And I bet five years from now the eternal “Under Construction” will still be going on at I-40. I made the big mistake of taking it home one time from Nags Head to Knoxville. I drove through at night because several 10 plus mile stretches were under Construction. That was in about 2002. I remember the same issues all the way back to the late 1970’s when I attempted to drive to Norfolk on it. One time cured me. My bet is this isn’t to cover interstate repairs but rather a hide it elsewhere tax for “Illegal Alien” cost to the state.
I used to work for an electrical utility in Houston. We had an intern pull the permit request for power line crossing and associated road construction on the Gulf Freeway, I-45 from Houston to Galveston. It seemed like it was always under construction.
Turns out it actually was. From the start of construction in 1948 to that time (early 90s), a portion of that ~50 miles of road was always under construction.