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Comments: 717 +-   Broke Counties Turn Failing Roads To Gravel on Monday June 15, @01:38PM

Posted by samzenpus on Monday June 15, @01:38PM
from the let-civilization-collapse-initiative dept.
transportation
To save money, more than 20 Michigan counties have decided to turn deteriorating paved roads back to gravel. Montcalm County estimates that repaving a road costs more than $100,000 a mile. Grinding the same mile of road up and turning it into gravel costs $10,000. At least 50 miles of road have been reverted to gravel in Michigan the past three years. I can't wait until we revert back to whale oil lighting and can finally be rid of this electricity fad.

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  • Michigan is fucked (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hatta (162192) on Monday June 15, @01:39PM (#28338311) Journal

    Real shame about that. Nice people and beautiful country.

        • Re:Michigan is fucked (Score:5, Insightful)

          by deKernel (65640) <timfbarber@yahoo . c om> on Monday June 15, @02:47PM (#28339489)

          As a Michigan resident, I can blame her for either her inability or desire to actually turn our economy around. Not a single policy that she has put in-place has helped.

          • Re:Michigan is fucked (Score:5, Informative)

            by SpoodyGoon (1574025) on Monday June 15, @02:54PM (#28339589)
            Preach on brother deKernel she can't be gone soon enough. I can blame everything on her and be happy about it.

            A fine example was Benton Harbor, when there was cameras for her to look into she was all about helping poor Benton Harbor but as soon as the cameras were gone so was she.

            She needs to GO AWAY and the rest of them as well. The state banked put all their eggs in the auto industry basked and can't figure out where they went wrong.

          • Re:Michigan is fucked (Score:5, Funny)

            by Talderas (1212466) on Monday June 15, @03:58PM (#28340619)

            As a NE Indiana resident, I can assure your that her policies have resulted in positive economic growth.... in NE Indiana....

      • Just drive on the roads until they crumble.

        That's what they do, but unfortunately the roads don't have the decency to crumble uniformly, with some parts turning to potholes and others staying sound.

        The obvious conclusion, gentlemen, is that we need shoddier workmanship so it all goes to hell simultaneously. DOWN WITH QUALITY!

  • I grew up in a rural area with a lot of gravel and dirt roads. Gravel roads aren't so bad. They're cheap to build, but they require a lot more maintenance that people think. They get rutting and nasty potholes pretty quickly if they're not consistently maintained (and they deteriorate a LOT faster than asphalt). So I think some of these areas may be jumping the gun on thinking this is a catch-all solution for their cash-strapped transportation departments, counties, and cities. They'll save a lot of money in the short term, but you've got to have a real solid maintenance plan in place or you'll pretty quickly end up with impassable roads. It's not expensive to maintain them (gravel isn't expensive)--but it is labor-intensive.

    A well-maintained gravel road isn't so bad physically. Rain doesn't wash them out as bad as dirt roads and they stay passable in about any kind of weather. The main downside is that you just can't drive as fast on them as asphalt. But, then again, you can't drive very fast on poorly maintained asphalt either (because of the potholes). So it's probably a wash on most of these roads (particularly since a colder state like Michigan probably goes trough asphalt roads a lot faster than warmer areas). But, if they don't have a plan to maintain them any better than they maintained them when they were asphalt, this solution is going to be a wash-out (literally) pretty quickly.

    • In a relatively small state like Michigan with nasty freeze-thaw cycles that probably cause massive damage to roads anyway, this probably is not a bad idea. The distances are such that the lower speed limit required isn't going to mean it takes days to get across the state (like it would in, say, Montana). Plus, the freeze-thaw cycle means they'd be dealing with massive potholes every season regardless, and potholes are cheaper and easier to fix on gravel.

      I certainly wouldn't want to try this tactic anywhere out west though, where vast distances make driving on gravel roads much more of a chore.

      • You mean like in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nevada, etc where the majority of roads in rural areas and some of the state highways have been gravel?

        I'm old, I remember when big stretches of Highway 63 in South Dakota were still gravel, as was Highway 73 south of Faith

      • I certainly wouldn't want to try this tactic anywhere out west though, where vast distances make driving on gravel roads much more of a chore.

