Hey, there! Log in / Register
Our collapsing roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, subways, buses and trains
By adamg on Thu, 03/29/2007 - 10:14pm
So the Big Dig isn't the only part of our transportation infrastructure always on the verge of collapse. A state commission reports roads, highways, public transit, you name it, have fallen billions of dollars behind basic maintenance needs.
A roundup of reactions:
Casey Ross summarizes the lowlights.
On Pelican in Her Piety, Jason says he is just shocked by how much of the state's transportation budgets go toward wages and fringe benefits, in particular, health insurance:
... These operating expense problems are in addition to the structural problems with sales tax revenue, expansion, and debt service. The report seems to make it painfully clear that the Commonwealth requires leadership on the transportation issue and a coordinated state plan for solving the problem. Patrick's initial response doesn't suggest at this point. that hes the one to do it.
Reading it also makes me a lot less sympathetic with grouchy MBTA employees.
Elias Nugator sees proof of the ultimate irresponsibility of 16 years' of Republican governors.
Tape says no new taxes:
... What Massachusetts needs is to get rid of 50% of the useless junk that the government does (or attempts to do). If it doesn't, I'm packing up and leaving inside of 5 years.
Jay Fitzgerald: What a friggin' mess and disgrace. He says yes to new taxes, fare increases - but only if coupled with real reform, which he doubts will happen.
Carpundit: Can We Bust Some Unions?
... If the system is broken, more money will just go to waste. Instead, we first need to fix the system. This will mean firing lots of state and authority employees who are overpaid and underworked. This will mean telling the unions, "No, you can't have another raise." This will mean slashing retiree health benefits. That's a start. ...
The Outraged Liberal says we need to start at the top:
... You wonder why people are leaving this state in droves? High housing costs, generating high property taxes that don't manage to cover the shortfall left by inadequate state funding for basic services caused by an unfair tax structure. You don't get what you pay for (except when you actually elect pandering flip-floppers.)
Read my lips: it's time for a fair and equitable tax and fee structure. ...
Jon Keller is secretly delighted because it gives him something new to complain about.
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
If it wasn't obvious
My dad is a highway engineer, now a winter maintenance consultant. He won't even work in MA because, well, severe entrenched massbackwardness. He can get the entire province of Alberta or British Columbia to do sensible, cost saving things with briney salt water instead of hurling salt everywhere, but he'd not have any chance of anything post-1930s technology here.
Needless to say, I hear about it everytime he visits. Failing bridges, crumbling stuff. I see a good deal of it when I bike, too. Crumbling to shit everywhere with little pathetic and improperly laid patches. Like a collapsing civilization compared to what I see when I go back to Oregon.
Much of the fault for this lays at the feet of an idiodic medieval constitution that has year-to-year funding system - notice how nothing gets started until much of the best weather is done for the year? Complete disinvestment from sensible maintenance of infrastructure - pay me later is a comin' on! This same bullcrap nearly killed and crumbled the state university system, and it eats the MBTA, the roads, and anything else that needs more stable funding base, multi-year planning, and multi-year appropriation levels to run properly. Washington State used to have this problem, too, but they smartened up when they lost a floating bridge and changed to a funding formula for the modern world.
At least it isn't taking a lawsuit to make it happen, like proper sewage treatment did. They ignored the federal mandates until legally forced to clean things up using 20th century sanitation, losing out on the federal funding allocated to speed and support the transitions. Interesting how most people who bitch about water bills and the MWRA are people who massively underpaid due to overpollution for many many years.
Classic. Just Classic.