- We all deal with potholes on a daily basis
and we all hate them.
(splash sound)
- (laughter) Watch out for that first step it's a doozy.
- The city of Chicago has filled over 108,000
potholes this year alone.
That's almost 30,000 a month.
Nearly 1,000 a day.
Guys, that's a (censor beep) of potholes.
(instrumental music)
On average, a little over 3 million drivers in the US
suffer pothole related damage every year.
This can be anything, from popping a tire,
to bending a rim, to blowing out a shock absorber.
The direct financial costs of fixing these damages
adds up to nearly 120 billion dollars for America's drivers.
Even worse than a financial annoyance,
a pothole can cause a crash with even
the most experienced drivers.
Of approximately 33,000 traffic deaths a year, as many
as one third are attributed to poor road
conditions like potholes.
So, what are our options?
Can't we just build new roads?
Building roads is insanely expensive.
Designing better foundations for our roads featuring
improved drainage wouldn't decrease the frequency
of potholes, on top of that these improved foundations
are much more expensive to build.
Especially with America's large road network
compared to smaller countries such as Belgium.
Belgium is a small country with about
97,000 miles of pavement.
America on the other hand has over 4 million miles of roads
across it's 50 states.
With enough drivers that these roads have to support
3.2 trillion miles of travel every year.
That's the equivalent of driving to Pluto from Earth
and back again more than 300 times.
- [Voiceover] Holy sh-- (censor beep)
- Yeah.
A two lane road costs anywhere from 2 million
to 11 million dollars a mile.
Luckily we already have 4 million miles of roads.
Meaning we don't have to build as many new roads
as we do maintain older ones.
If we fix the potholes we can save money and save lives.
The people in charge of our roads know how they're caused
and how to fix them.
So why don't they?
Maintaining America's large four million mile road system
and enabling our level of travel is seriously expensive.
The American society of civil engineers who know a thing
or two about roads, estimates that the cost of
maintaining America's roads properly is between
150 billion and 200 billion dollars a year
for the next 50 years.
But America's roads only receive
about 60 billion a year. (sad trombone sound)
Now I may have only taken math for the humanities
in college, but that seems a few bucks
short of what roads need.
If everyone of our roads was funded equally, every mile
would get about $15,000.
But that doesn't go very far because it can cost more than
a million dollars to maintain a single mile of road.
- My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.
- This lack of money is due in large part to America's
out of date road funding scheme.
The main source of founding for America's roads
comes from the highway trust fund,
which itself is paid for by the national
gas tax of 18.3 cents per gallon.
This 18.3 cent tax hasn't been raised since 1993.
Not only that, the tax is fixed, meaning it doesn't
adjust for inflation.
(sad trombone sound)
This stagnant tax rate means that as the cost
of maintaining and building roads increases
the funding remains the same.
It is this small amount of funding that causes roads to
remain in disrepair for far too long.
Our roads are clearly in need or more money.
- We're the money Lebowski?
- Because almost all of the money comes from out laughably
small federal gas tax,
raising it seems to be both a logical
and practical solution.
In support of this there's talk in Washington about
hiking the gas tax (cash register sound)
25 cents higher,
as well as allowing it to be adjusted for inflation.
But as much as this might help,
nobody wants to pay more in taxes.
My car averages 15 miles a gallon,
you think I wanna pay more for gas?
No freakin way.
But guess what, people are dying
- I'm a human being Goddammit!
- So what we have come to is a stalemate between DC
and state capitols and local governments.
Nobody wants to be seen as the guy who raised gas prices
or did nothing to repair roads.
State governments attempt to offset this lack of money
through their own gas taxes.
While this helps a bit that overall budget of 60 billion
is nowhere near where it needs to be.
Roads are ranked on a one to ten scale,
with four and above being fair or better.
And anything below being poor or failed.
Generally, for every dollar spent
fixing a road ranked (cash register sound)
higher than a four,
six dollars or more (cash register sound)
will have to be spent on a four
or lower road to repair it equivalently.
This is a big price gap.
And with an average of 21% of America's roads being
in poor or worse condition, the ASCE estimates it will
take the equivalent of 2.2 (cash register sound)
trillion dollars to repair them.
What's worse is that 21% is deceptively optimistic.
Some cities and states have over 65% of their roads
(sad trombone sound)
classed as poor or worse.
Putting the bulk of the financial responsibility
on a few locations.
- According to the USDOT Illinois, Connecticut,
Colorado, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin all have
over 70% of their roads already in poor condition
or expected to reach poor condition before
repairs are affected.
A further 17 states have over 50% of their roads
in such a condition.
In some areas of more than 27 states, mostly rural
this means giving up on paved roads for good.
While it might seem unthinkable to some,
these areas have decided that the headaches of paved roads
aren't worth the benefits,
and are simply tearing them up and replacing them with
cheaper, easier to maintain gravel.
While this works in areas with little to no traffic,
it obviously wouldn't work in areas that have
both people and bad roads, like LA.
Repairing potholes is a huge way local governments
can build goodwill with their constituents.
Not just because the roads get better,
but it turns out road conditions have a measurable
affect and the chances of winning re-election.
Within six months of San Diego's mayoral election
every five pothole complaints lowered the mayor's
approval rating by one point.
The researchers concluded that in a close election
local road quality could determine whether the
incumbent wins another term or loses the election.
Hurricane Harvey caused an outbreak of potholes
in the Houston area.
Mayor Turner has made road repair
a centerpiece of his term.
The mayor changed city policy so that any user reported
pothole via the 311 service would be filled by
the next business day.
Mayor Turner's city works have filled nearly 10,000
potholes this year, and over 60,000 last year.
Making potholes a priority helped recovery
not only by creating jobs and repairing streets,
but also by reducing the obstacles to trade,
improving the ability of people to get new jobs,
and allowing unencumbered shipments of goods and services
on newly restored roads.
Houston employs over 80 people for their pothole
strike team, and they can fill over 300 potholes in a day.
Today Houston's economy is experiencing
a dramatic upswing.
All told, before the initiative employment was
at it's lowest point in a decade, and now they've risen
to above where they were before the Hurricane.
While the pothole problem seems to be exploding
the best way to get them fixed,
is to call attention to them.
A man in Manchester England took matters into his own
hands by drawing dicks around unfilled pot holes
in his neighborhood.
Amazingly, those same potholes got filled up.
We have a responsibility to look out for each other.
That schlong bandit might have been obscene in his
methods, but the reality is
he did more for public safety than
the community's representatives.
I say we should all follow in his footsteps
by calling in these goddamn potholes.
And demanding more funding for our roads.
Let's be responsible for our streets and each other.
Wheelhouse is every Monday.
Hit that subscribe button right there
so you never miss an episode.
You know what sucks, driving on a crappy road
a super car.
Check out this episode of the new car show with pumphrey,
check out this episode of science garage,
it talks about the difference between
horse power and torque.
Follow Donut on Instagram, at donutmedia.
Follow me at Nolan J. Sykes.
Do you like this shirt, get one at shop.donut.media.
I'll see you next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment