If you’re like me and Ed Driscoll, you’re the sort who would think that if we were going to spend almost a trillion dollars that we don’t actually have on a ‘stimulus program’ then we’d at least spend it on infrastructure. Well, more accurately, you’re sort who hopes that we’d spend it on infrastructure, because if you’re like me and Ed Driscoll you’d be well aware that once the Beltway Establishment gets a hold of an idea it mutates into a horrific, expensive mess.
The Beltway Establishment got a hold of the idea.
Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls.
In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as “poor man’s pavement.” Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel.