Egyptians' primary source of bitumen was the Dead Sea, which the Romans knew as Palus Asphaltites (Asphalt Lake).
Approximately 40 AD, Dioscorides described the Dead Sea material as Judaicum bitumen, and noted other places in the region where it could be found.[29] The Sidon bitumen is thought to refer to material found at Hasbeya.[30] Pliny refers also to bitumen being found in Epirus. It was a valuable strategic resource, the object of the first known battle for a hydrocarbon deposit—between the Seleucids and the Nabateans in 312 BC.
In the ancient Far East, natural bitumen was slowly boiled to get rid of the higher fractions, leaving a thermoplastic material of higher molecular weight that when layered on objects became quite hard upon cooling. This was used to cover objects that needed waterproofing,[3] such as scabbards and other items. Statuettes of household deities were also cast with this type of material in Japan, and probably also in China.
In North America, archaeological recovery has indicated bitumen was sometimes used to adhere stone projectile points to wooden shafts.[32] In Canada, aboriginal people used bitumen seeping out of the banks of the Athabasca and other rivers to waterproof birch bark canoes, and also heated it in smudge pots to ward off mosquitoes in the summer.
In 1553, Pierre Belon described in his work Observations that pissasphalto, a mixture of pitch and bitumen, was used in the Republic of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik, Croatia) for tarring of ships.
Michigan left
An 1838 edition of Mechanics Magazine cites an early use of asphalt in France. A pamphlet dated 1621, by "a certain Monsieur d'Eyrinys, states that he had discovered the existence (of asphaltum) in large quantities in the vicinity of Neufchatel", and that he proposed to use it in a variety of ways – "principally in the construction of air-proof granaries, and in protecting, by means of the arches, the water-courses in the city of Paris from the intrusion of dirt and filth", which at that time made the water unusable. "He expatiates also on the excellence of this material for forming level and durable terraces" in palaces, "the notion of forming such terraces in the streets not one likely to cross the brain of a Parisian of that generation".
But the substance was generally neglected in France until the revolution of 1830. In the 1830s there was a surge of interest, and asphalt became widely used "for pavements, flat roofs, and the lining of cisterns, and in England, some use of it had been made of it for similar purposes". Its rise in Europe was "a sudden phenomenon", after natural deposits were found "in France at Osbann (Bas-Rhin), the Parc (Ain) and the Puy-de-la-Poix (Puy-de-Dôme)", although it could also be made artificially.[35] One of the earliest uses in France was the laying of about 24,000 square yards of Seyssel asphalt at the Place de la Concorde in 1835.
Among the earlier uses of bitumen in the United Kingdom was for etching. William Salmon's Polygraphice (1673) provides a recipe for varnish used in etching, consisting of three ounces of virgin wax, two ounces of mastic, and one ounce of asphaltum.[37] By the fifth edition in 1685, he had included more asphaltum recipes from other sources.
The first British patent for the use of asphalt was "Cassell's patent asphalte or bitumen" in 1834.[35] Then on 25 November 1837, Richard Tappin Claridge patented the use of Seyssel asphalt (patent #7849), for use in asphalte pavement,[39][40] having seen it employed in France and Belgium when visiting with Frederick Walter Simms, who worked with him on the introduction of asphalt to Britain.[41][42] Dr T. Lamb Phipson writes that his father, Samuel Ryland Phipson, a friend of Claridge, was also "instrumental in introducing the asphalte pavement (in 1836)".[43] Indeed, mastic pavements had been previously employed at Vauxhall by a competitor of Claridge, but without success.
Claridge obtained a patent in Scotland on 27 March 1838, and obtained a patent in Ireland on 23 April 1838. In 1851, extensions for the 1837 patent and for both 1838 patents were sought by the trustees of a company previously formed by Claridge. Claridge's Patent Asphalte Company—formed in 1838 for the purpose of introducing to Britain "Asphalte in its natural state from the mine at Pyrimont Seysell in France",—"laid one of the first asphalt pavements in Whitehall". Trials were made of the pavement in 1838 on the footway in Whitehall, the stable at Knightsbridge Barracks,"and subsequently on the space at the bottom of the steps leading from Waterloo Place to St. James Park". "The formation in 1838 of Claridge's Patent Asphalte Company (with a distinguished list of aristocratic patrons, and Marc and Isambard Brunel as, respectively, a trustee and consulting engineer), gave an enormous impetus to the development of a British asphalt industry".[45] "By the end of 1838, at least two other companies, Robinson's and the Bastenne company, were in production",[50] with asphalt being laid as paving at Brighton, Herne Bay, Canterbury, Kensington, the Strand, and a large floor area in Bunhill-row, while meantime Claridge's Whitehall paving "continue(d) in good order".
Asphalt Road Construction in Germiston ?An alley in Fira, Santorini, Greece Sana'a, Yemen Howey Place, Melbourne, Australia Hagay Street, Old City, Jerusalem Rua Sobre-o-Douro, Porto, Portugal Peg Washington's Lane, Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny, Ireland
An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in the older parts of towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane), or a path or walk in a park or garden.[1]
A covered alley or passageway, often with shops, may be called an arcade. The origin of the word alley is late Middle English, from Old French: alee "walking or passage", from aler "go", from Latin: ambulare "to walk".[2]
The word alley is used in two main ways:Grand Bazaar, Istanbul
In older cities and towns in Europe, alleys are often what is left of a medieval street network, or a right of way or ancient footpath. Similar paths also exist in some older North American towns and cities. In some older urban development in North America lanes at the rear of houses, to allow for deliveries and garbage collection, are called alleys. Alleys and ginnels were also the product of the 1875 Public Health Act in the United Kingdom, where usually alleys run along the back of streets of terraced houses, with ginnels connecting them to the street every fifth house.[citation needed] Alleys may be paved, or unpaved, and a blind alley is a cul-de-sac. Modern urban developments may also provide a service road to allow for waste collection, or rear access for fire engines and parking.
Because of geography, steps (stairs) are the predominant form of alley in hilly cities and towns. This includes Pittsburgh (see Steps of Pittsburgh), Cincinnati (see Steps of Cincinnati), Minneapolis, Seattle,[3] and San Francisco[4] in the United States, as well as Hong Kong,[5] Genoa and Rome.[6]
Some alleys are roofed because they are within buildings, such as the traboules of Lyon, or when they are a pedestrian passage through railway embankments in Britain. The latter follow the line of rights-of way that existed before the railway was built.
Arcades are another kind of covered passageway and the simplest kind are no more than alleys to which a glass roof was added later, like, for example, Howey Place, Melbourne, Australia (see also Block Place, Melbourne). However, most arcades differ from alleys in that they are architectural structures built with a commercial purpose and are a form of shopping mall. All the same alleys have for long been associated with various types of businesses, especially pubs and coffee houses. Bazaars and Souqs are an early form of arcade found in Asia and North Africa.
Some attractive historic alleys are found in older American and Canadian cities, like New York City, Philadelphia, Charleston, South Carolina, Boston, Annapolis, New Castle, Delaware, Quebec City, St John's, Newfoundland,[7] and Victoria, British Columbia.View into Fan Tan Alley, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Québec City was originally built on the riverside bluff Cap Diamant in the 17th century, and throughout Quebec City there are strategically placed public stairways that link the bluff to the lower parts of the city.[8] The Upper City is the site of Old Québec's most significant historical sites, including 17th- and 18th-century chapels, the Citadel and the city ramparts.
Fan Tan Alley is an alley in Victoria, British Columbia's Chinatown. It was originally a gambling district with restaurants, shops, and opium dens. Today it is a tourist destination with many small shops including a barber shop, art gallery, Chinese cafe and apartments. It may well be the narrowest street in Canada. At its narrowest point it is only 0.9 metres (35 in) wide.[9] Waddington Alley is another interesting alley in Victoria and the only street in that city still paved with wood blocks, an early pavement common in the downtown core. Other heritage features are buildings more than a century old lining the alley and a rare metal carriage curb that edges the sidewalk on the southern end.[10]Looking south down Shubert Alley in Manhattan's Theater District
In the United States alleys exist in both older commercial and residential areas, for both service purposes and automobile access. In residential areas, particularly in those that were built before 1950, alleys provide rear access to property where a garage was located, or where waste could be collected by service vehicles. A benefit of this was the location of these activities to the rear, less public side of a dwelling. Such alleys are generally roughly paved, but some may be dirt. Beginning in the late 20th century, they were seldom included in plans for new housing developments.
When Annapolis, Maryland, was established as a city at the beginning of the 18th century,[11] the streets were established in circles. That encouraged the creation of shortcuts, which over time became paved alleys. Some ten of these survive, and the city has recently worked on making them more attractive.[12]
Several residential neighborhoods in Austin, Texas, have comprehensive alley systems. These include Hyde Park, Rosedale, and areas northwest of the Austin State Hospital.
In the Beacon Hill district of Boston, Massachusetts, Acorn Street, a narrow cobbled lane with row houses, is one of Boston's more attractive and historic alleys. Another early settled American city, New Castle, Delaware has a number of interesting alleys, some of which are footpaths and others narrow, sometimes cobbled, lanes open to traffic. Many of the alleys in the Back Bay and South End area are numbered (e.g. "Public Alley 438").
In the French Quarter of Charleston's historic district, Philadelphia Alley (c. 1766), originally named "Cow Alley", is one of several picturesque alleys. In 1810 William Johnson gave it the name of "Philadelphia Alley", although locals call the "elegantly landscaped thoroughfare" "Dueler's Alley".[13] Starting on East Bay Street, Stolls Alley is just seventeen bricks wide at its start, and named for Justinus Stoll, an 18th-century blacksmith.[14] For three hundred years, another of Charleston's narrow lanes, Lodge Alley, served a commercial purpose. Originally French Hugenot merchants built homes on it, along with warehouses to store supplies their ships. Just ten-foot-wide this alley was a useful means of access to Charleston's waterways.[15] Today it leads to East Bay Street's many restaurants.Main article: Steps of Cincinnati
Cincinnati is a city of hills.[16] Before the advent of the automobile a system of stairway alleys provided pedestrians important and convenient access to and from their hill top homes. At the height of their use in the 19th century, over 30 miles (48 km) of hill side steps once connected the neighborhoods of Cincinnati to each other.[17] The first steps were installed by residents of Mount Auburn in the 1830s in order to gain easier access to Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine.[18] In recent years many steps have fallen into disrepair but there is a movement now to rehabilitate them.[19]Broadway Alley is a rare alley in Manhattan; it is not located near Broadway, East Broadway or West Broadway
New York City's Manhattan is unusual in that it has very few alleys, since the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 did not include rear service alleys when it created Manhattan's grid. The exclusion of alleys has been criticized as a flaw in the plan, since services such as garbage pickup cannot be provided out of sight of the public, although other commentators feel that the lack of alleys is a benefit to the quality of life of the city.[20]
Two notable alleys in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in Manhattan are MacDougal Alley and Washington Mews.[21] The latter is a blind alley or cul-de-sac. Greenwich Village also has a number of private alleys that lead to back houses, which can only be accessed by residents, including Grove Court,[22] Patchin Place and Milligan Place, blind alleys. Patchin Place is notable for the writers who lived there.[23]
Shubert Alley is a 300-foot (91 m) long pedestrian alley at the heart of the Broadway theater district of New York City. The alley was originally created as a fire exit between the Shubert Theatre on West 45th Street and the Booth Theatre on West 44th Street, and the Astor Hotel to their east. Actors once gathered in the alley, hoping to attract the attention of the Shubert Brothers and get employment in their theatrical productions.[24] When the hotel was torn down, and replaced with One Astor Plaza (1515 Broadway), the apparent width of the alley increased, as the new building did not go all the way to the westernmost edge of the building lot. However, official, Shubert Alley consists only of the space between the two theatres and the lot line.
In the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, Grace Court Alley is another converted mews,[25] as is Dennett Place in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood.[26] The former is a cul-de-sac.Pedestrians walking along Elfreth's Alley, Philadelphia
The Old City and Society Hill neighborhoods of Philadelphia, the oldest parts of the city, include a number of alleys, notably Elfreth's Alley, which is called "Our nation's oldest residential street", dating from 1702.[27] As of 2012[update], there were 32 houses on the street, which were built between 1728 and 1836.[28]
There are numerous cobblestoned residential passages in Philadelphia, many no wider than a truck, and typically flanked with brick houses. A typical house on these alleys or lanes is called a Philadelphia "Trinity", named because it has three rooms, one to each floor, alluding to the Christian Trinity.[29] These alleys include Willings Alley, between S. 3rd and S. 4th Streets and Walnut and Spruce Streets.[30] Other streets in Philadelphia which fit the general description of an alley, but are not named "alley", include Cuthbert Street, Filbert Street, Phillips Street,[31] South American Street,[32] Sansom Walk,[33] St. James Place,[34] and numerous others.
Steps, Pittsburgh's equivalent for an alley, have defined it for many visitors. Writing in 1937, war correspondent Ernie Pyle wrote of the steps of Pittsburgh:
And then the steps. Oh Lord, the steps! I was told they actually had a Department of Steps. That isn't exactly true, although they do have an Inspector of Steps. But there are nearly 15 miles (24 km) of city-owned steps, going up mountainsides.[35]
The City of Pittsburgh maintains 712 sets of city-owned steps, some of which are shown as streets on maps.[36]
In hilly San Francisco, California alleys often take the form of steps and it has several hundred public stairways.[37] Among the most famous is the stairway known as the Filbert steps, a continuation of Filbert Street.[38] The Filbert Street Steps descend the east slope of Telegraph Hill along the line where Filbert Street would be if the hill was not so steep. The stairway is bordered by greenery, that consists both backyards, and a border garden tended to and paid for by the residents of the "street", and runs down to an eastern stub of Filbert Street and the walkway through the plaza to The Embarcadero. Many houses in this residential neighborhood are accessible only from the steps.
Also in San Francisco, Belden Place is a narrow pedestrian alley, bordered by restaurants, in the Financial District, referred to as San Francisco's French Quarter for its historic ties to early French immigrants, and its popular contemporary French restaurants and institutions.[39] The area was home to San Francisco's first French settlers. Approximately 3,000, sponsored by the French government, arrived near the end of the Gold Rush in 1851.[40]Alley in Sausalito, California
Seattle is a city of hills, bluffs, and canyons and many stairs. There are over 600 publicly accessible Seattle stairways within the city limits.[41]Ruelle verte (Green alley) Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Numerous cities in the United States and Canada, such as Chicago,[42] Seattle,[43] Los Angeles,[44] Phoenix, Washington, D.C.,[45] and Montréal, have started reclaiming their alleys from garbage and crime by greening the service lanes, or back ways, that run behind some houses.[45][46] Chicago, Illinois has about 1,900 miles (3,100 km) of alleyways.[42] In 2007, the Chicago Department of Transportation started converting conventional alleys which were paved with asphalt into so called Green Alleys. This program, called the Green Alley Program, is supposed to enable easier water runoff, as the alleyways in Chicago are not connected directly to the sewer system. With this program, the water will be able to seep through semi-permeable concrete or asphalt in which a colony of fungi and bacteria will establish itself. The bacteria will help breakup oils before the water is absorbed into the ground. The lighter color of the pavement will also reflect more light, making the area next to the alley cooler.[47] The greening of such alleys or laneways can also involve the planting of native plants to further absorb rain water and moderate temperature.
