Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/119539
final word | by Kirk Landers Our miracle cures for crumbling roads C hronic underfunding of roads and bridges produces a slow but steady stream of miracle cures that won't hurt a bit, or so the authors say. Among politicians, the miracle cures usually involve borrowing money to pay for needed repairs and upgrades. The borrowing is done via bond issues, usually secured by future revenues from existing taxes. In other words, solving today's problems by creating worse ones tomorrow. But pols aren't the only opportunists pitching fantasy cures to a public that is woefully under-informed about the realities of its decaying highway system. Years ago, a fairly high-profile east-coast newspaper ran a breathless exposé that postulated America's crumbling roads were the product of the low-bid system for awarding contracts. The fact that the bids were for the same design and materials got by the earnest scribes in their rush to deadline. Similarly, the Chicago Tribune once ran an editorial claiming that Illinois' chronic road problems could be solved simply by adopting concrete as the road material of choice for construction and repairs. Ironically, Illinois has used concrete for high volume roads for many, many decades, and with great success – most of the crumbling roads the newspaper referred to were concrete structures that had served decades past their design lives. They had been overlaid with asphalt rather than concrete to extend the service life of the roadway, but that was hardly scandalous. Many impartial highway engineers favor asphalt for that application because of its lower initial cost and faster implementation, and because 78 April 2013 | EquipmentWorld.com of its flexibility. The latest press misadventure into the world of highways comes from a syndicated feature picked up by many U.S. dailies in February. Created by two reporters for the McClatchy Newspapers chain, the feature suggested that the U.S. highway system is crumbling because the idiots who manage it keep building new highways instead of taking care of the existing ones. It gets better. The authors tell us that since the Interstate Highway system was completed in 1991, seven new Interstates have been built, totaling 2,803 miles and have been funded through Congressional earmarks. Another earmark outrage! Well, maybe not. They left out a few things. Many, actually, but here are two: First, since 1991, the U.S. population has increased about 24 percent and vehicle miles travelled has increased about 37 percent while the miles of the Interstate Highway System have expanded just 6 percent. Second, the majority of new Interstate miles (1,700 of the 2,803 "new" miles) are accounted for by Interstate 69, the road from Texas to Michigan built to accommodate the high volume of north-south truck traffic that came with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). That's commerce folks, and roads are a vital part of it. One hopes building roads to accommodate citizens and commerce never becomes scandalous in the minds of reasonable and informed people. One also can only hope that the journalists who choose to investigate roads in the future will acquire a broader information base before taking their daring stands on the problems we face. EW