Serious question here.
I just got back from a 2,500 mile road trip to see my brother in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with a short day trip down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
We drove I-40 most of the way and made a few side trips along the way. By far, the worst section of I-40 was in Oklahoma. Coming back, as soon as we crossed the boarder, I could tell that we were in Oklahoma just by the quality of the road. There was a constant ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump as we drove across the seams of the concrete, and a somewhat wavy feel to the road in general and pot holes every few hundred yards.
I do a lot of driving in Oklahoma. HWYs 69 and 412 to and from work every day, HWY 51 to Stillwater and the Turner Turnpike down to OKC and Edmond about once a month. And it seems that all of the roads in Oklahoma are in far worse shape than any of the roads that I drove on in Arkansas, Tennessee, North and South Carolina recently. The bridges that I cross on a daily basis here in Oklahoma are a patchwork quilt of concrete and asphalt.
So, what's the deal? Do we not have properly trained or experienced road building and maintenance crews? Do we just cheap out on the budget so we can't get quality materials? Or is there some kind of corruption and graft going on that the money we do spend isn't actually getting spent on the roads themselves?
I just got back from a 2,500 mile road trip to see my brother in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with a short day trip down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
We drove I-40 most of the way and made a few side trips along the way. By far, the worst section of I-40 was in Oklahoma. Coming back, as soon as we crossed the boarder, I could tell that we were in Oklahoma just by the quality of the road. There was a constant ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump as we drove across the seams of the concrete, and a somewhat wavy feel to the road in general and pot holes every few hundred yards.
I do a lot of driving in Oklahoma. HWYs 69 and 412 to and from work every day, HWY 51 to Stillwater and the Turner Turnpike down to OKC and Edmond about once a month. And it seems that all of the roads in Oklahoma are in far worse shape than any of the roads that I drove on in Arkansas, Tennessee, North and South Carolina recently. The bridges that I cross on a daily basis here in Oklahoma are a patchwork quilt of concrete and asphalt.
So, what's the deal? Do we not have properly trained or experienced road building and maintenance crews? Do we just cheap out on the budget so we can't get quality materials? Or is there some kind of corruption and graft going on that the money we do spend isn't actually getting spent on the roads themselves?