HARRISBURG, Penn., July 9, 2007
America's Highways Hurting
30 Percent Of Roads Across The Country Are In Poor Or Mediocre Condition
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It's not easy on the wheels: cracks, repairs and potholes in highways can be dangerous and costly. (CBS)
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Section Travel Tips and trends to get you ready to go. Here's your vacation planning resource.
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Interactive Motor Away Things to know before hitting the road.
Traffic is up and road repairs are down. There was 40 percent more traffic in 2005 than there was in 1990. At the same time, an estimated 30 percent of America’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition.
Nobody knows that nation’s highways better than Phil Gould.
“I’ve been driving trucks professionally for 42 years,” Gould told CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.
But he doesn’t enjoy the open road the way he used to. Road conditions have declined, he said.
“They were beautiful, but now they’re, they're for the most part, they’re in need of repair,” Gould said.
There’s weather damage, salt damage, cracks and potholes.
“Typically when you see potholes it's a sign that the actual structure of the road has significant problems. And that's really just a symptom of those problems,” said Frank Moretti of the national transportation research group TRIP.
In San Jose, he said, 66 percent of the roads have substandard pavement quality. At 65 percent, Los Angeles is almost as bad. Those California cities top the list of the 10 metropolitan areas with the roughest roads.
That’s as measured by vans like one equipped with special lasers on the bumper that send “roughness readings” to a computer inside. If it’s close to 200, that’s bad.
“They used to call this ‘Pothole-sylvania,’” Gould said, while driving in the laser-equipped van through Pennsylvania.
Allen Biehler is the state’s secretary of transportation. He says his budget to maintain and fix the 40,000 miles of state-owned roads is short by $1.9 billion – per year.
Would he call it a crisis?
“We would call it a crisis,” Biehler said. “That has happened many years ago.”
All those rough rides are rough on your wallet. It’s estimated that driving on roads in need of repair costs American drivers an average of $333 per year. Or almost $400 for urban motorists.
So why are road repairs stuck in a rut? The cost of materials used to fix pavements has shot up 33 percent in the past three years and the 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax that helps fund highway repairs hasn’t been raised in 14 years.
Some states are coming up with creative funding solutions: Indiana is leasing its turnpike to a private company; at least six states use or plan to use so-called “hot lanes,” which charge motorists to drive in congestion-free lanes; and another half-dozen has put in place “variable” state gas taxes that rise with inflation.
“Anything needs to be maintained — nothing lasts forever,” Gould said.
These days, Gould spends most of his time training new truckers — theaching them how to handle the bumps and skids that drivers encounter with increasing regularity.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 29 CommentsThen I-20 down to Augusta, GA, is just as bad. At least I have seen people in Georgia out repairing and redoing the road but not in South Carolina.
One thing about the German autobaums is that they have twice the base before paving begins and as soon as something happens, they are out there repairing it. That is why they can go so fast on the autobaums. The roads are taken care of. Not that way in the United States.
When are the people in the United States going to wake up and realize that the poor conditions of the roads contribute to more accidents and more deaths??
Posted by Spectrum108
That doesn't sound too smart. The German people rolled with it too and didn't question....that just doesn't sound smart at all. Sounds like a gullible trusting child in a mini-van with a drunk soccer mom swerving in and our of her lane.
Posted by MichelleM99
That's where they want the american people, poor and subservient to a deceiptful right wing ideology. The people of the U.S. are told a string of constant lies such as how bad it is in other countries. Question is and this deserves an explanation, if it's so da*mn bad for business in European countries because of the extensive health care benefits, the incredible amount of vacation time , the adequate wages that allow so many more europeans to travel to places the huge majority of americans can only dream of, then why in the h*ell do our, quote, american corporations open up shop in those quote socialist societies? The american people are lied to by a few that are getting rich at the expense of the masses. The american people are beyond gullible.
Posted by roach9703
For the past 25 years of my adult life I have watched the rise to power of right wing antisocial narcissists who have promoted old world european concepts. It's interesting to watch it unravel. Many who bought into the pyramid scheme are beginning to lose and many more will follow. Pimped GOP equals lies and destruction of the american dream. Following the fervor of the right wing is like using crack and meth...it's fun for those who do it for awhile but now many are going to end up strung out, high and dry and the few temporary winners will be the pimps and dealers who sold the ideology, their turn to falter will come too.
Hitler had the German people metaphorically high on meth but they all, Hitler included came crashing down after about 25 years and it was a long journey crawling out of the hobbit hole.
Greedy intent killed a nation high on the gospel of prosperity and right wing ideology. That will be the historical heading to this tale of woe.
Posted by lochlan
That's privatization, if our government gets corrupt at least if we are alert citizens we have the ability to vote the ba*stard sociopaths out of office before they ruin the nation. There's no accountability for private companies and the crooks who run them for big profit.
And for you naive americans who think the "american" auto industry is dead....travel to foreign lands and you'll see all "our" big "american" manufacturers building to higher standards. Last time I was in Germany I rode in an Opel by GM. I've never seen a GM product of higher quality in the U.S. I was told, it has to be quality or it won't sell. The problem in the U.S. is that too many of us have believed the lies of right wing sociopaths.
Free market sounds good but it's tyranny in disguise.
I am 52 and legally blind. Bush did and that father of his. That war is illegal and you know it . If you don't than yer never learnt fron nam.
The roads are bad cos their are more cars on them today. Yet you won't give up the car. Use the bus. Mass transit. The road system was never built to handle all the cars now on the roads. Sure their in bad shape and car drivers whine. Young man that oil will run out and no more ever. RRATION THE GAS. Will you ride the bus,use cioth bags,recycle,conserve and the like
Salt has often been blamed for causing potholes. Potholes are caused by water entering the
grade below the surface of the road and then freezing. This freezing cause the road surface to
heave. Thawing leaves a cavity or weakened spot beneath the surface. Traffic then causes the surface to collapse into the cavity creating a pothole. Salt can cause surface spalling of poor concrete or scaling of non-air-entrained concrete. It has no bad effects on asphalt or the air-entrained concrete that is available today for road building.
For more see http://www.saltinstitute.org/30.html or "Deicing Salt Facts at http://www.saltinstitute.org/34.html.
*** Hanneman
Salt Institute
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