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Distressing! We have buildings full of legislation that does us more harm than good and they still keep pumping out this stuff; while being paid DARN WELL to do it.
Here's the larger cultural/economic/political problem: How do we move high-profit, high employment projects away from road construction and into alternative energy-efficient mass transit projects? More to the point: How do we get Americans (myself included) to fall OUT of love with their automobiles? I really can't fault politicians here. They're doing what they can to provide employment for their constituents and profits for the construction trades in their districts (the latter just happen to be large political donors -- you get the picture). The ugly truth is that road construction work is just about the highest paying job an unskilled worker can find in America. These jobs are god-sends for hundreds of thousands of citizens, most of whom live in rural areas with limited access to job markets. Pare down the "PORK" too quickly and you induce economic depression in several regions. Ironically, one of the unforeseen consequences of all this road work may be the souring of our automobile romance. There's nothing like a thirty-five mile detour to another bridge, an hour delay on the freeway due to lane repairs, and a one-lane clogged Interstate to make a person question the so-called convenience and freedom of our one-car-per-person society. Two things will kill our car fixation faster than anything: prohibitive gasoline prices and excessive road work. Now there's a thought: road repair as an environmental ally. Stranger things have happened....
Oh Tim, how I love your comments. I look forward to them eagerly. And of course you are right about the jobs, etc. But it's such an utterly short-sighted creation of jobs for jobs' sake. What if all those people were put to work in projects of mass transit and transport? I'd love for you to see Dallas' new light rail system, it has made such an enormous distance in how people commute to jobs, school, shopping, and living, in the downtown area.
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