New life has also come to other alleys within downtown commercial districts of various cities throughout the world with the opening of businesses, such as coffee houses, shops, restaurants and bars.
Another way that alleys and laneways are being revitalized is through laneway housing. A laneway house is a form of housing that has been proposed on the west coast of Canada, especially in the Metro Vancouver area. These homes are typically built into pre-existing lots, usually in the backyard and opening onto the back lane. This form of housing already exists in Vancouver, and revised regulations now encourage new developments as part of a plan to increase urban density in pre-existing neighbourhoods while retaining a single-family feel to the area.[48] Vancouver's average laneway house is one and a half stories, with one or two bedrooms. Typical regulations require that the laneway home is built on the back half of a traditional lot in the space normally reserved for a garage.[49][50]
Toronto also has a tradition of laneway housing and changed regulations to encourage new development.[51] However this was discontinued in 2006 after staff reviewed the impact on services and safety.[52]
London has numerous historical alleys, especially, but not exclusively, in its centre; this includes The City, Covent Garden, Holborn, Clerkenwell, Westminster and Bloomsbury amongst others.
An alley in London can also be called a passage, court, place, lane, and less commonly path, arcade, walk, steps, yard, terrace, and close.[53] While both a court and close are usually defined as blind alleys, or cul-de-sacs, several in London are throughways, for example Cavendish Court, a narrow passage leading from Houndsditch into Devonshire Square, and Angel Court, which links King Street and Pall Mall.[54] Bartholomew Close is a narrow winding lane which can be called an alley by virtue of its narrowness, and because through-access requires the use of passages and courts between Little Britain, and Long Lane and Aldersgate Street.[55]
In an old neighbourhood of the City of London, Exchange Alley or Change Alley is a narrow alleyway connecting shops and coffeehouses.[56] It served as a convenient shortcut from the Royal Exchange on Cornhill to the Post Office on Lombard Street and remains as one of a number of alleys linking the two streets. The coffeehouses[57] of Exchange Alley, especially Jonathan's and Garraway's, became an early venue for the lively trading of shares and commodities. These activities were the progenitor of the modern London Stock Exchange.Boundary Passage, Shoreditch, London, England
Lombard Street and Change Alley had been the open-air meeting place of London's mercantile community before Thomas Gresham founded the Royal Exchange in 1565.[58] In 1698, John Castaing began publishing the prices of stocks and commodities in Jonathan's Coffeehouse, providing the first evidence of systematic exchange of securities in London.
Change Alley was the site of some noteworthy events in England's financial history, including the South Sea Bubble from 1711 to 1720 and the panic of 1745.[59]
In 1761 a club of 150 brokers and jobbers was formed to trade stocks. The club built its own building in nearby Sweeting's Alley in 1773, dubbed the "New Jonathan's", later renamed the Stock Exchange.[60]
West of the City there are a number of alleys just north of Trafalgar Square, including Brydges Place which is situated right next to the Coliseum Theatre and just 15 inches wide at its narrowest point, only one person can walk down it at a time. It is the narrowest alley in London and runs for 200 yards (180 m), connecting St Martin's Lane with Bedfordbury in Covent Garden.[61]
Close by is another very narrow passage, Lazenby Court, which runs from Rose Street to Floral Street down the side of the Lamb and Flag pub; in order to pass people must turn slightly sideways. The Lamb & Flag in Rose Street has a reputation as the oldest pub in the area,[62] though records are not clear. The first mention of a pub on the site is 1772.[63] The Lazenby Court was the scene of an attack on the famous poet and playwright John Dryden in 1679 by thugs hired by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester,[64] with whom he had a long-standing conflict.[65]
In the same neighbourhood Cecil Court has an entirely different character than the two previous alleys, and is a spacious pedestrian street with Victorian shop-frontages that links Charing Cross Road with St. Martin's Lane, and it is sometimes used as a location by film companies.[66][67]
One of the older thoroughfares in Covent Garden, Cecil Court dates back to the end of the 17th century. A tradesman's route at its inception, it later acquired the nickname Flicker Alley because of the concentration of early film companies in the Court.[68] The first film-related company arrived in Cecil Court in 1897, a year after the first demonstration of moving pictures in the United Kingdom and a decade before London's first purpose built cinema opened its doors. Since the 1930s it has been known as the new Booksellers' Row as it is home to nearly twenty antiquarian and second-hand independent bookshops.
It was the temporary home of an eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart while he was touring Europe in 1764. For almost four months the Mozart family lodged with barber John Couzin.[69] According to some modern authorities, Mozart composed his first symphony while a resident of Cecil Court.[70]
North of the centre of London, Camden Passage is a pedestrian passage off Upper Street in the London Borough of Islington, famous because of its many antiques shops, and an antique market on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings. It was built, as an alley, along the backs of houses on Upper Street, then Islington High Street, in 1767.[71]An alley (usually called a ginnel) in Moss Side, Manchester Tolbooth Wynd, Edinburgh
In Scotland and Northern Ireland the Scots terms close, wynd, pend and vennel are general in most towns and cities. The term close has an unvoiced "s" as in sad. The Scottish author Ian Rankin's novel Fleshmarket Close was retitled Fleshmarket Alley for the American market. Close is the generic Scots term for alleyways, although they may be individually named closes, entries, courts and wynds. A close was private property, hence gated and closed to the public.
A wynd is typically a narrow lane between houses, an open throughway, usually wide enough for a horse and cart. The word derives from Old Norse venda, implying a turning off a main street, without implying that it is curved.[87] In fact, most wynds are straight. In many places wynds link streets at different heights and thus are mostly thought of as being ways up or down hills.
A pend is a passageway that passes through a building, often from a street through to a courtyard, and typically designed for vehicular rather than exclusively pedestrian access.[88] A pend is distinct from a vennel or a close, as it has rooms directly above it, whereas vennels and closes are not covered over.
A vennel is a passageway between the gables of two buildings which can in effect be a minor street in Scotland and the north east of England, particularly in the old centre of Durham. In Scotland, the term originated in royal burghs created in the twelfth century, the word deriving from the Old French word venelle meaning "alley" or "lane". Unlike a tenement entry to private property, known as a "close", a vennel was a public way leading from a typical high street to the open ground beyond the burgage plots.[89] The Latin form is venella.Traboule, Vieux Lyon, France
The traboules of Lyon are passageways that cut through a house or, in some cases, a whole city block, linking one street with another. They are distinct from most other alleys in that they are mainly enclosed within buildings and may include staircases. While they are found in other French cities including Villefranche-sur-Saône, Mâcon, Chambéry, Saint-Étienne, Louhans, Chalon sur Saône and Vienne (Isère), Lyon has many more; in all there are about 500. The word traboule comes from the Latin trans ambulare, meaning "to cross", and the first of them were possibly built as early as the 4th century. As the Roman Empire disintegrated, the residents of early Lyon—Lugdunum, the capital of Roman Gaul—were forced to move from the Fourvière hill to the banks of the river Saône when their aqueducts began to fail. The traboules grew up alongside their new homes, linking the streets that run parallel to the river Saône and going down to the river itself. For centuries they were used by people to fetch water from the river and then by craftsmen and traders to transport their goods. By the 18th century they were invaluable to what had become the city's defining industry, textiles, especially silk.[97] Nowadays, traboules are tourist attractions, and many are free and open to the public. Most traboules are on private property, serving as entrances to local apartments.
