Robert Hill, post: 372657, member: 378 wrote: Are there existing control disks that these markers were set from in the 30s?
Not that I'm aware of. It's possible that there might still be a spike or remains of a hub at the PI of tangents that falls outside of the limits of construction.
Once upon a time, I made a survey of a tract of land that had been surveyed contemporaneously with the Texas Highway Dept. right-of-way survey. The private surveyor was excellent and actually tied in the points on the Engineer's Centerline as it existed before construction and as described in the deed of conveyance. He not only marked all the PC, PT, and AP points on the right-of-way line, but set reference markers on the adjacent private land to perpetuate those points through construction.
Can you guess where the concrete Right-of-Way Markers ended up? Yes, when I resurveyed the property more than thirty years later, I was able to remonument the original right-of-way as conveyed and even recovered some of the private surveyor's pipes remaining in place far enough from the Right-of-Way Markers that they hadn't been disturbed at all.
lmbrls, post: 372623, member: 6823 wrote: In GA, the R/W monuments are set by the contractor and are often inaccurate. The Highway Department will hold the center line of the road over the monument location. I was once told by a GDOT employee that the monuments were so they would know where to cut the grass, I am curious if other States have a higher opinion of right of way monuments.
The person in charge of the r/w department makes that call.
The current person in control of this district stated that they claim to where the monuments are and I am positive that all monuments are not at the right station and/or offset from centerline.
I try to adjust to what the plans say because most monuments have been tampered with and many times that is not possible.
Kent McMillan, post: 372656, member: 3 wrote: Actually, the older deeds don't call for the right-of-way markers, even prospectively, i.e. the Grantee agreeing that the State of Texas will mark the land that he actually conveyed to them on the ground and discover after the fact where it is. :> They refer to the Engineer's Centerline and, usually by implication, to the survey that marked that centerline on the ground that was visible at the time of the conveyance. So, at best the right-of-way markers provide secondary evidence of the Engineer's Centerline and the system of stationing recited in the deed by which the land or right-of-way was conveyed to the State of Texas.
Lots of luck asserting any theory of equitable establishment against the State of Texas.
No wonder Texas paints them up all purdy like, that's evidently all they are used for - scenery. Makes sense, there has got to be something interesting to look at other than cactus and scattered piles of stones (and leaning fences). 😀
Brian Allen, post: 372670, member: 1333 wrote: No wonder Texas paints them up all purdy like, that's evidently all they are used for - scenery. Makes sense, there has got to be something interesting to look at other than cactus and scattered piles of stones (and leaning fences).
No, the Right-of-Way Markers are fairly good evidence of where the Engineer's Centerline described in the deed was located at the time of the conveyance. But to consider them to be *original* monuments that define the lines of the strip conveyed to the State of Texas is without much foundation. You're welcome to claim that, say, a strip of Idaho land described as being 50 ft. to both sides of some surveyed centerline in the deed to the State of Idaho is really only 99 ft. wide, of course. In Texas, we actually have to have a rationale for a boundary determination, though.
The other consideration that I'm sure would spin you around in Idaho is that the right-of-way FENCES are typically constructed before the right-of-way markers are placed. :>
lmbrls, post: 372623, member: 6823 wrote: In GA, the R/W monuments are set by the contractor and are often inaccurate. The Highway Department will hold the center line of the road over the monument location. I was once told by a GDOT employee that the monuments were so they would know where to cut the grass, I am curious if other States have a higher opinion of right of way monuments.
Funny this came up as I was gonna say/post something similar.
Around here when they put in the thruways they obviously condemned land and took pieces of others to make the room for them. The taking maps show the monuments but the monuments were horribly placed by the contractors. So I've been wondering the same if a court would say since the maps show the monuments if the monuments would hold as the actual taking line even though they were set by contractors AND sometimes take more than the owners were giving the state and or ordered to give to the state.
Rich., post: 372681, member: 10450 wrote: Around here when they put in the thruways they obviously condemned land and took pieces of others to make the room for them. The taking maps show the monuments but the monuments were horribly placed by the contractors.
Interesting question. If the monuments were in place at the time of the taking and the taking made reference to them, then the main rationale for a challenge would be gross error. In that case, the description was (presumably) the work of the State and any flaws in the description should be understood in that light, i.e. in the sense most favorable to the landowner from whom the land or right-of-way was taken. Otherwise, the burden shifts to the landowner to hire surveyors to show that the State's surveys are in gross error, which doesn't seem just. It isn't a case of caveat emptor in an involuntary taking.
Rich., post: 372681, member: 10450 wrote: Funny this came up as I was gonna say/post something similar.
