Your roads must be in a lot worse shape than ours. Other than perhaps bridges getting old, taken as a whole, general road maintenance seems no worse, or better, than the last 45 years or so. (As far back as I was doing much driving.) It’s always been “mediocre”. And there are always some forest roads and such that Fedzilla or Statezilla is slow to get to,
OTOH, here, we see road projects like a big, interstate style interchange on a (fairly busy, I will grant you) state highway to a local road that goes to... almost nothing. It’s between areas of light activity, in a general area losing population, with said local road ending, to the north, at a small area of rental units (condos & small homes, maybe 40 units) after passing by a handful of homes and small businesses), and to the south, a similar pass through of a few homes and small businesses, then entering a wildlife refuge and ending in a lake. Every time my wife and I pass by there, we marvel at the “interchange to nowhere”. I sort of understand the argument of “build it and development will follow”, and staying ahead of traffic needs, but this one is at least 10-15 years before that much “need” would even be in sight, unless we go on a 10% per year regional or State GDP tear... (Also NOT in sight — libs heavily in charge, here.)
So, why was it built? “Pork”, I am sure!
Actually, it is our town roads that are somewhat neglected. the state and interstate roads are not in bad shape (lot of repair and new construction)