Venice is largely a traffic free city and there is, in addition to the canals, a maze of around 3000 lanes and alleys called calli (which means narrow). Smaller ones are callètte or callesèlle, while larger ones are calli large. Their width varies from just over 50 centimetres (19.7 in) to 5–6 metres (196.9–236.2 in). The narrowest is Calletta Varisco, which just 53 centimetres (20.9 in); Calle Stretta is 65 centimetres (25.6 in) wide and Calle Ca' Zusto 68 centimetres (26.8 in). The main ones are also called salizada and wider calli, where trade proliferates, are called riga', while blind calli, used only by residents to reach their homes, are ramo.[98]
Spreuerhofstraße is the world's narrowest street, found in the city of Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.[99] It ranges from 31 centimetres (12.2 in) at its narrowest to 50 centimetres (19.7 in) at its widest.[100] The lane was built in 1727 during the reconstruction efforts after the area was completely destroyed in the massive citywide fire of 1726 and is officially listed in the Land-Registry Office as City Street Number 77.[99][101]
Lintgasse is an alley (German: Gasse) in the Old town of Cologne, Germany between the two squares of Alter Markt and Fischmarkt. It is a pedestrian zone and though only some 130 metres long, is nevertheless famous for its medieval history. The Lintgasse was first mentioned in the 12th century as in Lintgazzin, which may be derived from basketmakers who wove fish baskets out of Linden tree barks. These craftsmen were called Lindslizer, meaning Linden splitter. During the Middle Ages, the area was also known as platēa subri or platēa suberis, meaning street of Quercus suber, the cork oak tree. Lintgasse 8 to 14 used to be homes of medieval knights as still can be seen by signs like Zum Huynen, Zum Ritter or Zum Gir. During the 19th-century the Lintgasse was called Stink-Linkgaß, a because of its poor air quality.[102]A view of Spreuerhofstraße in Germany, showing the sign indicating that is the world's record narrowest street
Gränd is Swedish for an alley and there are numerous gränder, or alleys in Gamla stan, The Old Town, of Stockholm, Sweden. The town dates back to the 13th century, with medieval alleyways, cobbled streets, and historic buildings. North German architecture has had a strong influence in the Old Town's buildings. Some of Stockholm's alleys are very narrow pedestrian footpaths, while others are very narrow, cobbled streets, or lanes open to slow moving traffic. Mårten Trotzigs gränd ("Alley of Mårten Trotzig") runs from Västerlånggatan and Järntorget up to Prästgatan and Tyska Stallplan, and part of it consists of 36 steps. At its narrowest the alley is a mere 90 cm (35 inches) wide, making it the narrowest street in Stockholm.[103] The alley is named after the merchant and burgher Mårten Trotzig (1559–1617), who, born in Wittenberg,[103] emigrated to Stockholm in 1581, and bought properties in the alley in 1597 and 1599, also opening a shop there. According to sources from the late 16th century, he was dealing in first iron and later copper, by 1595 had sworn his burgher oath, and was later to become one of the richest merchants in Stockholm.[104]Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, 90 cm wide, the narrowest alley in Gamla stan, Stockholm, Sweden
Possibly referred to as Trångsund ("Narrow strait") before Mårten Trotzig gave his name to the alley, it is mentioned in 1544 as Tronge trappe grenden ("Narrow Alley Stairs"). In 1608 it is referred to Trappegrenden ("The Stairs Alley"), but a map dated 1733 calls it Trotz gränd. Closed off in the mid 19th century, not to be reopened until 1945, its present name was officially sanctioned by the city in 1949.[104]
The "List of streets and squares in Gamla stan" provides links to many pages that describe other alleys in the oldest part of Stockholm; e.g. Kolmätargränd (Coal Meter's Alley); Skeppar Karls Gränd (Skipper Karl's Alley); Skeppar Olofs Gränd (Skipper Olof's Alley); and Helga Lekamens Gränd (Alley of the Holy Body).A hutong in Beijing
Hutongs (simplified Chinese: 胡同; traditional Chinese: 衚衕; pinyin: hútòng; Wade–Giles: hu-t'ung) are a type of narrow streets or alleys, commonly associated with northern Chinese cities, most prominently Beijing.
In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences.[105] Many neighbourhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. The word hutong is also used to refer to such neighbourhoods. During China's dynastic period, emperors planned the city of Beijing and arranged the residential areas according to the social classes of the Zhou Dynasty (1027 – 256 BC). The term "hutong" appeared first during the Yuan Dynasty, and is a term of Mongolian origin meaning "town".[106]
At the turn of the 20th century, the Qing court was disintegrating as China's dynastic era came to an end. The traditional arrangement of hutongs was also affected. Many new hutongs, built haphazardly and with no apparent plan, began to appear on the outskirts of the old city, while the old ones lost their former neat appearance.
Following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, many of the old hutongs of Beijing disappeared, replaced by wide boulevards and high rises. Many residents left the lanes where their families lived for generations for apartment buildings with modern amenities. In Xicheng District, for example, nearly 200 hutongs out of the 820 it held in 1949 have disappeared. However, many of Beijing's ancient hutongs still stand, and a number of them have been designated protected areas. Many hutongs, some several hundred years old, in the vicinity of the Bell Tower and Drum Tower and Shichahai Lake are preserved amongst recreated contemporary two- and three-storey versions.[107][108]A longtang in Shangxian Fang, a residential compound in Shanghai, China.
Hutongs represent an important cultural element of the city of Beijing and the hutongs are residential neighborhoods which still form the heart of Old Beijing. While most Beijing hutongs are straight, Jiudaowan (九道弯, literally "Nine Turns") Hutong turns nineteen times. At its narrowest section, Qianshi Hutong near Qianmen (Front Gate) is only 40 centimeters (16 inches) wide.[109]
The Shanghai longtang is loosely equivalent to the hutong of Beijing. A longtang (弄堂 lòngtáng, Shanghainese: longdang) is a laneway in Shanghai and, by extension, a community centred on a laneway or several interconnected laneways. On its own long (traditional Chinese 衖 or 弄, simplified Chinese 弄) is a Chinese term for "alley" or "lane", which is often left untranslated in Chinese addresses, but may also be translated as "lane", and "tang" is a parlor or hallway.[110] It is sometimes called lilong (里弄); the latter name incorporates the -li suffix often used in the name of residential developments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As with the term hutong, the Shanghai longdang can either refers to the lanes that the houses face onto, or a group of houses connected by the lane.[111][112][113][114]A Golden Gai alley, Tokyo, Japan.
