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Posted on 07/20/2011 2:20:02 PM PDT by bkopto
Asphalt Is Replaced By Cheaper Gravel; 'Back to Stone Age'
....Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls.
[SNIP] But higher taxes for road maintenance are equally unpopular. In June, Stutsman County residents rejected a measure that would have generated more money for roads by increasing property and sales taxes.
"I'd rather my kids drive on a gravel road than stick them with a big tax bill," said Bob Baumann, as he sipped a bottle of Coors Light at the Sportsman's Bar Café and Gas in Spiritwood.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The example is from North Dakota, a state that is doing very, very well from the oil boom. I have to wonder if this particular county might be having trouble because of depopulation.
I hasten to add that I don’t discount the effect of giving our tax dollars to people instead of maintaining the infrastructure.
There’s an old joke that the state highway department is going to lay off 3,000 highway workers because someone in Germany invented a shovel that can stand up all by itself.
Aint that a bitch mowing the middle though.
EPA is pushing to eliminate concrete parking lots and replace them with gravel lots to stop water runoff.
EPA is pushing to eliminate concrete parking lots and replace them with gravel lots to stop water runoff.
No problem. Sometimes I run down it with the mower and sometime the neighbor hits it. The only other house down there is empty this summer. The owner lives in Florida during the winter and only came up for a couple of weeks this spring.
Yay! That means that local government salaries are next! No more bad education, enforcement of frivolous laws or economy-killing regulations!
bfl
Fun trying to dodge flying stones as they hit your windshield too.
Directly from the pages of Atlas Shrugged.
Mark
or build High Speed Choo Choo’s
Flip the little POS over and use them for pot-hole fillers!
I work in the transportation field (surface transportation engineering) and the way it works here in Georgia is that a relatively small part of the state’s transportation funds are granted to the various countys for local road maintenance and improvements. The countys use most of that money for resurfacing. So now the funds aren’t there at the state level and the countys don’t get the allocations for resurfacing, pot hole fixing, etc. The top > down system is failing. Less federal spending on transportation infrastructure eventually finds its way down to the county level.
No point in high speed rail in most of Florida, and in any case, high speed rail is an almost outdated technology and will certainly be outdated by the time they complete even the first mile of track.
More ordinary commuter trains would be good, and simply more regular train service along the Atlantic Coast would be great. It’s faster and easier than driving, and the track and stations are already there (they ceased to be used long ago, when the government took over the passenger railroads). Any time the Federal government touches something, it kills it.
“There’s an old joke that the state highway department is going to lay off 3,000 highway workers because someone in Germany invented a shovel that can stand up all by itself.”
LOL!
Didn’t know that there was a lot of oil in Michigan. But re-reading your earlier post I see that you may have grown up somewhere else.
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