Qualification: I can't really confirm this fiscal responsibility of this.
Vermont is of the opinion that resurfacing roads frequently (like every two years) is cheaper than investing in anti-frost heavy road beds and cement... The reasoning behind this is that intense ground freezing can end up upsetting the best bedding techniques and causing frost heaves anyway - that coupled with frequent ploughing to deal with heavy snow fall makes long term road investments fiscally irresponsible. Also the state has frequent flooding issues which can upset road bedding in more different and fun manners.
depending on how plastic the soil, replacing it with the road base doesn't stop deformation just slows it down. If the base material is heavier than the native material it will speed the whole thing up.
Then you get into the territory of lightweight fills and it gets really expensive very quickly even beyond basic roadbuilding.
the complexities of road construction depend on all sorts of factors from weather, subgrade composition, labour and material costs, traffic weight, total traffic, availability of capital, willingness to take risks, etc etc.
Most likely the roads are not being "rebuilt" but rather getting microsurfacing, and occasionally a mill and inlay of just top layers of the road surface. Fully rebuilding roads is more time consuming.
Ive been enduring a rebuild of I-294 around Chicago. It's around a 40 mile rebuild (ripping everything out down to dirt), IIRC. They're widening the highway in stretches, completely redesigning interchanges as well to remove sharp turns so that semis can keep speed and better merge. Lots of overpasses and other bridges being rebuilt to accommodate the extra lane each way. They completed the stretch around Ohare airport pretty quickly, in about a year, but seeing the materials used, I doubt it will hold up over time. I expect it will need maintenance on the first completed stretch before the 10 year project is complete. They went from concrete to an all asphalt layering from what I saw. Doubt it will hold up.
I’ve been seeing a lot of concrete get torn up and replaced with asphalt here in Illinois, all over the Chicagoland region. It’s a shame.
Additionally, something I’ve noticed is cutting out squares of broken asphalt around a pothole and filling that, only repeated every few feet to make it look like a patchwork quilt. I get that it is cheaper, but it’s not even going to last through a single winter...
asphalt can be designed for similar loading to concrete, and can be easier to repair and replace. Oil may have been cheap so asphalt may have been cheap reducing the cost significantly even with future maintenance.
Hard to say without knowing the details. Asphalt is not garbage and the only people I know who can evaluate it by sight work with it routinely.
Vermont is of the opinion that resurfacing roads frequently (like every two years) is cheaper than investing in anti-frost heavy road beds and cement... The reasoning behind this is that intense ground freezing can end up upsetting the best bedding techniques and causing frost heaves anyway - that coupled with frequent ploughing to deal with heavy snow fall makes long term road investments fiscally irresponsible. Also the state has frequent flooding issues which can upset road bedding in more different and fun manners.