Un-freaking-believable...

I've lived in Missouri most of my life. Don't ask me why. I must be a glutton for punishment, I guess. I usually call it the state of "Misery." I have lived in several different states for a number of years, though; Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. And I have traveled extensively.

So here is my point. Missouri has to be the most fucking backwards state when it comes to road and bridge construction and repair of any state in the union. I mean, back during my father's time, when people actually worked, entire highway systems were built in less time than it takes now, with more manpower and better equipment to just repair one simple highway overpass in my state. For Christ's sake, Californians can endure earthquakes, and their overpasses can literally crumble, and road and bridge crews can build a new one in a month. But in my state, in my city, we have had a bunch of jacklegs tie up traffic in major routes and have lives and driving time disrupted for a year to just repair something. Whether it is repaving a road, adding a lane, repairing a bridge, it takes forever. The two overpasses less than a mile from where I live have been worked on now for nine months, with no end in sight. And, you guys won't believe this, but a new bridge over the Missouri River in Independence took almost five years to build, but was on the drawing board, from start to finish for over 20 years! My town is nothing but a sea of orange barrels, and the highway crews could not be more inept. Hell yes, I'd like to have a job that pays 15 bucks an hour to lean on a stop and go sign and shoot the shit with my co-workers all day.

I just had to have a rant about it this morning. Sometimes it gets to be too much. I sure wish I had the orange cone and orange barrel concession here, though.

Kudos to the California and Nevada state highway departments. They seem to be really on the ball. How is the efficiency of the highway department where you live?

either here or in VA, I can't remember, the dj's at a radio station took Willie's song and turned it into "Working on the road again". They did a pretty good job with it too. :hi:

Personally, though I could never be able to prove it, I think a lot of graft and outright corruption go on here in my state. There is a lot of waste of tax dollars, and the inefficiency is inexcuseable. You would think, with a 50 cent gas tax, phased in over five years, that was supposed to be targeted for road maintenence, in a state that is the center for most highway traffic, that road repair would be a top priority. But it isn't. We rank among the bottom of states with good driveable roads. It's just pathetic. They are really good at keeping things torn up for long periods of time, though.:hi:

And roads were not in nearly so bad the shape they're in now. But traffic has increased probably a hundred-fold since then, the roads are older and they take a huge beating.

I used to work on a highway construction crew (and believe me, I didn't make 15 bucks an hour nor did I stand around. Ever. Even if it may have looked like it).

Between all the new guidelines you have to adhere to (engineers have to inspect every inch of that goddamn road, every time you do about anything to it. So everything shuts down and guys with clean pants and immaculate hard hats come out and tell you that you're 1/4 inch off grade and you have to do it all over again. :nuke: ) and the fact that everything is done on a shoestring budget so that much of the work is bandaid work that will have to be done again next year, yeah - everybody everywhere has construction going on all summer, every summer.

Those bridges that get rebuilt quick when an earthquake hits California are getting repaired out of an emergency fund. Regular work that needs to get done? When I first moved here, there was a washout on the road I lived on - simple job, really. Shore up the slope, concrete berm, redo the roadbed. Took over two years. Fifty feet of road.

Get used to the orange barrels. :hi:

Not having been on a highway crew, I can only speak of what I see, and it's impossible for me to understand, with the technology of today, and the vast improvements in the type of equipment used how work is so slow, compared to when my father was a young man. There is no doubt that people did more with less money back then. People actually WORKED! I have done a lot of traveling through California, and it seems to me that the crews keep the roads in good repair. When I have seen a crew in California, Nevada and even Arizona, I don't recall ever seeing an entire crew just standing around. You see it almost daily here in Kansas City. Some states make it a priority, and run their departments with a much greater efficiency. Not mine.

And the orange barrels? Nothing new. Been putting up with a sea of them most of my life here. Still can't get used to them, though. They are nothing more than a constant daily reminder of ineptitude and inefficiency.

They've been working on widening the highway through town here...on section at a time (theoretically) so that it'll be less disruptive (ha!) for FOUR YEARS. And they're STILL not done. The exit that I take to go to work closed on January 1. Won't reopen until the end of October...and that's just one little section. When they redid the bridge that I go past to get on the highway to go to work, they spent TWO YEARS doing it. And then widened the highway on only one side of it. It's been a nightmare for the past four years. With another couple of years to go before they're done.

Then there are going to be the inevitable glitches that will cause lanes/sections/exits to be closed for repairs once they're finally finished.

And don't get me started on the signs that they aren't putting up to indicate temporary lane shifts and closed exits.

:nuke:

put into action by the Eisenhower administration. Do you live in Chicago?

The problem is that they waited until the highway was overtaxed to even start thinking about fixing it. And by the time they finish, it's going to be inadequate again.

x(

thats going to be a major headache for years to come. Im just glad I dont have to drive on it regularly.

And dont get me started on the Mississippi Bridge project. Missouri and Illinois have been arguing about that for YEARS, to the point where if they dont start something soon, they will lose the Federal funding that was approved.

a major clusterfuck here in K.C., then it must be as bad or worse in St. Louis. Our state highway department should all be fired, lock, stock and orange barrel. They can't even give us smooth road surfaces. Not for any length of time. It is so pathetic.

Arkansas river collapsed killing like around 15 people or so, that bridge was rebuilt and usable within less than 6 months, it seems like it was a lot less. Kinda scary though too, I have wondered how many shortcuts they took to just get the bridge back up.

Road construction isn't much better a state below you in Arkansas where I'm at Joe, graft and corruption are surely part of the problem as well as the "it ain't my job" factor where you see a lot of hurry up and wait stuff on construction of any kind. Inflated budgets, cost over runs, and stuff just not getting fixed well seems to be the rule a lot of times.

huge, and no one is ever accountable, except the taxpayers, who get shafted with longer tax burdens for inefficient work. As for the Arkansas River bridge, I'd be willing to bet that a LOT of shortcuts were taken. It's just mind-boggling how a road crew can tear something up, take months, or even a year or longer to repair it, and then a very short time later tear the same damned thing up again, because they forgot to do something that should have been done in the first place. I call it "job security."

That freaking bridje over the river outside of Jefferson City took a DECADE! I love Missouri, but I hated MDOT.

in a state that is a crossroads for all major transportation and a hub for nationwide truck traffic. Now they are talking about toll roads, to get the money up for road construction, repair and bridgework. But several years ago, we passed a fifty cent a gallon gasoline tax here, that was supposed to take care of the money problem for the highway dept. All that money collected: wasted! Absolutely no improvement in any area. Just more job security for road crews.

It's true that the repairs and replacements after the Northridge quake were done extremely quickly, but that was mainly because the state agencies stepped out of the way and basically just told the contractors "get this done early and you can have a lot of money."

The less visible projects still tend to be boondoggles (the 22 near my parents house was torn up for a freakin' lifetime), there is little communication between counties and the state, and many of the newer freeways seem to be crumbling before their time...

away from the major cities were maintained...the ones that go through the mountains and through the central valley. I should have realized that there was an emergency fund for earthquake repair.

if we get even half an inch, everything is closed. A little ice has things shut down for days.

non-existent. They shoot their wad during the very first snow of the season, no matter how small.