        In many cases, there are multiple roads to a destination. Some will remain paved, other will be gravel. The paved roads are used for longer distances, the dirt roads are more for local access.

        This was the case in rural coastal California in the 80s. And I've seen plenty of dirt roads in Nevada, Arizona & Utah. But the highways and major roads were still paved.

        Some drivers might need to adjust their habits. I'm reading plenty of comments here about "increased breaking time", 'I can't go 50 mph on a dirt road', etc. In these cases, drivers just need to slow down-- it's what people used to do.

        We don't have to pave every single remote rural road, especially at a time when we're closing schools.

    • A well-maintained gravel road isn't so bad physically. Rain doesn't wash them out as bad as dirt roads and they stay passable in about any kind of weather. The main downside is that you just can't drive as fast on them as asphalt. But, then again, you can't drive very fast on poorly maintained asphalt either (because of the potholes). So it's probably a wash on most of these roads (particularly since a colder state like Michigan probably goes trough asphalt roads a lot faster than warmer areas).

      The worst thing the county did with the roads around my grandmother's place (in Texas) was to pave them. Before the roads were paved, it was a bit dusty in the summer, but the road was always good. After paving, the road got potholes almost immediately, and required constant patching.

      Winter was particularly tough on the road -- since we have a lot more 100+ days than 32- days, I don't think they're built like the ones up north. We only have a few days when the water in the cracks can freeze, but when it does, the potholes start all over again.

      Paving rural roads without a plan to keep them fully maintained is like giving a school a bunch of unpatched Windows boxes. It's not long until you're spending more time working around the new problems than you would if you'd just stuck to the old way of doing things.

      • This is why we need to go back to Eisenhower-era concrete road beds meant for B-52's to land on. I'm talking foot deep steel reinforced concrete baby. Grew up with those bad boys in my little rural town in Texas. Of course we didn't have the freeze/thaw cycles people do farther north so I could be talking out of my backside, but these things appeared well-nigh indestructible.

        • we need to go back to Eisenhower-era concrete road beds

          And just how much extra tax are you willing to pay to land B52s in Mitchigan?

          It's all very well saying "build better roads" but are you willing to pay for them?

        • I'm (almost) a civil engineer and so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

          Concrete roads aren't indestructible. In fact, roads with rigid and semi-rigid pavements (concert layer without and with a gravel layer between the road bed) have only a slightly longer life expectancy (40 years) than regular flexible pavements (asphalt and bitumen-based rolling layer) (30 years). Just because concrete is seen as an artificial stone it doesn't mean it is eternal. Far from it. It does degrade and it degrades even faster when structures are designed to last just a few decades or so.

          To make matters worse, rigid and semi-rigid pavements are much more expensive and labour-consuming than their flexible counterpart not only when building but also maintaining. They are also more prone to erosion due to water circulation in the road bed and all those regular problems related to concrete structures (carbonation, steel corrosion, those pesky freeze/thaw cycles, other nasty buggers).

          So you may believe that concrete, just because it is concrete, ends up being an excellent solution but hey, there is a reason that it's only applied in very specific roads such as airport runways and parking lots (they withstand the forces from the landing impacts and don't degrade when in contact with fuel). It's a solution that is far too expensive and suffers from far too many problems than regular flexible pavement solutions, which means it is only used when it is absolutely necessary.

