I had an epiphany today as I was out trying to locate a segment of the right-of-way of US Highway 90 that was conveyed to the State of Texas in 1940. Naturally, the right-of-way was originally marked with the precast Type I right-of-way markers of the style that the Texas Highway Department (and later DOT) used for decades. And, naturally, over time some of them had shifted well off plumb.
Ordinarily, if I'm resurveying the boundary of a tract along a highway, I think it's best practice to replumb the leaning right-of-way markers. That involves a fair amount of digging and tamping. In this case, there were several leaning markers, I had a spade but not a pry bar, and the location of the right-of-way was incidental to my work. I wasn't surveying a tract adjoining the monumented line.
The epiphany came when I realized that I could measure the out-of-plumbness of each marker with the very same Suunto clinometer I'd been carrying around in my vest pocket for years and calculate the offset of the center of the top from the center of the base, if I knew the length of the monument. Late-breaking news, I know, but it amounted to an epiphany as I reckon such things.
I have the idea that the standard Type I precast concrete right-of-way marker used in Texas was about 48 inches long, but I can't recall ever measuring one directly. I've spent some time on the web looking for standard drawings, but haven't turned one up. Do any Texas surveyors know how long the Type I markers were/are or where the standard drawings for them can be found?
I have seen a "typical" of the Type I monument in a set of plans before.
The information you are seeking would be found in the Design Section of TxDot and not be a part of the ROW plans.
Noteworthy would be that many of the leaning monuments are leaning from the point of fracture that can be from just below ground level to a few feet below surface and not necessarily leaning the entire length of the monument.
The Type I is of several varieties.
Are you speaking of the 4x4 monument that is uniform the entire length or the one that is approx 4x4 on top and taper to approx 8x8 at the bottom?
I saw one a week ago that was one of my old control monuments of this area that had been extracted and was leaning against a newly constructed pipe fence corner. It is less than 10mi from my location and I will stop by and take a picture of and send that and the dimensions your way.
😉
Kent,
The oldest I could find was '92. I think they call it a Type II, though. It shows 36"...
> The Type I is of several varieties.
>
> Are you speaking of the 4x4 monument that is uniform the entire length or the one that is approx 4x4 on top and taper to approx 8x8 at the bottom?
As far as I know, the Type I monuments were all tapered. The FAP monuments with the bronze disc in the side were of uniform cross section, but I've never seen one used to mark a right-of-way.
> The oldest I could find was '92. I think they call it a Type II, though. It shows 36"...
Yeah, the Type II has a bronze disc in the top and is set basically flush with the ground or slightly countersunk. The Type I marker was precast and is a tapering concrete marker with bevelled edges, typically set with about 14 inches or so out of the ground.
Kent,
If you are ever on Hwy 165 out of Blanco, there is a monument fully intact and laying on the found.
I can guide you to it.
Randy
here's a fun read, kent...
west virginia and virginia has some good looking markers as well
Up until about 10 years,or so, ago we had a concrete plant in town that still manufactured the old Type 1 monuments, and they were 48" in length.
Mr. Harris is correct in that the out of plumb monuments aren't generally out of plumb for their entire length.
One of the greater qualities of these type monuments is that if broken, there is usually enough left of them in the ground to still get a good location on them. You simply have to weave your way through the maze of 3/8" rebar that held the Type 1 monuments together to get at what's left of the base.
Yes, they are 4' long.
There is one in front of the Baptist Church south of downtown Driftwood. During the site prep for the church, they knocked it over. It lay on its side for quite a while. I contemplated storing it in the back of my survey wagon for a "throw down" monument, or a screen door stop for my back porch. One day I drove by the church and it was sitting up. I'll go by and measure it.
Roger Wheat works for SAM, Inc. I might call and ask him.
Best description I've heard for them were "right-of-way indicators". Very rarely in the older deeds do they call for them but they are the best evidence of where the right-of-way line was intended to be when you can get them to somewhat agree. Also I always had heard that a lot of the older ones were set by the highway contractors with varying levels of accuracy.
Did it look anything like the one below? It appears as though it is 3'6". but this was a Colorado Standard in the '40s. Before that they had 'square', tapered, around 4"X4" concrete monuments that didn't have a brass cap on top that were around 6' long I think.
Anyway, maybe they had details in the old design plans at the texas doh in the '40s. They had the quantities to be set with the details for the contractor back then and not in R.O.W. Plans.
So do they mark the ROW or not? If they don't mark the ROW why are they there?
> Best description I've heard for them were "right-of-way indicators". Very rarely in the older deeds do they call for them but they are the best evidence of where the right-of-way line was intended to be when you can get them to somewhat agree. Also I always had heard that a lot of the older ones were set by the highway contractors with varying levels of accuracy.
In the classic period of what used to be the Texas Highway Department, the standard specifications called them "right of way markers" and they were installed by contractors in locations marked by State surveying parties. The connection between the markers and the so-called "Engineer's Centerline" is fairly direct in that both were laid out by State surveying parties in the course of highway construction. Those same State surveying parties ran hub lines along the new right-of-way lines so that fences could be constructed.
Did the contractors always place the Type I markers perfectly? No. Have sixty years worth of machinery and soil movement sometimes left them in sad shape? Yes. But they are ordinarily the best basis for reconstructing the Engineer's Centerline (and its system of stationing) to which the right-of-way deeds refer.
