I wonder if any of that is local roads’ funds being tapped for underfunded pensions? You literally can’t turn around without finding not 1 more, but 10 more local gov’t employee pension plans in deep doo-doo.
Then again, I still see no major decline in local roads — some areas are poor, yes, but that’s always been the case. The alley behind my place is bad, but, then again, it too has been up and down over the years. The population along it has declined by at ~50% too — kinda hard for the city to make it high priority, I suppose.
Granted that this is just my own personal observation, and may not be typical. Near here is a county actually growing a bit, and while there is quite a bit of new road construction at all levels, some of the small county roads seem worse than usual.
Sigh. I would have to be pretty dense to not consider that, especially in this state...