          On the other hand, macadame roads are a time-tested technology. Although they don't make it possible to run around in high speeds they are one of the best road technologies developed up to this day. They are extremely easy to build, they are low-maintenance, they are cheap and sometimes they can even be built from the materials mined exactly from the construction site. In fact, flexible pavements are basically nothing more than macadame roads with an extra layer made out of some fancy material such as asphalt, bitumen, concrete or some other "glue" such as plaster. They may look "old school" but don't believe for a moment that them old time folk weren't smart or couldn't develop great stuff.
      • My state was introduced to a miracle material called asphalt several years ago. Recently they realized that they were repairing the roads constantly compared to the previous concrete; the worst case being a road that had to be repaved before it was open to the public. The normal crew of paving companies is up in arms because the state is bidding out new concrete-only bids to reduce maintenance costs and the work is going out of state because no one in the state uses concrete anymore for roadwork. The problem being that the state thinks that one type of material can build every type of road imaginable, and the officials can ride the resulting fame to godhood.
          • I am a licensed civil engineer, and I think your statement (and the one prior) bears qualifying. The choice between an asphalt road and a concrete one should always be analyzed by a life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA), which takes into account the up-front cost of the road plus the maintenance costs. In Southern California, concrete will most often come out ahead in said analysis, especially given our traffic volumes and the traffic delay costs associated with the more frequent maintenance activities required by asphalt. We have concrete pavements here that are 50+ years old. In areas of high freeze-thaw cycles, an LCCA may produce different results. However, it should also be noted that the thump-thump of many concrete pavements today is due to a load-transfer failure between the slabs, something that in new pavements has been addressed with the inclusion of steel dowel bars between slabs.

    • In parts of santa fe, dirt (or gravel) roads increase you home value. Sort of perverse but Santa Fe is all about style and aesthetics over function. (and if you've seen it, you can see they have a point. It's very serene.) So home owners fight the city when they try to pave their roads.

      • This is true pretty much anywhere you have a section of property with a "rural" feel that really isn't rural. It's almost like a theme neighborhood whose uniqueness is its own value.

        There's been a bit of conflict over rebuilding a road in Eden Prairie, MN that the neighbors love for its rural feel but that the city bureaucrats insist needs to be torn up and rebuilt per "modern" building standards (gutters, drainage, signage, curbing, etc). The suburb is pretty much totally built out and full of shopping centers and the usual ugliness of suburbia, so its not like some country town "resisting" urbanization.

        I'm kind of torn. On one hand, I hate the idea of project-oriented city bureaucrats who feel the urge to standardize every last square inch with unnecessary building projects. On the other hand, I hate "we're special" local interest groups that think their little stretch is immune from the same rules everyone else has to follow (which often amounts to "we don't want the taxes" and "it makes my property more valuable").

    • In Idaho and maybe other states, other issues also come into play. A gravel road does not get sampled which is good for the county because it means it won't be considered deficient. However, a gravel road also does not get state & federal monies (some exceptions apply). So, although they will be saving money, they won't be getting any for that road either.
    • This is precisely why it's such a genius plan. Save money up front and provide jobs for increased maintenance and auto repair. It continues a trend that in going from a production economy to a service economy the US has gone from an economy that grows by increasing efficiency and producing more goods to an economy that grows by decreasing efficiency to keep people employed. Good thing other countries depend on this fake economic growth for their own fake economic growth! If somebody ever figured out how to get people doing real jobs again we'd all be fucked.

    • Long ago - as someone who worked in a glass shop (in accounting) - no gravel roads aren't all that great unless you like replacing glass a lot or supporting your local glass shops.

      Sure - there are people who will reply they've lived down gravel roads all their life and never had glass problems, but seriously - I created ran reports and found that well over 80% of our auto-glass business came from rural residents who lived down - gravel roads - I can still remember the most replaced parts too DW-1099 (Ford F series windshield) and DW-1117 (might be wrong on this part - its been ages, but its supposed to be a Chevrolet C series pickup truck windshield) - we had literally hundreds of these parts in stock at any one time and we made sure delivery trucks always brought more and more.

      Anyhow from what I could tell many of these windshields were damaged by flying debris, and stress on the vehicles themselves.

      • Try keeping your distance (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15, @02:13PM (#28338917)

        In the UK we had a series of ads on keeping your distance and the tag line was "Only a fool breaks the three second rule".

        3 seconds.

        If a stone is thrown hard enough, how high would it have to go to be at windscreen height 3 seconds later? About 12m.

        Unlikely.

        So if you're 3 seconds or more behind the car in front, you won't be hit by gravel.

    • They'll save a lot of money in the short term

      You got me at "Save a lot of money," sailor!