Present practices are much different. I'm referring to the period from about 1930 through the 1970's in the Austin District.
> So do they mark the ROW or not? If they don't mark the ROW why are they there?
That's the rub. Around here, the right of way was acquired and the right-of-way markers were set in the construction phase. They didn't exist when the deed was written, so they couldn't be called for in the deeds.
I say they mark the right of way. The fences are built based on them, they kick you out of you encroach past them, and they maintain to them. Why wouldn't they mark the right of way limits. Why do we play little floating games with the right-of-way limits when the right-of-way markers are what is used to maintain and improve to?
Of course that's my opinion only. A lot of licensed surveyors used their calculated centerline and come back the called-for distance, and suddenly ignore the marker they used to establish the centerline.
> Mr. Harris is correct in that the out of plumb monuments aren't generally out of plumb for their entire length.
In Central Texas, it isn't uncommon to see an intact monument in clay soil leaning well off plumb. The mechanism of soil movement is the same one that leaves fence posts out of plumb. I've dug alongside more than a few of those leaning markers to straighten them up.
> One of the greater qualities of these type monuments is that if broken, there is usually enough left of them in the ground to still get a good location on them. You simply have to weave your way through the maze of 3/8" rebar that held the Type 1 monuments together to get at what's left of the base.
What I prefer to do in those cases is to clip or saw off the tangle of rebar and remove the broken concrete to leave a sound base. Then drill a hole in the center of the exposed stub and either set a rod and cap or a 3/8-inch spike and washer in it to give the thing a permanent reference mark.
> Of course that's my opinion only. A lot of licensed surveyors used their calculated centerline and come back the called-for distance, and suddenly ignore the marker they used to establish the centerline.
My own opinion is that the language of the deed was clear as to the width of the strip of land taken for a highway, so any construction of it that doesn't deliver full measure is at variance with the conveyance. If the strip was described in relation to a centerline that had been surveyed on the ground at the time of the conveyance, it's an extremely relevant question where that centerline actually is. I can think of at least one instance where a private surveyor actually made a survey to locate the hubs and nails of the engineer's centerline before construction and set pipes along the new right-of-way from them. The concrete right-of-way markers placed during construction in the 1950's can still be shown to deviate from the right-of-way take described in the deed.
On a highway right-of-way with intact, plumb Type I markers on opposite sides of the highway that should be 80.00 ft. apart, but that are 79.85 ft. apart, the solution of giving a tie from the point that the marker was intended to mark to the center of the marker as it exists seems best practice to me (as long as there is some definite station mark on the marker).
What you say is how many surveyor's do it. I can't argue with the logic all that much.
(but I will).;-)
I have a hard time arguing over (Mc)Millimeters here. I even have somewhat of a hard time arguing over 1'.
As the case stands, the right of way gets fenced. The right-of-way markers are what's used, what is accepted, and what is maintained to. We don't go out and set a rebar 0.15 away from the concrete marker (or a foot for that matter); and even if we did, it, they wouldn't move the fence accordingly. The concrete monuments, as you say, are what's left of the original right-of-way determination. Matching to their position, and the width of right of way between them, within reason, is fine by me.
The highway department acquired a 100 foot swath, and monumented it. If I come back through and measure 99.62' between the concrete markers I just say that the original call is 100 feet, and 99.62' as-measured. The right-of-way usage is where it is, regardless of the precise math. (do you think that if I say that the right-of-way fence is encroaching by 0.2' they will come out and move the fence? Or do you think anyone will care if you say that the highway is really 0.8' wider than where the concrete post is?)
If you take a series of right-of-way markers and establish the centerline at each one, do you reestablish the centerline with a jog at each of the points, or do you calculate a best-fit (line or curve) between your established centerline points? (that might be a moot question. surely Kent McM does a best-fit line?) However you do it, what if I establishes another line that is based on found monuments that "overlap" what you did? (You go from Mile marker 1 to 10 I go from MM 6 to 21). My centerline will differ from yours. Is this just a "floating" position that changes every time you establish a different section of highway?
Generally speaking, I will accept and hold an original right-of-way marker over some best-fit, centerline fiasco, that can't really be reestablished (with consistency) from survey to survey and from surveyor to surveyor). The post is there, and it is sturdy, and I see no reason to quibble over a few hundredths (or tenths, or sometimes even feet).
I've found variance in the stationing just like the width. So what you are left with is a mathematical exercise to best fit the data to locate the center line and stationing. Depending on which data you decide to hold tight and which you let float the answer will come out different.
I've tended to look at it and realize that considering the tools they had compared to what we use today maybe a few tenths difference from the record is pretty good. So I'm no longer into mathematical adjusting it down to the last hundredth. Unless there is some obvious disturbance to the markers or a clear bust I just accept them as the ROW markers. The markers were placed to mark the ROW. I've found them that have been punch marked several times by different surveyors on the cap.
I actually pin cushioned one a few years ago. The deed said 50 feet to the center line. I found a marker marked 51 CL and my math showed the marker was very close to 51 CL. So I set my marker at 50 CL. I still don't know whether I did it right. I talked to a UDOT guy a few months later and he told me they would hold the marker and the fence built per it.
Although there are always the ones that are not where they are suppose to be, it always amazes me to see how well some of the curves shown on the right-of-way strip maps match what was laid out in the 1920's & 1930's here in Texas.