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Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement
Wall Street Journal ^ | July 17, 2010 | LAUREN ETTER

Posted on 07/17/2010 5:59:50 AM PDT by reaganaut1

...

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.

In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as "poor man's pavement." Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel.

The moves have angered some residents because of the choking dust and windshield-cracking stones that gravel roads can kick up, not to mention the jarring "washboard" effect of driving on rutted gravel.

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.

Rebuilding an asphalt road today is particularly expensive because the price of asphalt cement, a petroleum-based material mixed with rocks to make asphalt, has more than doubled over the past 10 years. Gravel becomes a cheaper option once an asphalt road has been neglected for so long that major rehabilitation is necessary.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; US: Alabama; US: Michigan; US: Ohio; US: Pennsylvania; US: South Dakota
KEYWORDS: alabama; infrastructure; michigan; ohio; pennsylvania; roads; southdakota
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To: reaganaut1

Democrats — Building a bridge to the 18th century.


121 posted on 07/17/2010 12:14:35 PM PDT by Mad_Tom_Rackham (It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government -- Thomas Paine)
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To: bert; stevio
The hamlet of Canyon (Contra Costa County, CA) maintains its own roads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon,_California

122 posted on 07/17/2010 12:19:48 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: livius
Not to worry. The government will soon be giving us public transportation to replace these messy roads and cars:


123 posted on 07/17/2010 12:22:33 PM PDT by Mad_Tom_Rackham (It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government -- Thomas Paine)
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To: avg_freeper
Reminds me of "Atlas Shrugged" when everything started going into disrepair.

Even in my ostensibly conservative county, one commissioner lamented the fact that county residents didn't want a millage rate hike, but still wanted "potholes filled and sheriff's deputies on patrol."

And he said it on the record, to a reporter, without any hint of irony.

124 posted on 07/17/2010 12:28:04 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (I'd rather take my chances with someone misusing freedom than someone misusing power.)
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009
Flying cars with tires for the cops,

Bicycles for the sheeple, all of them. Millions of them.

I recently read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the book from which Blade Runner was written. The movie was a bit short on the "why" of things like only cops having cars.

The book did better at filling in those details (as books usually do). It seems there was a nuclear war, and anybody with any brains had moved "off-world." (The assumption by the author was that we would never have a President like Obama who would terminate manned spaceflight, but I digress.) The only people left around were either nuke-addled, sterile simpletons ("specials"), cops or industrialists.

The fact that this was a post-apocalyptic setting was entirely lost in the movie, and would it would have helped to have spent a few minutes in the exposition explaining that detail. There was never daylight, and it was always raining, for examples.

125 posted on 07/17/2010 12:33:35 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (Build a man a fire; he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire; he'll be warm the rest of his life)
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To: Mad_Tom_Rackham

LOL! Actually, you’re right. Obama’s great desire is to humiliate us and install the Third World here. It’s not fair, don’t you know, that we actually have done so well.


126 posted on 07/17/2010 12:37:49 PM PDT by livius
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To: netmilsmom

Yeah, me too. I’m stuck in a long, slow spot where Rand had to drop in the obligatory “love interest.” The writing style is as slow and tortured as it is, so I expect it will be a while before any decent pot development resumes....


127 posted on 07/17/2010 12:42:48 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (Build a man a fire; he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire; he'll be warm the rest of his life)
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To: VRW Conspirator
This is done by design. Govmint administrators will cut budgets of items and services which are quite visible to you and me - roads, parks, etc. This is a cynical/devious ploy to justify raising taxes, rates and fees.

You betcha, Vastie. Here in AZ, they pink-slipped half the teachers to ensure a "Yes" vote on a "temporary" 1% addition to the sales tax.

128 posted on 07/17/2010 12:49:48 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (Build a man a fire; he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire; he'll be warm the rest of his life)
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To: reaganaut1
Think of all the cars of S. Cal roads....Probably 42,000,000 of them...All paying an average of probably $150. a year in state registrations and taxes.

WTF are they doing with this mountain of money?

Then throw in billions state sales taxes etc....

WTF are they doing with the money?

129 posted on 07/17/2010 12:55:37 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: raybbr

Once the “fat czar” takes over, the bikes will be crucial to an American’s ability to work and get access to healthcare.


130 posted on 07/17/2010 12:56:41 PM PDT by comps4spice (Obama is a clear and present danger.)
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To: comps4spice
Once the “fat czar” takes over, the bikes will be crucial to an American’s ability to work and get access to healthcare.

Well, they already have a "Bambulance" ready to get the sick to the hospital...


131 posted on 07/17/2010 1:02:49 PM PDT by raybbr (Someone who invades another country is NOT an immigrant - illegal or otherwise.)
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To: livius
Hah! Ever tried to ride a bike on a gravel road? I think they’ve got a surprise coming...