      I don't think they care about much more than that. Long term = somebody else's problem.

      A part of the reason things are getting so f**ked so fast.

    • That's the most optimistic post I've ever read. Seriously, by the end of it, I was thinking, "yeah, maybe gravel isn't that bad."

      But not quite. Gravel is a lot slower, if you're going faster than 15MPH on a gravel road, then you are moving fast. On a paved road you can usually get at least 25mph, even if it's bad. That's a huge difference.

      And that's not even beginning to mention the car damage and the fact that you'll never have a non-dusty car. As one other guy in this thread mentioned, a lot of cars get damaged windshields from gravel roads. In my experience driving on a gravel road is about the same misery level as sitting in a traffic jam. There better be something interesting on the other side.

      On the other hand, if the population really is dropping fast in Michigan, no reason to keep them maintained.

    • They also are oiled in front of properties to control dust (often something like Dustlock [dustlock.com] [soybean oil soapstock], since crude oil spraying is banned in many states). From what I remember this is done a couple of times a year (I lived on a gravel road from age 6 to 7, and then they paved it), but sometimes they will do an extra coat if extra traffic is expected (say, a county fair) or if some sort of festival uses the roads (e.g. something like Woodstock).

      Alternatives blacktop requires yearly maintenance like seal-coating and has a lifespan of only about 25-30 years and concrete is expensive (especially in northern climates where it is prone to cracking and can deteriorate due to salt exposure.

      • Concrete would never survive the frost. Where I live, one routinely gets frost heaves up to 1'. For concrete to survive, one would have to prevent water from building up under the road. This is an almost impossible feat of engineering. The only reason bridges can use concrete is that they don't have to worry about frost heaves.

        • Motorcycles are vehicle too!

          You know, I like to help you here guy. I'm sympathetic, I really am. But you've got to understand my position. It's just not possible to recognize motorcycles as legitimate road vehicles.

          I mean sure, no ones got a problem with big Harley's. But lets think for a moment about where this is leading us. Plastic exteriors motorbikes, dirt bikes, scooters ?! Jesus! Sooner or later, someone is going to stand up and argue that electric bikes be allowed on public roads and form there it's one small step to honest to Gods pedal powered bicycles! This is how slippery the slope is right here.

          I mean, the dangers of the road are bad enough. People cutting you off, lane changing, bodywork scratches, stop signs, pedestrians just throwing themselves under the wheels, spilled coffee, etc. Now you're asking be to accept those heathens on their clacking, greasy, hell spawned bare metal contraptions as legitimate road users?! You expect me to slam on the brakes so I can have the privilege of crawling along behind these slugs for five miles until they get another puncture? Because I sure as hell can't pass their wobbling asses without another "incident" occurring where their either wobble off the embankment and I get a ticket or else their spoked hate mobiles eviscerate my paintjob and get irreparably tanged up in the undercarriage. I swear the assholes just do it on purpose.

          No. No, I'm sorry. I'm not going back to that. Never again. My hands are tied. I'm sympathetic, I really am, but my hands are tied.

  • Yeah, it's the end of the world (Score:5, Insightful)

    by taustin (171655) on Monday June 15, @01:43PM (#28338379) Homepage Journal

    50 miles of country road (I'm guessing the pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with the roads actually converted) changed from paved to gravel, out of thousands in the state. Yawn. Gravel is actually better in little used roads, because it doesn't require nearly as much active maintenance, as in, driving over it with snowploughs when it snows, to be able to drive on it at all. These are, almost certainly, roads that didn't need to be paved in the first place.

    This is complete non-news.

      • Re:Yeah, it's the end of the world (Score:5, Informative)

        by John Hasler (414242) on Monday June 15, @02:52PM (#28339569)

        > When it snows a small amount, sure, you don't have to plow, but when there are more than
        > a couple of inches you have to plow the road anyway. The problem then is that the plows
        > also take layers off the roads when they plow them, meaning that through the winter, the
        > roads become less safe as the gravel disappears and the dirt below is left.

        I live on a gravel road. This is nonsense.