Shinjuku Golden Gai (新宿ゴールデン街) is a small area of Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan,[115] famous both as an area of architectural interest and for its nightlife. It is composed of a network of six narrow alleys, connected by even narrower passageways which are just about wide enough for a single person to pass through. Over 200 tiny shanty-style bars, clubs and eateries are squeezed into this area.[116]
Its architectural importance is that it provides a view into the relatively recent past of Tokyo, when large parts of the city resembled present-day Golden Gai, particularly in terms of the extremely narrow lanes and the tiny two-storey buildings. Nowadays, most of the surrounding area has been redeveloped. Typically, the buildings are just a few feet wide and are built so close to the ones next door that they nearly touch. Most are two-storey, having a small bar at street level and either another bar or a tiny flat upstairs, reached by a steep set of stairs. None of the bars are very large; some are so small that they can only fit five or so customers at one time.[115] The buildings are generally ramshackle, and the alleys are dimly lit, giving the area a very scruffy and run-down appearance. However, Golden Gai is not a cheap place to drink, and the clientele that it attracts is generally well off.
Golden Gai is well known as a meeting place for musicians, artists, directors, writers, academics and actors, including many celebrities. Many of the bars only welcome regular customers, who initially should be introduced by an existing patron, although many others welcome non-regulars, some even making efforts to attract overseas tourists by displaying signs and price lists in English.[115]
Golden Gai was known for prostitution before 1958, when prostitution became illegal. Since then it has developed as a drinking area, and at least some of the bars can trace their origins back to the 1960s.[116]
A medina quarter (Arabic: المدينة القديمة al-madīnah al-qadīmah "the old city") is a distinct city section found in many North African cities. The medina is typically walled, contains many narrow and maze-like streets.[117] The word "medina" (Arabic: مدينة madīnah) itself simply means "city" or "town" in modern Arabic.
Because of the very narrow streets, medinas are generally free from car traffic, and in some cases even motorcycle and bicycle traffic. The streets can be less than a metre wide. This makes them unique among highly populated urban centres. The Medina of Fes, Morocco or Fes el Bali, is considered one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world.[118]
Bleeding (roads)(Redirected from Asphalt pavement) A road being resurfaced
A road surface or pavement is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, cobblestone and granite setts were extensively used, but these surfaces have mostly been replaced by asphalt or concrete laid on a compacted base course. Road surfaces are frequently marked to guide traffic. Today, permeable paving methods are beginning to be used for low-impact roadways and walkways. Pavements are crucial to countries such as US and Canada, which heavily depend on road transportation. Therefore, research projects such as Long-Term Pavement Performance are launched to optimize the life-cycle of different road surfaces.[1][2]Red surfacing for the bicycle lane in the Netherlands Closeup of asphalt on a driveway
Asphalt (specifically, asphalt concrete), sometimes called flexible pavement due to the nature in which it distributes loads, has been widely used since the 1920s. The viscous nature of the bitumen binder allows asphalt concrete to sustain significant plastic deformation, although fatigue from repeated loading over time is the most common failure mechanism. Most asphalt surfaces are laid on a gravel base, which is generally at least as thick as the asphalt layer, although some 'full depth' asphalt surfaces are laid directly on the native subgrade. In areas with very soft or expansive subgrades such as clay or peat, thick gravel bases or stabilization of the subgrade with Portland cement or lime may be required. Polypropylene and polyester geosynthetics have also been used for this purpose[3] and in some northern countries, a layer of polystyrene boards have been used to delay and minimize frost penetration into the subgrade.[4]
Depending on the temperature at which it is applied, asphalt is categorized as hot mix, warm mix, or cold mix. Hot mix asphalt is applied at temperatures over 300 °F (150 °C) with a free floating screed. Warm mix asphalt is applied at temperatures of 200–250 °F (95–120 °C), resulting in reduced energy usage and emissions of volatile organic compounds.[5] Cold mix asphalt is often used on lower-volume rural roads, where hot mix asphalt would cool too much on the long trip from the asphalt plant to the construction site.[6]
An asphalt concrete surface will generally be constructed for high-volume primary highways having an average annual daily traffic load greater than 1200 vehicles per day.[7] Advantages of asphalt roadways include relatively low noise, relatively low cost compared with other paving methods, and perceived ease of repair. Disadvantages include less durability than other paving methods, less tensile strength than concrete, the tendency to become slick and soft in hot weather and a certain amount of hydrocarbon pollution to soil and groundwater or waterways.
In the mid-1960s, rubberized asphalt was used for the first time, mixing crumb rubber from used tires with asphalt.[8] While a potential use for tires that would otherwise fill landfills and present a fire hazard, rubberized asphalt has shown greater incidence of wear in freeze-thaw cycles in temperate zones due to non-homogeneous expansion and contraction with non-rubber components. The application of rubberized asphalt is more temperature-sensitive, and in many locations can only be applied at certain times of the year.[citation needed]
Study results of the long-term acoustic benefits of rubberized asphalt are inconclusive. Initial application of rubberized asphalt may provide 3–5 decibels (dB) reduction in tire-pavement source noise emissions; however, this translates to only 1–3 decibels (dB) in total traffic noise level reduction (due to the other components of traffic noise). Compared to traditional passive attenuating measures (e.g., noise walls and earth berms), rubberized asphalt provides shorter-lasting and lesser acoustic benefits at typically much greater expense.[citation needed]Concrete roadway in San Jose, California Further information: Concrete
Concrete surfaces (specifically, Portland cement concrete) are created using a concrete mix of Portland cement, coarse aggregate, sand and water. In virtually all modern mixes there will also be various admixtures added to increase workability, reduce the required amount of water, mitigate harmful chemical reactions and for other beneficial purposes. In many cases there will also be Portland cement substitutes added, such as fly ash. This can reduce the cost of the concrete and improve its physical properties. The material is applied in a freshly mixed slurry, and worked mechanically to compact the interior and force some of the cement slurry to the surface to produce a smoother, denser surface free from honeycombing. The water allows the mix to combine molecularly in a chemical reaction called hydration.A concrete road in Ewing, New Jersey. The original pavement was laid in the 1950s and has not been significantly altered since.
Concrete surfaces have been refined into three common types: jointed plain (JPCP), jointed reinforced (JRCP) and continuously reinforced (CRCP). The one item that distinguishes each type is the jointing system used to control crack development.
One of the major advantages of concrete pavements is they are typically stronger and more durable than asphalt roadways. They also can be grooved to provide a durable skid-resistant surface. A notable disadvantage is that they typically can have a higher initial cost, and can be more time-consuming to construct. This cost can typically be offset through the long life cycle of the pavement. Concrete pavement can be maintained over time utilizing a series of methods known as concrete pavement restoration which include diamond grinding, dowel bar retrofits, joint and crack sealing, cross-stitching, etc. Diamond grinding is also useful in reducing noise and restoring skid resistance in older concrete pavement.[9][10]
The first street in the United States to be paved with concrete was Court Avenue in Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1893.[11][12] The first mile of concrete pavement in the United States was on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan in 1909.[13] Following these pioneering uses, the Lincoln Highway Association, established in October 1913 to oversee the creation of one of the United States' earliest east-west transcontinental highways for the then-new automobile, began to establish "seedling miles" of specifically concrete-paved roadbed in various places in the American Midwest, starting in 1914 west of Malta, Illinois, while using concrete with the specified concrete "ideal section" for the Lincoln Highway in Lake County, Indiana during 1922 and 1923.[14]An example of composite pavement: hot-mix asphalt overlaid onto Portland cement concrete pavement
Composite pavements combine a Portland cement concrete sublayer with an asphalt. They are usually used to rehabilitate existing roadways rather than in new construction.
