I wasn't saying to just go and throw rock everywhere. He was asking about using other means besides blasting. Why? Its more costly and this type of blasting is done everyday. 300 feet in the construction blasting world is a long way away.
Actually, I wish we had a three hundred foot zone in the cities. We may get 25 - 50 feet if we're lucky (especially in NYC).
Also, on heavily traveled roads, you'll get maybe a 1-3 minute window to fire the blast. Usually, a rolling roadblock is used.
If you are 300 feet away, matted, and properly loaded, a 1-3 minute window is more then enough. If its a sidehill cut that cannot be matted, then you must use different pattern geometries, timing, and explosives to keep the rock from moving, but still fractured enough to muck. Then, you may actually get a 10 minute window to clean up the road, but they usually want 1 lane open in 5 minutes. If you are 300 feet away and hit the road with enough rock to shut it down, you should get out of explosives engineering.
If you want to talk about blasting in other countries, I've seen it all (28 countries). Except for Europe, Australia, and Japan, I wouldn't trust anybody loading holes that I didn't personnally train.
Frank Lucca M.I.Exp.E.