  • Extremely Sensible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by popo (107611) on Monday June 15, @01:45PM (#28338407) Homepage

    The reality is that this is just the beginning of cuts that need to be made in Michigan, and elsewhere.

    Gravel roads are cheap to build, cheap to maintain, and represent an extremely sensible kind of cut that does not have a major quality of life impact. Arguably they also have a rustic beauty, and look much nicer than a pot-holed, badly deteriorated paved road.

    The poster makes a silly connection between gravel roads and whale oil, but fails to understand that whale oil and *paved* roads have more in common: Both are unsustainable at this time.

    • Re:Extremely Sensible (Score:5, Informative)

      by maeka (518272) on Monday June 15, @02:00PM (#28338661) Journal

      Gravel roads have an increased stopping distance over asphalt or concrete ones. They also contribute much more to vehicle wear and tear - not only as far as nicks and dings, but also tires and shocks. (though the later part is just as true of badly potholed roads) They are significantly dirtier than asphalt or concrete roads, both for the vehicle (small concern) but also for the surrounding homes and businesses. When I lived on Middle Bass Island, it was quite common for neighbors to band together to pave their section of road just to cut down on the fine dust which accumulated inside their homes.

  • Gravel Roads are great - just ask West Virginia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Old97 (1341297) on Monday June 15, @01:51PM (#28338499)
    Turning your roads from paved to gravel is like giving up on economic recovery or development. Gravel roads don't support commerce or industry very well. They are a good reason not to locate somewhere. I lived in West Virginia for 2 years before returning to urban life 2 1/2 years ago. Bad roads and gravel roads abound because the state is poor. But the state will remain poor in part because of bad roads and gravel roads. If a state cannot provide a modern infrastructure, it will not be able to compete. Now its not always a bad thing to de-settle an area and let it revert to a more primitive state, but don't count on being able to undo the damage if you later change your mind.

  • Its been well over a decade, but I recall seeing an episode of NOVA on PBS about road construction in the US and how hopelessly behind the curve we were. Their analysis was that our problems stem from corruption in the industry. That road construction companies are buddies with the various local politicians so that they are able to get contracts that don't require them to modernize. The end result being that our roads deteriorate much faster than they do in places like Europe, requiring much more frequent repair work for higher prices. Maybe things have changed in the intervening decade, but I doubt it.

    • IT's a little more complicated than that, really. Modernization requires huge capital expenditures and you can't do that without a steady supply of contracts with which to repay the loans you took out to buy all the fancy new equipment, and, right now, we have too many uneconomic roads and too unsteady a source of funds to make such contracts guaranteed.

      • Re:Why is it $100K per mile in the first place? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tnk1 (899206) on Monday June 15, @03:03PM (#28339735)

        Be careful with throwing around the term "conservative politics" even with a lower case "c". The corruption, such as it is, has compromised everyone from left to right, top to bottom.

        Also, bear in mind that the corruption is not just politicians, its also powerful labor unions, and voters who want more stuff, but want to pay less money for it.

        I would say that the major problem is neither corruption, nor modernization. Those problems exist, of course, but the real problem is that we built a lot of stuff that we can't maintain in the long run. We have programs that don't work well under our system of government.

        Also keep in mind, a lot of these other countries with "superior" systems are a lot smaller in terms of population and infrastructure than the US and are easier to manage. They also have relatively recent investments in things that have been in the US for decades. It's not exactly apples and oranges, but there is a significant difference. That's why I get annoyed when people point at the successes of smaller countries at doing certain things. Small countries, smaller problems, less complexity. Works on a similar scale in the US are massive undertakings, well worth the effort of devising the best and worst methods of taking advantage of them.

        That's why I'm a big proponent of doing our best to avoid unwarranted wealth transfers to areas that do not generate wealth. You're removing money and motivation from the very people who actually make the money in order to satisfy people who get a vote simply for breathing air and not getting caught committing a felony. No issue is simple, but the best way to apply global taxes is to apply that money to programs that fix problems that everyone has. If you have to create a few programs to aid cities or the countryside because one benefits the other, that's okay to a point. But when your politics is what is sending the money, and not necessity, then that money needs to stay out of the hands of the government.