Asphalt overlays are sometimes laid over distressed concrete to restore a smooth wearing surface.[15] A disadvantage of this method is that movement in the joints between the underlying concrete slabs, whether from thermal expansion and contraction, or from deflection of the concrete slabs from truck axle loads, usually causes reflective cracks in the asphalt. To decrease reflective cracking, concrete pavement is broken apart through a break and seat, crack and seat, or rubblization process. Geosynthetics can be used for reflective crack control.[16] With break and seat and crack and seat processes, a heavy weight is dropped on the concrete to induce cracking, then a heavy roller is used to seat the resultant pieces into the subbase. The main difference between the two processes is the equipment used to break the concrete pavement and the size of the resulting pieces. The theory is frequent small cracks will spread thermal stress over a wider area than infrequent large joints, reducing the stress on the overlying asphalt pavement. Rubblization is a more complete fracturing of the old, worn-out concrete, effectively converting the old pavement into an aggregate base for a new asphalt road.[17]
Whitetopping uses Portland cement concrete to resurface a distressed asphalt road.An asphalt milling machine in Boise, Idaho.
Distressed road materials can be reused when rehabilitating a roadway. The existing pavement is ground or broken up into small pieces, through a process called milling. It can then be transported to an asphalt or concrete plant and incorporated into new pavement, or recycled in place to form the base or subbase for new pavement. Some methods used include:Main article: Chipseal
Bituminous surface treatment (BST) or chipseal is used mainly on low-traffic roads, but also as a sealing coat to rejuvenate an asphalt concrete pavement. It generally consists of aggregate spread over a sprayed-on asphalt emulsion or cut-back asphalt cement. The aggregate is then embedded into the asphalt by rolling it, typically with a rubber-tired roller. This type of surface is described by a wide variety of regional terms including "chip seal", "tar and chip", "oil and stone", "seal coat", "sprayed seal"[21] or "surface dressing"[22] or as simply "bitumen."
BST is used on hundreds of miles of the Alaska Highway and other similar roadways in Alaska, the Yukon Territory, and northern British Columbia. The ease of application of BST is one reason for its popularity, but another is its flexibility, which is important when roadways are laid down over unstable terrain that thaws and softens in the spring.
Other types of BSTs include micropaving, slurry seals and Novachip. These are laid down using specialized and proprietary equipment. They are most often used in urban areas where the roughness and loose stone associated with chip seals is considered undesirable.
A thin membrane surface (TMS) is an oil-treated aggregate which is laid down upon a gravel road bed, producing a dust-free road.[23] A TMS road reduces mud problems and provides stone-free roads for local residents where loaded truck traffic is negligible. The TMS layer adds no significant structural strength, and so is used on secondary highways with low traffic volume and minimal weight loading. Construction involves minimal subgrade preparation, following by covering with a 50-to-100-millimetre (2.0–3.9 in) cold mix asphalt aggregate.[7] The Operation Division of the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure in Saskatchewan has the responsibility of maintaining 6,102 kilometres (3,792 mi) of thin membrane surface (TMS) highways.[24]
Otta seal is a low-cost road surface using a 16–30-millimetre (0.63–1.18 in) thick mixture of bitumen and crushed rock.[25]Main article: Gravel road
Gravel is known to have been used extensively in the construction of roads by soldiers of the Roman Empire (see Roman road) but in 1998 a limestone-surfaced road, thought to date back to the Bronze Age, was found at Yarnton in Oxfordshire, Britain.[26] Applying gravel, or "metalling," has had two distinct usages in road surfacing. The term road metal refers to the broken stone or cinders used in the construction or repair of roads or railways,[27] and is derived from the Latin metallum, which means both "mine" and "quarry".[28] The term originally referred to the process of creating a gravel roadway. The route of the roadway would first be dug down several feet and, depending on local conditions, French drains may or may not have been added. Next, large stones were placed and compacted, followed by successive layers of smaller stones, until the road surface was composed of small stones compacted into a hard, durable surface. "Road metal" later became the name of stone chippings mixed with tar to form the road surfacing material tarmac. A road of such material is called a "metalled road" in Britain, a "paved road" in Canada and the US, or a "sealed road" in parts of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.[29]
A granular surface can be used with a traffic volume where the annual average daily traffic is 1,200 vehicles per day or less.[citation needed] There is some structural strength if the road surface combines a sub base and base and is topped with a double graded seal aggregate with emulsion.[7][30] Besides the 4,929 kilometres (3,063 mi) of granular pavements maintained in Saskatchewan, around 40% of New Zealand roads are unbound granular pavement structures.[24][31]
The decision whether to pave a gravel road or not often hinges on traffic volume. It has been found that maintenance costs for gravel roads often exceed the maintenance costs for paved or surface-treated roads when traffic volumes exceed 200 vehicles per day.[32]
Some communities are finding it makes sense to convert their low-volume paved roads to aggregate surfaces.[33]
Pavers (or paviours), generally in the form of pre-cast concrete blocks, are often used for aesthetic purposes, or sometimes at port facilities that see long-duration pavement loading. Pavers are rarely used in areas that see high-speed vehicle traffic.
Brick, cobblestone, sett, wood plank, and wood block pavements such as Nicolson pavement, were once common in urban areas throughout the world, but fell out of fashion in most countries, due to the high cost of labor required to lay and maintain them, and are typically only kept for historical or aesthetic reasons.[citation needed] In some countries, however, they are still common in local streets. In the Netherlands, brick paving has made something of a comeback since the adoption of a major nationwide traffic safety program in 1997. From 1998 through 2007, more than 41,000 km of city streets were converted to local access roads with a speed limit of 30 km/h, for the purpose of traffic calming.[34] One popular measure is to use brick paving - the noise and vibration slows motorists down. At the same time, it is not uncommon for cycle paths alongside a road to have a smoother surface than the road itself.[35][36]
Likewise, macadam and tarmac pavements can still sometimes[when?] be found buried underneath asphalt concrete or Portland cement concrete pavements, but are rarely[clarification needed] constructed today[when?].
There are also other methods and materials to create pavements that have appearance of brick pavements. The first method to create brick texture is to heat an asphalt pavement and use metal wires to imprint a brick pattern using a compactor to create stamped asphalt. A similar method is to use rubber imprinting tools to press over a thin layer of cement to create decorative concrete. Another method is to use a brick pattern stencil and apply a surfacing material over the stencil. Materials that can be applied to give the color of the brick and skid resistance can be in many forms. An example is to use colored polymer-modified concrete slurry which can be applied by screeding or spraying.[37] Another material is aggregate-reinforced thermoplastic which can be heat applied to the top layer of the brick-pattern surface.[38] Other coating materials over stamped asphalt are paints and two-part epoxy coating.[39]
Roadway surfacing choices are known to affect the intensity and spectrum of sound emanating from the tire/surface interaction.[40] Initial applications of noise studies occurred in the early 1970s. Noise phenomena are highly influenced by vehicle speed.
Roadway surface types contribute differential noise effects of up to 4 dB, with chip seal type and grooved roads being the loudest, and concrete surfaces without spacers being the quietest. Asphaltic surfaces perform intermediately relative to concrete and chip seal. Rubberized asphalt has been shown to give a marginal 3–5 dB reduction in tire-pavement noise emissions, and a marginally discernible 1–3 dB reduction in total road noise emissions when compared to conventional asphalt applications.See also: Pothole, Crocodile cracking, Rut (roads), and Bleeding (roads) Deteriorating asphalt
As pavement systems primarily fail due to fatigue (in a manner similar to metals), the damage done to pavement increases with the fourth power of the axle load of the vehicles traveling on it. According to the AASHO Road Test, heavily loaded trucks can do more than 10,000 times the damage done by a normal passenger car. Tax rates for trucks are higher than those for cars in most countries for this reason, though they are not levied in proportion to the damage done.[41] Passenger cars are considered to have little practical effect on a pavement's service life, from a materials fatigue perspective.
