America's roads are awful!!

TheLuvShack wrote:
...Primarily in the Midwest....

I agree, and disagree. We just got back from a 4400 mile road trip from Oregon to Minnesota. Not in the RV, in a collector car (Trip Log). We crossed a lot of the upper Midwest. I recall the roads being worse the last time we made this trip. Especially since this time I was in an older car and not a modern vehicle with an updated suspension. There were some sections which were bumpy, but others that were silky smooth. In one section of North Dakota on I-94 I let go of the wheel and watched my odometer. It was 1.3 miles before I drifted toward the white line.

That said, there were some sections where they road was completely torn out on one side. Pavement gone, underlay gone, just down to dirt. I *guess* that may have been the original roadbed, back when it was a two-lane highway before the Interstate. It was necessary to rip everything out and build a new subsurface as what was laid down in the 1920's was not holding up nearly 100 years later. I suspect the next time I make that trip these will be the silky smooth sections.

So in my opinion, it does seem that work is being done to make the Interstates better, but the project is not complete yet (if it ever will be).

-Eric

OFDPOS wrote:
we've been down this road before (no pun intended)....higher gas taxes if and only if those dollars would be directed to road repair, bridge repair, etc and not mass transit or other non-highway uses.

Exactly

If you want to help the roads remove a bunch of truck traffic and shift it to rail and boats, trucks (and heavy RVs) do much, much more damage per gallon of fuel (and hence dollars of tax) than passenger vehicles.

Why is it,,,, we vote for those who say they'll fix the infrastructure , when they don't we vote for them again.

Tell me again who's fault it is we have bad roads?

Remember how stupid the average voter is, then believe 50% are stupider than that.

Not only are the highways rough they also look terrible.
I can remember when the interstate highway system was gleaming
white concrete and now dingy black algae covered bridges and overpasses.
The whole thing needs to be pressure washed.

Lynnmor wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
Silliest thread I've seen in a while! Like complaining about the weather.

Is this another way of saying "shut up and pay your taxes?"

No actually it was my way of saying I can't believe someone would seriously threaten to quit traveling due to bumpy roads. Must have a good life if this is one of a person's predominant complaints.....

RambleOnNW wrote:
Not only are the highways rough they also look terrible.
I can remember when the interstate highway system was gleaming
white concrete and now dingy black algae covered bridges and overpasses.
The whole thing needs to be pressure washed.

Another lol. The black scum and moss disappears if you can make it east of the Cascades....

SidecarFlip wrote:


No, right. The road funding formula in Michigan is based on lane miles, not population density. I should know, I'm in politics on a local level and I've studied the lane mile formula at great length.

The bulk of state (Michigan) road funding goes to the UP where the population density is much less than the lower.

Pull the stats and look before making a false statement.

I'm in the industry and well aware of the statewide budgets having worked on them in the past. You are flat out wrong.

I suspect you are confusing funding per lane mile with funding per capita. Funding per capita is higher in the UP as they have very few people but the lane miles are far lower in the UP and they get a tiny percentage relative to the LP.

I agree you should pull the stats as you are wrong.

lakeside013104 wrote:

rk911 wrote:

jfkmk wrote:

wildtoad wrote:
The problem is people complain about the roads, schools, and other tax funded entities but don’t want to pay for them.

Actually, the problem is we already pay very high taxes for the things, and the money gets squandered instead of wisely used.

bingo!

So much truth to the statements above. Our country's infrastructure is crumbling.

The Highway Trust Fund is a transportation fund in the United States which receives money from a federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel and related excise taxes.

In Maine the state adds their share to the fuel taxes to make buying a gallon of gasoline or diesel have about 44 cents (+) worth of taxes in the street price.

If these taxes were used for the repair of our roads, a person might not be forced to drive over rough highways every time they drive about. The majority of monies collected just never seem to be applied to the repaving or improvements to our highways. There is always another bond issue to be voted on to approve more funding for road maintenance. There are serious problems with who has control of spending our highway taxes on projects other than highways.

The fox is in the hen house and has been for decades.

Lakeside

I come from Australia and I thought many US paved roads were bad. Urgently need to put money into roads and infrastructure

RobertRyan wrote:

lakeside013104 wrote:

rk911 wrote:

jfkmk wrote:

wildtoad wrote:
The problem is people complain about the roads, schools, and other tax funded entities but don’t want to pay for them.

Actually, the problem is we already pay very high taxes for the things, and the money gets squandered instead of wisely used.

bingo!

So much truth to the statements above. Our country's infrastructure is crumbling.

The Highway Trust Fund is a transportation fund in the United States which receives money from a federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel and related excise taxes.

In Maine the state adds their share to the fuel taxes to make buying a gallon of gasoline or diesel have about 44 cents (+) worth of taxes in the street price.

If these taxes were used for the repair of our roads, a person might not be forced to drive over rough highways every time they drive about. The majority of monies collected just never seem to be applied to the repaving or improvements to our highways. There is always another bond issue to be voted on to approve more funding for road maintenance. There are serious problems with who has control of spending our highway taxes on projects other than highways.

The fox is in the hen house and has been for decades.

Lakeside

I come from Australia and I thought many US paved roads were bad. Urgently need to put money into roads and infrastructure

We decided to give a 1.5T tax cut to the rich instead. Most our politicians don't get out and drive around for days on end in a car. Guessing if they did things would change.

goducks10 wrote:
We decided to give a 1.5T tax cut to the rich instead. Most our politicians don't get out and drive around for days on end in a car. Guessing if they did things would change.

You can start a petition to pass a law to raise the gas tax (or you can do it by miles driven - whatever works for you) in your state purely to pay for highway maintenance. You can do the same thing at the county and local level. Problem solved.