One of the roads I take in my commute is laden with potholes. One day, there was a sign up to take an alternate route on such and such day. I figured they were finally going to either pave it or at least fill in the potholes. Wrong! What they did, was pave a bicycle path going across the road and 100' on each side of it. Why 100' on each side? So there would be a smooth surface to stencil (*) / (*) X-ING on both sides of the 6' wide path. In the meantime, not a single pothole was touched. Your tax dollars at work.
NY, NJ, and Connecticut seem to have the most efficient ways to waste your road tax dollars. California is trying to match the corruption, but can't get quite to the same level.
California Roads are tricky when it comes to responsibility. I believe Interstates are Federal maintained, some Routes like Route 101 can be State responsibility, some are County responsibility, the little side street in front of my home is City owned, and I used to live in a gated community and that was owned by the HOA. Go figure.
Everybody, with or without a car, uses the roads. Everybody should pay for them. Reason for taxing gasoline is to discourage gasoline use and generate money to fund things that will reduce gasoline/oil use.
The road in front of my house is not owned by a government but by an association of home owners. So I'm all too well aware of what maintaining a road costs in a place where it can be 19F at night and we play golf that same afternoon with no jackets. We actually tax ourselves and put the money in a reserve that can only be spent for roads with a 30 year plan that includes crack sealing, pothole repair and repave or chipping (tar and rock chips to extend life). But our politician-equivalents don't get paid, do not spend money to get elected and have term limits.
Yes and the HOA board has skin in the game, if they get sloppy with controlling costs they get the bill every month. HOA can be tricky. My HOA is well mangled and we pay only $109 a month. 13 years ago it was $88. But we have a clubhouse, pool, jacuzzi, trails, parks, gym, tennis, landscaped common areas. Much more than gov provides in the basic park and yes much less.
Nothing on the road, going to work this morning, but on the way home, not only did they put up signs on each side pointing to the path saying it's a bicycle crossing, they put up little stop signs on both side of the path for the bicyclists.
Today's paper had a list of towns that are getting money from the state for street improvements. My town is getting $379,744 to improve a one block long, little used, one way street. And the mayor doesn't even live on it. Another town is getting $180,000 for a turtle tunnel.
Jersey... The Garden State... Similar to NY, CT and Mass, high taxes good services... That seems like plenty of money to pave the roads of a community, but what do I know. Maybe the Gov should put a Lap Band on Gov spending when he is done with himself. Maybe they should send bids out on the work and invite non union and out of state contractors.
Definitely depends on what you are doing and where it is. I am no road expert, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once... Actually I haven't, they are gross. But researching online through city contract bis for quantities and pricing as well as residential prices I have come up with what's below. Could be wrong, and in larger quantities perhaps the economics comes down more. A residential 2 lane road 24 feet wide (2 lanes with parking essentially) built to light duty commercial specs (moving trucks, or delivery trucks make this a requirement at minimum) that is 1/4mile long built where an older road already was (the base work is already done, and it is also the most expensive part) will require at a minimum: 200 tons of stone. Average price seems to be in the $20/ton range for material, laying, compacting, the works. So that's $4000 in stone. 2in base of asphalt + 1.5in top coat asphalt is about $1.50 a square foot. 1/4mi * 24ft is 31,680sqft or $47,520 in asphalt. That means it looks like something in the $50K per quarter mile, $200K per mile range of light duty residential roads. You mentioned length in terms of a city block, but that is not a standard unit and there are too many variations between towns and even zonings that you can't use that for length.
The street in question is less than 2/10 of a mile and just a little wider than three cars, the traffic is light. The state is paying the $379,744 and the city picks up the balance. I just don't see the price.
Well, it is NJ. Assuming all is on the up and up, it is possible the road base isn't up to spec or has a flaw that needs to be fixed. Little used roads still need to bear the weight of full trash trucks.
There's a lot more streets in town than that one that need attention. Heck, the streets down by the waterfront were messed up by Sandy. Spend it there.
Here in Virginia they missed the boat on that. We have annual safety inspections and bi-annual emission inspections. But no, as of July I am subject to a $65 fee for driving a hybrid. As for electric cars, they need to pay their share of road costs IMO. So I have no issue in paying by the mile I drive. Add to that I support the idea of annual safety inspections. Maryland only requires an inspection when a car is titled in the state. So you can imagine the number of cars in MD that have major safety issues.
Sort of how states look on purchases done out of state. If there is a sales tax paid, then no use tax is owed in your home state. This differs from mail order sales - different argument. Congestion pricing is another argument all together. Not something I support.
