Reply #62: The misuse and abuse of highway funding is no doubt a huge part [View All]

... of the problem with roads and highways, and is almost nowhere more visible and conspicuous than in the Detroit area where I (now, sadly) live. Not only are such funds used for other purposes, unrelated to roads and highways, but the contracts for highway repairs and construction are obviously being granted for sub-standard and shoddy work in most areas and the "Cadillac" of construction in the more affluent neighborhods where (merely coincidentally, of course) the politicially-connected live and (secondarily) work.

When I first returned to this area (where I ws born and mostly raised) three years ago, after being gone for about 30 years, I was stunned and appalled at the abominable deterioration of the City of Detroit's roads and streets. They're rubble! In neighborhoods where my (former) girlfriends lived, the deterioration was appalling. What I thought might be Memory Lane had become Rubble Road. Michiganders make jokes about the "signs of spring": "Slow! Construction Zone!" and the international orange traffic cones that sprout up - but it's not funny at all to see the same roads become rubble within a year of being festooned with taxpayer-dollar-paid cones.

It's also stunning to me to see the Road Warrior behemoths that populate the roads and highways around here ... from Hummers and Navigators and Escalades to fully-power-equipped Chevy Suburbans - almost all occupied only by a solo driver, most often on their cell-phone, with no visible cargo whatsoever. It's common to stop at a light and be completely surrounded by exhaust-spewing high-rise behemoths that block not only my view of the light but of cross-traffic and any pedestrians. After living in (and loving) the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years, it's stunning indeed. (It's no accident that Californians, despite their famous mobility and long commutes, are the least energy consuming people per-capita in the USA.)