Around here when they put in the thruways they obviously condemned land and took pieces of others to make the room for them. The taking maps show the monuments but the monuments were horribly placed by the contractors. So I've been wondering the same if a court would say since the maps show the monuments if the monuments would hold as the actual taking line even though they were set by contractors AND sometimes take more than the owners were giving the state and or ordered to give to the state.
That is precisely the issue that causes me great concern. The R/W deed refers to the project and all calls are based on station and offsets from the project center line. I tie into all monuments and the actual road center line in the area on both sides of the road and best fit a center line. The worst case to date that I have had was monuments that did not fit a the other monuments in a best fit by 16 feet. Usually, we can get close (definitely a relative term) to establishing a reasonably consistent center line using the monuments and the existing roadway center line. I almost never find an existing property corner sitting right on the best fit right of way. Then comes the question of how to handle an offset at a property line when the actual location does not agree with the project center line. Of course a person can not deed what they don't own and the Highway Department can only take title to that which was deeded.The deed references the project center line and gives calls between the station and offsets. When the contractor placed R/W monuments are found, they often do not match the deed course and distance. So then, we either pin cushion the right of way or accept monuments that we normally would consider to be out of position. No I did not accept the monument that was 16 feet out.
Brian, I truly hope that this is done better in other places. Requiring a R/W monument to be set by a Surveyor to the same standards as a property corner would solve many problems.
[
lmbrls, post: 372712, member: 6823 wrote: The R/W deed refers to the project and all calls are based on station and offsets from the project center line. I tie into all monuments and the actual road center line in the area on both sides of the road and best fit a center line. [
The method that I use is to reconstruct the centerline from the right-of-way markers one tangent at a time. The centerline was actually surveyed on the ground, so the actual deflection angles at PIs will vary from record a bit. At curves, I treat the tangents as the elements that were actually laid out on the ground and conditions like tangency at the ends as secondary.
Since the stationing system was likewise based upon measurements that on older rights-of-way were chained, it usually isn't reasonable to expect that some exactly uniform stationing will exist, i.e. that one exact scale factor relates the plan stations to the centerline as surveyed.
lmbrls, post: 372712, member: 6823 wrote: The R/W deed refers to the project and all calls are based on station and offsets from the project center line. I tie into all monuments and the actual road center line in the area on both sides of the road and best fit a center line
We're lucky in Maryland, I can get copies of the original field notes (some going back to the 1930's) from the State Highway Administration survey department and recreate the original baseline either from control they set outside the work area or from the original ties to piles, buildings, etc. If they are too busy to get me the info I need before my deadline, I can send staff up to Baltimore and make the copies we need ourselves.
Kent McMillan, post: 372716, member: 3 wrote: The method that I use is to reconstruct the centerline from the right-of-way markers one tangent at a time. The centerline was actually surveyed on the ground, so the actual deflection angles at PIs will vary from record a bit. At curves, I treat the tangents as the elements that were actually laid out on the ground and conditions like tangency at the ends as secondary.
Since the stationing system was likewise based upon measurements that on older rights-of-way were chained, it usually isn't reasonable to expect that some exactly uniform stationing will exist, i.e. that one exact scale factor relates the plan stations to the centerline as surveyed.
I am in agreement that the tangents are the best evidence of the original center line location. Curves tend to be cut off on the inside edge during construction and re-topping. Each leg of the R/W has to be resolved individually. The method I described above is the start not the end. One reason that we see Surveyors have different locations for the right of way is one shoots the road only at the site and another will establish the tangents beyond the site in both directions. If one scale factor would work and as all recent plans are in State Plane Coordinates, we could just drop the design into the survey and become GIS Techs.
Rich., post: 372681, member: 10450 wrote: Funny this came up as I was gonna say/post something similar.
Around here when they put in the thruways they obviously condemned land and took pieces of others to make the room for them. The taking maps show the monuments but the monuments were horribly placed by the contractors. So I've been wondering the same if a court would say since the maps show the monuments if the monuments would hold as the actual taking line even though they were set by contractors AND sometimes take more than the owners were giving the state and or ordered to give to the state.
Ha! That sounds like NY 🙂 whereabouts?
We recently convinced our engineers to put in the job spec that only a LICENSED SURVEYOR will place county ROW monuments.
They used to get away with anyone setting 12" oak stakes (which was ok..... I didn't want them to last long anyway!)
