Last week one night I was driving home from Ipswich on my way back to Wayland.
I was on Rt 128 going south.
What I noticed was that this major highway – this through fare of Boston and of our ‘high-tech’ corridor was so ‘patched’ with tar from an ever growing cancer of pot holes that … THE WHITE DASHED LINES WERE REALLY NO LONGER THERE !
Whatever still remained of those white dashed lines were worn and no longer reflected light back from my headlights.
Rt128 is unlit for long stretches so I found myself on a dark tunnel highway with uneven surface and corresponding noisy road feedback but the worst part of this was the fact that I had a very very difficult time in keeping the car within the lane and neatly between the dashed lines which really no longer existed. Even more difficult when 128 gently turned in direction.
Today I came onto Rt 128 from Needham Highlands and the on-ramp was extensively cratered, it was not realistic to accelerate to the type of speed that was necessary to enter onto Rt 128 because most of my concentration was to avoid damaging my aluminum wheels.
Roads are potted and cratered and unlined and cracked all over this state. In my home town and in your home town.
I feel like we are living in a 3rd world highway transportation system.
Bridges are in peril. Highways and roads are falling apart. Powerlines are held up by scotch tape, glue and wooden sticks.
Our fiber and cable networks follow the same paths as those power wires. Buried wires are rare.
People are out of work. I’ve been hearing about shovel ready construction projects since the meltdown of 2008 when Bush/Obama promised construction jobs.
Our legislators should be demanding that we fix our infrastructure and if it takes an increase in gas tax then so be it…
But that tax had better go towards those problems.
I don’t have the details of our state budget but I do know that we live on a knife edge in terms of roads and network.
Just imagine if Sandy had come into Providence and not slammed into New Jersey.
Will, we are NOT prepared in any way.
Will, we have a 3rd world infrastructure.
Got it. I agree. We are behind on maintenance.
We did pass a gas tax increase last year and I appreciate your support for that. Read much more about that in this thread. It should start making a visible difference in construction volume this year. The gas tax proceeds are legally committed to road and transit support under our constitution.
The current ballot campaign to repeal the gas tax increase would reverse the steps we took last year.