Other failure modes include aging and surface abrasion. As years go by, the binder in a bituminous wearing course gets stiffer and less flexible. When it gets "old" enough, the surface will start losing aggregates, and macrotexture depth increases dramatically. If no maintenance action is done quickly on the wearing course, potholes will form. The freeze-thaw cycle in cold climates will dramatically accelerate pavement deterioration, once water can penetrate the surface.
If the road is still structurally sound, a bituminous surface treatment, such as a chipseal or surface dressing can prolong the life of the road at low cost. In areas with cold climate, studded tires may be allowed on passenger cars. In Sweden and Finland, studded passenger car tires account for a very large share of pavement rutting.
The physical properties of a stretch of pavement can be tested using a falling weight deflectometer.
Several design methods have been developed to determine the thickness and composition of road surfaces required to carry predicted traffic loads for a given period of time. Pavement design methods are continuously evolving. Among these are the Shell Pavement design method, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) 1993 "Guide for Design of Pavement Structures". A new mechanistic-empirical design guide has been under development by NCHRP (Called Superpave Technology) since 1998. A new design guide called Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) was developed and is about to be adopted by AASHTO.
Further research by University College London into pavements has led to the development of an indoor, 80-sq-metre artificial pavement at a research centre called Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory (PAMELA). It is used to simulate everyday scenarios, from different pavement users to varying pavement conditions.[42] There also exists a research facility near Auburn University, the NCAT Pavement Test Track, that is used to test experimental asphalt pavements for durability.
In addition to repair costs, the condition of a road surface has economic effects for road users. Rolling resistance increases on rough pavement, as does wear and tear of vehicle components. It has been estimated that poor road surfaces cost the average US driver $324 per year in vehicle repairs, or a total of $67 billion. Also, it has been estimated that small improvements in road surface conditions can decrease fuel consumption between 1.8 and 4.7%.[43]Main article: Road surface marking
Road surface markings are used on paved roadways to provide guidance and information to drivers and pedestrians. It can be in the form of mechanical markers such as cat's eyes, botts' dots and rumble strips, or non-mechanical markers such as paints, thermoplastic, plastic and epoxy.


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BMW X3 Windows Fog Instantly
Windows fogged up in about a second. From clear to opaque with fog and total driver blindness in about a second. I have never seen anything like this.
Temperature in the 50s, not raining, heater on AUTO.
Fix? Prevention?
- Keep the AC on all the time the heater is on. This apparently fails when the ambient temp is below freezing. In that circumstance turning on the defogger will fog the windows instantly?
- Never recirculate the air when the heater is on. Why not disable recirculate when the heater is on to prevent fogging?
Beyond that, who knows what is going on. The car was dry on the inside, only one person was in the car and for less than 5 minutes when this happened. It was cool but certainly not cold.
When this happened it was impossible to see out the passenger side or out the back so it was impossible to pull over to the shoulder. Luckily, there were no cars and a left turn where the car could be stopped, the windows opened and the fog wiped out. I can't imagine what would have happened if I had been on the highway.
Car windows were clean, no antifreeze leak that I know of either....no usual suspects. Other cars with recirculating modes do not do anything like this. Cars fog up but not instantly like this.
Temperature in the 50s, not raining, heater on AUTO.
Fix? Prevention?
- Keep the AC on all the time the heater is on. This apparently fails when the ambient temp is below freezing. In that circumstance turning on the defogger will fog the windows instantly?
- Never recirculate the air when the heater is on. Why not disable recirculate when the heater is on to prevent fogging?
Beyond that, who knows what is going on. The car was dry on the inside, only one person was in the car and for less than 5 minutes when this happened. It was cool but certainly not cold.
When this happened it was impossible to see out the passenger side or out the back so it was impossible to pull over to the shoulder. Luckily, there were no cars and a left turn where the car could be stopped, the windows opened and the fog wiped out. I can't imagine what would have happened if I had been on the highway.
Car windows were clean, no antifreeze leak that I know of either....no usual suspects. Other cars with recirculating modes do not do anything like this. Cars fog up but not instantly like this.
Worth keeping in mind to open the front passenger side window if this happens again. That provides enough visibility from the mirror to pull over to the right shoulder.0
Oh no!!!
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2014 M235i; 2009 Cooper Clubman; 1999 Wrangler; 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i0
It's sad that some people have no idea what a good car is really like so the herky and the jerky and the rocky and the bouncy and the instant blindness are considered not only acceptable but DESIGN FEATURES. This is probably most evident in those who lease 3 series cars. They are probably their first 'nice' car and they simply accept that these oddities are 'premium' features.
I have a nice orange bridge....
======= Other ways to clean window fog off of your BMW X3:
- Clean your windows and then take a damp cloth and use some shaving cream to coat them. This is an alternative to the commercial products like Rain - X. I haven't used this so can't vouch for it.
- Dry out the car on a sunny day with the windows open. Check under the mats and in the trunk for wet spots. As an alternative, use a commercial desiccant.
- Keep as much water out of the car as possible by shaking everything dry: shoes, coats, umbrellas, hats, towels, etc.
I like this comment: "(I think the closer a car is to a simple metal box, the worse the fogging)."
Now THAT is funny.0
Fairly common occurance in modern day cars, even the manual control HVAC but most especially those with automatic climate controls. Correlates directly with the A/C cooling system being previously used, even yesterday, and subsequently not in use.
Best procedure is to somehow disable the A/C when not needed for actual cooling.
My '01 911/996 C4 has a "hidden" switch that I use to open the A/C compressor clutch circuit throughout the wintertime. My '01 F/awd RX300 has two factory c-best options for this purpose that I had the dealer "reset" not to the factory defaults.0
Never had this happen in any other car. The X3 is a universe unto itself with its own set of strange rules.
You have to keep the AC on because it is the compressor that takes the air and dries it out. That works until it gets too cold and then the compressor stops working.
"...this works..."
Only randomly, only under Mother Nature's rules.
The ability, efficiency, of the A/C to dehumidify the incoming fresh air is dependent on the current climatic conditions, a hit or miss situation, if you will. Not knowing whether or not it will work, reasonably efficiently or even not at all, at any given time means it's best to simply leave it OFF, not rely on it for purposes of dehumidification EVER.0
The X3 is a universe unto itself with its own set of strange rules.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2014 M235i; 2009 Cooper Clubman; 1999 Wrangler; 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i0
Everything I read said to leave the AC on whenever the heat is on. It may not be enough but it does help. Also, leaving the AC off during the colder months damages the AC itself. I have heard that it causes the seals to become brittle and leak.
I can start off with perfectly clear windows and get them to fog up in a few seconds.
- turn heat on 20 degrees or so above OAT
- turn AC off
- turn recirc to fully on
I'll have to try different permutations now that it is reliably cool outside.0
I have NEVER used, or allowed to be used, my A/C compressor during the winter months, going all the way back to the era of automobiles being commonly equipped with A/C. In previous years, going back to at least '68, I have simply disconnected the A/C compressor clutch circuit throughout the cold climate period.
My current DD, an '01 F/awd RX300, came with a factory C-BEST option that I had the dealer set to allow me to turn off the A/C indefinitely for the winter duration.
Probable an aggregate of a million miles with no resulting A/C failure.0
"I can start off with perfectly clear windows and get them to fog up in a few seconds.."
