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Contributed commentary by John Bench on lack of funding for state highways.
A lot of people are complaining about the roads in the county and city. Most of the major roads are state maintained, not county or city. I recently saw a news report that the Republican legislature some years back decided to institute a policy of pay-as-you-go for road construction and repair, which was probably a good idea at the time before we started growing at the pace we have been.
Now, as a result of that policy, we are 20 to 40 years behind on our transportation infrastructure. We have state roads in Montgomery County that should have been upgraded 10 to 15 years ago based on our rate of growth. Among those are Trenton Road which is on the boards 10 more years out if and only if funds are available. Then we have Highway 374/101st Airborne Division Parkway, which was built in part to help drivers to get across the river and avoid using Riverside Drive. At that end of the road (at Dover Road), it has essentially become a road to nowhere.
Seeing just these two projects, it leads me to wonder why candidates of both parties are campaigning on cutting taxes. Remembering the taxes that they want to cut for the most part will not really benefit the average taxpayers but rather businesses and business owners. This same administration wants to put toll lanes on our interstates because they didn’t keep up with growth to begin with.
The road system will continue to be a disaster until the state actively addresses their shortfalls, and we the public will continue to bear the brunt of these decisions.
John Bench