Half of the nation's worst roads are in counties that will only get about 20% of the stimulus money allocated by state and federal officials for street repairs. Although the worst roads are in just a handful of counties, they account for 11,000 miles of pavement so rough the government has branded them as unacceptable.
The review found:
- Detroit, which has about a third of Michigan's bad roads, will get only about 10% of the state's repair money. "It's just not fair," says Hassan Saab, a highway engineer for Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit. State officials acknowledge Detroit's roads are in dire need of work, but say they didn't have enough ready-to-go projects there.
- New York City had nearly 900 miles of bad roads, some of them among the very worst in the country. But it had received almost none of the nearly $400 million the state approved for road repairs through the end of August. The one project approved since will give the city only about $19 million, about as much as it will give rural Tioga County.
- Dallas trails only Los Angeles in miles of bad roads, yet it has received less than 1% of the $530 million that Texas approved for road repairs. "It's a significant issue," Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert says.
The problem is a byproduct of a stimulus package designed to spend as fast as possible to revive the economy. Many roads are in such bad shape that repairs would take too long and cost too much to qualify for funds, says John Barton, head of engineering for Texas' Department of Transportation.
But the real clincher here for me is the distribution of the dollars in a different way. I analyzed 16 states at random and included Washington, D.C. Here is what I found:
| Place | # Counties | # Miles | Cost | Cost/Mile | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D.C. | 1 | 68.1 | $52,839,625.80 | $775,912.27 | |
| Pennsylvania | 3 | 294.9 | $58,509,949.00 | $198,406.07 | Not all counties have roads that are getting money |
| Michigan | 4 | 636.5 | $96,267,320.68 | $151,244.81 | |
| Nebraska | 1 | 97 | $13,955,039.00 | $143,866.38 | |
| Washington | 3 | 380.1 | $51,476,422.50 | $135,428.63 | |
| Oklahoma | 3 | 295.8 | $38,904,980.00 | $131,524.61 | |
| Ohio | 1 | 83.2 | $10,113,030.00 | $121,550.84 | |
| Mississippi | 1 | 65.7 | $6,478,100.00 | $98,601.22 | |
| Tennessee | 1 | 60.7 | $5,295,753.00 | $87,244.70 | |
| Wisconsin | 2 | 164.7 | $8,556,334.14 | $51,951.03 | |
| Colorado | 1 | 85.1 | $4,190,706.00 | $49,244.49 | |
| Arizona | 2 | 215.8 | $9,555,508.36 | $44,279.46 | |
| NY | 8 | 1077.3 | $46,055,170.00 | $42,750.55 | Not all counties have roads that are getting money |
| Indiana | 1 | 85.4 | $472,500.00 | $5,532.79 | |
| Kansas | 1 | 81.8 | $0.00 | Not all counties have roads that are getting money | |
| Louisiana | 1 | 65.3 | $0.00 | Not all counties have roads that are getting money |
Can someone please explain to me that how it can be that Washington, D.C., is getting more than 3 TIMES as much money as anyone else? If we're going to be spending the money, why not spend it where it's needed?
If you ask me, ACORN isn't the only one that needs to be investigated for corruption.
The original article, plus an interactive map with the data, can be found here.
If you can't read the table, leave a comment and I will send you my original spreadsheet with the data.
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