Let me guess...
You made use of the A/C system for dehumidification yeaterday.
"This" morning was coolish or cold, the X3's blower was programmed, so as to not unduly discomfort you, to NOT come on until the engine coolant temperature rose to ~130F. Maybe even like Lexus the system outlet airflow was "baffled" against incoming outside COLD airflow (discomfort prevention, again) due to forward speed by routing the airflow to the windshield defrost/defog/demist ducts.
About a mile or 2 down the road the engine coolant rose to 130F, the blower come on while the system airflow was still routed to the interior system of the windshield, condensation began to form there and the driver reacted by activating the defrost/defor.demist mode.
Your still coolish windshield is now almost, if not fully, fogged over and now you must pull over and wait for more heat to "arrive".
Did I get that right..??0
Contributing factors...
1. Cabin windows and doors double and triple SEALED against NVH.
2. Cabin airflow THROUGH-FLOW exhauster ports minimized for A/C cooling efficiency... FE
3. Super Complex, SPONGE-LIKE density of the A/C cooling vane evaporator surface area, ~10,000 square inches of surface area.
4. To much, to often, use of recirculate mode, intentionally or inadvertently(***).
5.Possible...Evaporator vane surface area coated with a porus nylon surface film into which is embedded an anti-microbial chemical, fungicide, to combat the breeding of teh microbes whose "leavings" constitute the mould and mildew odors now so common to these modern systems. Once the chemical washes out of the pores in as little as a few months (days?? {my '92 LS400}, weeks??) you now have a TRUE SPONGE.
Yesterday when you shut the car down for the day those ~10,000 square inches of evaporator vane surface area was coated with a thin film of condensate, even worse if the nylon pores had become available. During the night the condensate may have evaporated off of the surfaces but with nowhere to "go" just sat there as a huge moisture BOMB awaiting the action of the blower.
The only easy answers I know of is to leave the windows down each and EVERY night to allow natural convection airflow. But that doesn't solve the problem of the A/C working until the OAT declines below ~35 and the A/C compressor is automatically disabled.
So the only true solution is to disable the A/C compressor ENTIRELY during the period wherein it's only functionality would be for dehumidification.
There is a third option, the EED that can be purchased from airsept(.com).
*** NipponDenso, Denso US have patents involving a technique being used to extend the efficiency of the A/C system for dehumidification. This technique uses a recirculate airflow method, possibly more than 50% recirculated airflow, even with the system in FRESH inlet airflow mode.
NipponDenso, Denso US, HVAC systems seem to have an unusually high propensity for windshield fogging due to the idiocy of their designs. Most HVAC system of european design, Bosch, etc, react to activation of the defrost/defog/demist mode by provided HEATED airflow to the windshield even on the hottest day of August. Most of these more well thought out systems will also bring on the A/C system but only as an POTENTIAL assist.
NipponDenso, Denso US, supplies their HVAC design engineers with rose-colored glasses for addressing this problem. You are left on your own to raise the heating level of the windshield airflow in this circumstance.0
The time it happened unexpectedly:
- The car had been driven a few miles and then sat in a parking lot for a few hours. No rain, but humid and a bit chilly. This was in the late afternoon.
- Drove the car a few miles and managed to fiddle around with the AC. Turned the snowflake button off and the recirc to on (it was chilly) and the windows fogged up instantly...all of them front, back and sides.
- I now drive with the recirc off, the snowflake button on and add the front and rear defrost/defog as necessary. I do not get the full car fog.
As I understand it the trick is to bring in cold, dry air which is why cracking the front windows - airflow over the windshield - is supposed to help if you do not have a defogger. Now I leave the HVAC to auto and adjust only two things:
1. overall temp
2. the center rotary dial to adjust the temp of the air coming from the center vents0
"..the windows fogged up instantly.."
I assume you are now aware that this was simply the result of...
"..Turned the snowflake button off.."
Turning the A/C compressor off after previous operation solely for purposes of dehumidication will almost ALWAYS result in a sudden rise in the passenger cabin HVAC system airflow humidity. Add cold, or even sometimes just cool, interior window/windshield surfaces to the equation and yes, the windows/windshield will fog over, sometimes virtually instantly.
What you have to worry about moreso than manual intervention(***1), turning it off yourself, is the system itself disabling the A/C (***2) with no obvious indication/ALARM to the driver.
***1 You can become aware of the results of turning it off manually.
***2 OAT declined below ~35F, engine coolant is on the verge of overheating, and last, when you parked the car for 10-15 minutes, an hour, or even yesterday.
"..I now drive with the recirc off and the snowflake button on..."
Dangerous, that, you would be much more safe via disabling the A/C compressor entirely durirng the cold season. We, you, have no way of knowing if the A/C will be an effective dehumidifier, mother nature has complete and total control of that issue.
Whereas HEAT, heating the incoming cabin airflow, or more especially, heating the airflow for prevention or removal of windshield condensation, Will ALWAYS be effective at lowering the relative humidity.0
If heating the cabin reduces humidity, why is there more fogging with a cabin full of people exhaling warm air?
From what I have read:
- cold air is drier which is why cracking a front window to pass colder outside air across the inside of the windshield reduces the moisture of fogging.
- A/C compressor apparently quits around freezing but above freezing removes moisture from the HVAC system.
- I thought the AC dumps moisture out of the car - there is a pool of water - when it is turned off. It doesn't get stuck in the system.
I will try it with the snowflake button off and the recirc off and see if that snowflake makes much of a difference. Since the front windshield defogger is a big blast of warm air, I see what you are saying. I find the entire thing confusing.0
In a "static" situation heating the atmosphere will result in lowering the Rh. Put a steaming teakettle (four humans) in the mix and you will have to continually raise the air temperature to keep the Rh constant.
Yes, cold air is consistently drier air. That's what makes this situation even MORE dangerous. That COLD and DRY FRESH airflow coming from the outside and flowing through an A/C evaporator covered with moisture due to just previous dehumidification capability will often result in SUPER-SATURATION of the cabin.
Dehumidification of the system airflow can be efficiently done ONLY if chilling that airflow to ~35F will bring it to dewpoint. If the incoming airflow is both warm and humid then well and good. If the incoming air is fairly humid but already very near that 35F temperature then the efficiency of the A/C for dehumidification might be nil.
"..It doesn't get stuck in the system.."
But yes, it does..!
Assuming climatic conditions allow, and the A/C system is operating, as more and more condensate accumulates on the roughly 10,000 square inches of evaporator vane surface area it will begin to form into droplets to the point wherein gravity will overcome viscosity and those droplets will now flow down the evaporator and eventually exit via the drain hose provided.
As long as the evaporator is being cooled down to the level wherein dehumidification will occur this is a continuous, ongoing process.
The instant you switch off the A/C compressor, or it is switched off automatically, the continual gathering of additional moisture soon stops. And now you might well have those 10,000 square inches of evaporator vane surface area thoroughly coated with condensate, WATER.
Now it might well remain there until climatic conditions change to the point wherein the evaporation of the condensate will begin. Climatic conditions solely within the A/C plenum, within the plenum AND passenger cabin, or if you leave the windows down inclusive of outside climatic conditions.
The 2010 RX350 has a new feature added to the climate control system. If climatic conditions warrant (I assume sub-45F OAT) it will automatically switch the system into combined footwell and windshield outflow. That's presumably such that the interior windshield surface gets continually warmed, hopefully keeping that surface well above the dewpoint of the cabin atmosphere.0
This discussion has been closed.