        The problem is mostly politics, and that's why, in the long run socialized programs will fail. It will eventually erode the discipline and effectiveness of the people trying to run it. Corruption is only one extreme facet of that problem. Until we realize that we can't just throw around money at every little problem plaguing us since the beginning of time, we will be converting roads to gravel at an increasing rate.

  • Crazy Administration blame game accusations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ViennaSt (1138481) on Monday June 15, @01:56PM (#28338577)

    I was reading the thread under the article and wanted to quote a couple opinions.

    obamautopia wrote:
    "Fact: Gravel roads are more dangerous because they are more slippery due to loose gravel and potholes. If gravel roads were superior for transportation safety - then why isn't the interstate and the autobahn merely gravel roads? Why not city streets?

    Fact: Gravel roads put more dust into atmosphere as anyone who has followed the choking dust of a vehicle moving ahead of you on a gravel / dirt road can tell you.

    Fact: Gravel roads require more frequent oil changes - thus using more oil and dirty oil filters to dispose of. Also more air filter changes. Also more fuel filter changes. Also more car washing. Also more tires. Also more windshield replacement and fabricating glass requires a tremendous amount of energy.

    Fact: Gravel roads are less fuel efficient. In one study in Bogota, Columbia, fuel consumption was reported to be 25% higher for a vehicle moving on a gravel or earth surface than on an asphalt pavement.

    Fact: Gravel roads wear out vehicles faster meaning more consumption to replace the parts, many of them steel parts which take an enormous amount of energy to fabricate and "carbon footprint" for the idiots who think anthropogenic "Global Warming" is anything other than a Leftist Agenda."

    And another guy wrote, goomygoomy writes,
    "I don't understand the problem. Why would you complain about PAVED ROADS, being turned in to GRAVEL ROADS? It's just CHANGE. I thought you all VOTED for CHANGE? Well...You've got it. Michigan, the Great Liberal Basket Case, is leading the way. As goes DETROIT, so goes Obama Nation. Aren't you IDIOTS bulldozing your towns down? This is UNCHECKED LIBERALISM. This is Obama SOCIALISM."

    stoptherhetoric wrote:

    "Nothing like a page full of ignorance from gommygoomy to start the day! People don't even take the time to read, they just spew their garbage! The Story CLEARLY states that Michigan Counties have had to revert to gravel THE PAST 3 YEARS!!!!

    Do I need to remind you the last 3 years, W was President!!"

    If you keep reading, you'll notice it all boils down to a huge administration blame game. Reminds me of other discussion boards I've seen...

    • Re:Easy to see coming (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gurps_npc (621217) on Monday June 15, @01:55PM (#28338569)
      True, no cuts in programs for illegal aliens. Mainly because THERE ARE NO PROGRAMS FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS There are also no cuts for programs designed to help 16 year olds boys have sex, programs designed to kill 80 old woman, or programs designed to provide tin foil helmets for nut jobs.

      • Re:Easy to see coming (Score:5, Insightful)

        by OhPlz (168413) on Monday June 15, @02:02PM (#28338703)

        That's not entirely accurate. There are probably very few programs exclusively for illegal aliens, but illegals do qualify for many other types of programs. Remember Obama's illegal immigrant aunt? She's living in a housing project in Boston, which is a service funded by the taxpayers. The housing authority is not allowed to ask about immigration status. This is a very common practice with handouts in MA.

        It wouldn't shock me if there were services exclusively for illegals in either MA or CA. MA did hold meetings with illegals to learn how their status affects them. To me, that's a bit outrageous. ICE should have been invited.

    • Re:Not the only cost... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fermion (181285) on Monday June 15, @02:14PM (#28338947) Homepage Journal
      The number of drivers may be the issue. I used to drive about quite a bit in rural roads. It seemed to happen quite sequentially. The land went from 100+ acre farms to 5-20 acre lots. The dirt roads became gravel. The land went from 5-20 acre lots to suburban cookie cutter. The gravel roads were laid with asphalt. If the trend continued the roads would be paved. I used to drive down down a road that paved to the town, then asphalt to the main cut off, then gravel, until the last mile, which was dirt.