Kent McMillan, post: 372543, member: 3 wrote: So I was out in West Texas for the last few days enjoying the scenery, but that doesn't mean that when I drove past what may be the most beautiful Type I, Concrete Right-of-Way Marker in Texas, I didn't slam on the brakes to get a photo. For someone who is accustomed to finding this type of Right-of-Way Marker either broken about ground level with just a snaggle of rebars above grade, or leaning so far off plumb that it will be more than half an hours work with a shovel and pry bar to restore it to plumb, this was like a glimpse of CÌ?bola, City of Gold that Francisco Coronado rode around Texas in search of. Well, maybe more like the City of Alcoa since that is aluminum paint on the marker.
What is even more amazing is that this one was evidently set back in the 1930s. Note that the marker was set in a hole drilled in rock with concrete backfill. Ah, the labor-intensive 30s.
Here is a picture of a similar monument that I took when I visited Kent a few years ago.
The actual point atop the concrete monument is not always the same point that has been used by every crew out there that set monuments across the State of Texas.
I've had TxDot crew members that said it was the outside corner of the first side edge that is on station and at distance and I've been told it was the outside corner of the far side edge.
Many of them were set by measuring down the painted centerline and an Arkansas 90å¡ slapped to the sides and cloth taped to dig post hole and drop prefab monument into place and tamping the top at distance.
Sometimes they may be 50ft or 200ft off station because of miscount and most of the time they are within a foot.
When they are off distance from centerline it is in 5ft increments from 5ft to 30ft too close or too far.
By measuring and analyzing their location after measurement, it is the actual center in many instances and then the next set that will not hold true.
They will fall all around the center top of the monument, and that is why I believe most of them have moved some thru the years.
Then there are the older highways that have 4x4 treated posts and then there midstream aged highways marked with 3/4in iron rods with an 8in round guard post either one foot past and one foot inside or one foot before and one foot inside station and distance.
Most of the modern 8to10 inch concrete monuments with brass cap and punch marks are spot on/dead center in location.
33å¡28'03.51"N, 94å¡03'51.31W is the location where there was a planned exit to a street that was later changed into commercial property and somehow the r/w was monument incorrectly. After about 10+ years the r/w was found to run thru the office of these storage buildings and it being a Federal I30 r/w, they sawed off the part inside the r/w. Original building line can still be seen and just to the left is the remains of a towering rental sign post that was removed. Personally, I had a good laugh and give a few I told you so after word came down from high authority of the mistake.;-)
0.02
A Harris, post: 372798, member: 81 wrote: The actual point atop the concrete monument is not always the same point that has been used by every crew out there that set monuments across the State of Texas.
Somewhere there is a standard Texas Highway Department detail for Type I Concrete Right-of-Way Markers that shows both line and grade to which the contract specified that the marker was to be set. Generally, I find that in the hey day of the Texas Highway Department back before about 1965 (to pick a date), in the districts familiar to me the quality of the surveying was pretty good. At some point in the 1970s something happened and it all began to slide downhill.
There probably was quite a bit of variation in the quality of work from district to district.
Kent McMillan, post: 372827, member: 3 wrote: There probably was quite a bit of variation in the quality of work from district to district.
Many problems of inconsistency in what is the correct way to do the task at hand take me back to some lines from the movie "Heartbreak Ridge"
Colonel Meyers: Are you new to the Infantry, Major?
Major Powers: Yes, sir. Come over from Supply.
Colonel Meyers: Were you good at that?
Major Powers: Yes, sir!
Colonel Meyers: Well then stick to it, cause you're a walking clusterfuck as an infantry officer!
Many people transfer or are placed into a position without having the proper background and training and will start making changes where they are not needed.
:plumbbob:
A Harris, post: 372900, member: 81 wrote: Many problems of inconsistency in what is the correct way to do the task at hand take me back to some lines from the movie "Heartbreak Ridge"
I think that the single best predictor of the quality of the surveying in a particular district between about 1935 and 1965 is where the District Engineer went to college. They divide mostly into graduates of the University of Texas and of the Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College.
Kent, which school was known to produce the best quality of surveys?
hpalmer, post: 373058, member: 336 wrote: Kent, which school was known to produce the best quality of surveys?
I'm pretty sure that all graduates of the University of Texas College of Engineering were proficient at mathematics and engineering (at a time when surveying was an integral part of the civil engineering curriculum). The Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College was more involved in other non-engineering cult activities. Once one of the graduates of Tex Ag & Mech College found himself in State employment, I'm pretty sure that he preferred to surround himself with other folks with a similar taste in class rings.
The Most Beautiful Type I R-O-W Marker in Florida...
FL/GA PLS., post: 373097, member: 379 wrote: The Most Beautiful Type I R-O-W Marker in Florida.
Would that be Florida, DENMARK? :>
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2006/speed-patrol-bikini-bandits/