True, but understand that the government first began paving roads in the 1890s for bicycles - not automobiles.

132 posted on 07/17/2010 1:09:36 PM PDT by Castlebar
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To: Thermalseeker
Oklahoma let I-40 devolve into a gravel goat path

We're leaving California on Wednesday heading to Minnesota...last time, we went I-40 to IKC and turned north on I-35 - both were horrible pothole traps.

This time, we're seriously considering hooking onto state highways at Tucumcari and meandering up northeast at least until Wichita.

133 posted on 07/17/2010 1:25:03 PM PDT by ErnBatavia (It's not the Obama Administration....it's the "Obama Regime".)
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To: Castlebar

But they paved them. Here in Florida, it was limerock, which produced a pretty hard surfacethat was actually drivable if maintained. And then the railroads came and everybody took the train to Miami, and finally, with the development of good roads, people started coming to Florida with their little travel trailers in tow. The rest is history.

I have no objection to bikes and I use one to go short distances because I live in a small town. Still, I can’t see myself pushing a bicycle along a gravel road...

IMHO, this stinks. Come up with a new surface, do something to improve things, but don’t react to fund cutting by removing the few services government actually should supply with our taxes (common roads), isolating folks who are obviously outside of the power center, such as it is, and giving it all to the leeches attached to the government teat.


134 posted on 07/17/2010 1:37:25 PM PDT by livius
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To: Thermalseeker
Just shootings, not necessarily murders. There was one they were talking about on the radio yesterday where a few black males approached some guy asking for change for a $20. He took out his wallet, they held him up and shot him in the leg. I’ve been hearing a bunch of stories like that lately. Seems like the home invasions are making a come back, too. Funny how that stuff just doesn’t happen over here in Sequatchie County. I wonder if it’s because the ‘perps know virtually everyone over here is armed to the teeth?

I hear a story or two as well, but I don't get the daily local rag so I probably don't see the whole story. I know that a couple of our downtown workers have been robbed over the last couple of years. Our employees don't have the freedom to carry concealed, at least not on company property. They can do so off company property though.

I don't live in the city - I live in a nearby community that has a good record (and a lot of people with guns). It's interesting that at least two Chattanooga policemen live in my neighborhood, both with take-home cars. Seems that they don't want to live in 'Nooga either. I don't work downtown any more, and I only venture down there in the daytime or when in a large group.

On a side note, and in keeping with the nature of the thread, Tennessee in general has pretty good roads - much better than those in Cleveland, Ohio, where I used to live. And, most of them are paved!

135 posted on 07/17/2010 1:51:09 PM PDT by meyer (Big government is the enemy of freedom.)
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To: raybbr

LOL! Soon to be seen throughout CA, IL, NY and NJ.


136 posted on 07/17/2010 2:03:59 PM PDT by comps4spice (Obama is a clear and present danger.)
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To: livius
IMHO, this stinks. Come up with a new surface, do something to improve things, but don’t react to fund cutting by removing the few services government actually should supply with our taxes (common roads), isolating folks who are obviously outside of the power center, such as it is, and giving it all to the leeches attached to the government teat.

In the county I live in there are around 120,000 people and only about 30,000 live in the main city. The rest of us live in the country or one of the nearly 30 tiny towns spread all over the county. In fact all of the counties in south central Michigan are the same way. Any fantasy about connecting them all with rail is pure stupidity.

For us, our paved roads are a necessity that connects our network of small communities.
137 posted on 07/17/2010 2:10:28 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: cripplecreek

I don’t mind connecting anything and everything by rail, but the problem is that if there is not population density, this isn’t going to happen. Also, I would doubt that this is a commuter area where large numbers of folks are going off to work in some nearby city every day, so it wouldn’t even be practical.

These are small local roads and have to be maintained so that people can get around. It’s ok if the county comes up with a better, cheaper replacement for asphalt, but it doesn’t sound as if they have. It sounds to me like they’re just dumping this neighborhood.


138 posted on 07/17/2010 2:18:12 PM PDT by livius
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To: livius

I just can’t imagine a feasible means of interconnecting all these little towns with rail as was suggested upthread.
An astronaut would be blinded by the sunlight glinting off the steel that would literally carpet the midwest.

Then there’s the unacknowledged problem of forcing more of us into the city. I’m about as dangerous as a butterfly in my tiny town but if I’m forced into the city I’ll be a shooting spree waiting to happen.


139 posted on 07/17/2010 2:41:00 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: reaganaut1
But higher taxes for road maintenance are equally unpopular.

Everyone is already taxed to death.

The truth is the state public unions, who own the Democrat party, steal all the money for salaries, benefits, and pensions.....leaving almost nothing for the basic services (trash collection, road repair, snow removal, etc) that they should be performing.

140 posted on 07/17/2010 2:50:09 PM PDT by SkyPilot
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