NY Times: Many Failing Roads, Little Repair Money

[marmar]

Many Failing Roads, Little Repair Money

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: July 24, 2009


OF all the tattered swaths of pavement that pock the New York area’s road system, home to some of the country’s most bone-rattling stretches of asphalt, few can match the combination of structural disrepair and functional obsolescence of the Pulaski Skyway.

Opened in 1932, the hulking 3.5-mile elevated highway connecting Jersey City, South Kearny and Newark stands today as a kind of industrial Acropolis: its entrance ramps and lane widths dangerously outdated, its roadbed and concrete railings crumbling so badly that the state has installed netting to catch the falling debris. New Jersey spends tens of millions of dollars each year to maintain the worn roadway, but it will likely be a decade or more before the state can afford the $1.2 billion needed to replace or refurbish it.

“When you get on the entrance ramp of the Pulaski Skyway, you feel your pulse start to race, your adrenaline starts to pump and your eyes dart back and forth looking for holes,” said Jeff Jotz, who lives in Rahway, N.J., and lost all four of his car’s hubcaps during two months of commuting on the Pulaski. “People are darting in and out, and there’s no shoulder. You’re up in the air, and there’s just nowhere to go.”

Mr. Jotz and the 85,000 other people who drive the Skyway daily are hardly alone in their distress. A June study by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials ranked road conditions in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey 43rd, 44th and 50th, respectively, among the states. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/nyregion/26roads.html?_r=1&hpw

[timeforpeace]

1. What this country needs is a Stimulus of some sort with federal money.