      There does seem to some method in the madness. If the number of drivers decrease significantly, then maybe all that is needed is gravel? If the taxes from the people driving the road don't account for a significant portion of the construction and maintenance, then the road should go away. I have even heard of cities reforming themselves around healthy cores and tearing down the excess. Painful, but if no wants to live there, what else can be done.

      What is really screwed up in when a city build tens of miles of 6-10 lane highway that no body uses, in the middle of nowhere, just to connect sprawlingly developments that are no under foreclosure pressure.

      • Re:Not the only cost... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by eln (21727) on Monday June 15, @02:13PM (#28338919) Homepage
        By that logic, why bother maintaining roads at all? They are talking about primary roads here, which are generally roads which connect one populated area to another populated area, and are thus vital to the commerce of the entire area. Even if you never take that road, if you live anywhere in the general area, or anywhere that trades with that area, you benefit from that road.

        • Re:Not the only cost... (Score:5, Funny)

          by ScentCone (795499) on Monday June 15, @02:50PM (#28339527)
          They are talking about primary roads here, which are generally roads which connect one populated area to another populated area, and are thus vital to the commerce of the entire area

          Ah, well, there's your problem. This is Michigan. There no longer is any commerce, so no need for fancy-pants roads. The Romans had nice roads, didn't they? Look what happened to them.

        • Re:Not the only cost... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JesseMcDonald (536341) on Monday June 15, @02:50PM (#28339531) Homepage

          Any secondhand benefits non-drivers may receive are paid for--in full--in the prices of goods and services provided by those who pay for the roads directly. There is absolutely no need to spread the costs of road maintenance to non-drivers, and doing so only inhibits the proper allocation of resources among goods and services relative to their respective demand.

            • Re:financially sound (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Colonel Korn (1258968) on Monday June 15, @03:34PM (#28340277)

              > Yeah, Democrats, I'm sure that's the reason. It had nothing at all to do with
              > the auto industry and loss of jobs or anything like that.

              Yea, it has everything to do with loss of jobs and the auto industry. Let me keep it simple enough someone with a government schooling should be able to follow along. Democrats destroy jobs. The greater tehir majorities and the longer the time they hold it the worse the damage. Go plot the demographic trendlines yourself if you don't believe me. The Bluer the state and longer it has been blue the more seats it has lost in the last couple of Census reallocations. The Red states have been picking up seats. People are voting with their feet. I just wish the fools would realize WHY they had to move and thus not bring the problem with them by electing Democrats in their new home.

              There isn't much of a problem in the 'auto industry' if by auto industry you mean production of autos. They just aren't being made in Michigan anymore, they are being built in Right to Work states with lower tax structures in factories where the root of the corporate ownership tree is in Tokyo instead of New York[1]. Of course with the recession and all, they are all feeling some pain about now.

              Now riddle me this: With an existing industrial base and lots of experienced labor available, why does a Japanese automaker decide to skip Michigan when locating a plant in the US and instead go to the South where none of those advantages exist? Why do they do a greenfield project along the Interstate in the middle of nowhere when they could buy a closed plant in an area with thousands of unemployed workers with exactly the skills they need? When you can answer that question you will have taken your first step towards enlightenment.

              [1] Hint, the 'Detroit automaker' bankruptcies are being filed in NY.

              Absolute nonsense. "Just look it up" is worse than anecdotal evidence. Here's some of that: California has been growing in population at an incredible rate. The blue parts of the state are overflowing with skilled workers. The blue parts of Colorado are growing the fastest and gaining the most jobs. The blue parts of New York are surging while the rest withers. That little blue dot in Texas, Austin, is the most successful city in the state and its center of skilled workers. The European countries that have made our economy look embarrassing in the last decade are economically bluer than any part of the US. Blue presidents always correlate (I'm not claiming a cause) with job creation. The blue man group is a hotbed of economic activity. Papa smurf has the richest beard in town.

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