Texas can’t afford paved roads, replaces them with gravel
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Friday, November 21, 2025 14:51
VIEWED: 3237
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Quote:
The new oil boom in Texas has come at a steep price. Heavy trucks and industrial equipment have destroyed miles of roads. Texas’ failure to collect taxes, fueled by anti-taxation rhetoric given out by corporatist puppetmasters. To resolve this issue, the state of Texas has decided to eliminate paved roads over 80 miles of state highway.
This will reduce the top speed of these roads down to 30 miles per hour, along with increased wear and tear on vehicles. Texas automobile owners, already having one of the highest costs for auto insurance in the nation, will now be facing rate increases over and above the 13% increase they faced last year alone. . We can thank Rick Perry’s push for deregulation for much of these increased costs, as cutting corners pays off in the short term, but harms the companies long-term profits.
While it may sound like a smart solution, the truth is the construction of a gravel road is something which takes a lot more work overall. Instead of a one-time paving effort with routine maintenance, gravel roads require almost constant attention, and fall apart quickly if not maintained:Quote:
Representatives for the state’s transportation department told the Texas Tribune that construction would begin Monday on a project that involves tearing up over 80 miles of asphalt that has been severely damaged over the years due to heavy traffic brought on by even heavier machinery. An oil boom has caused an energy industry to emerge near the state’s southwest border with Mexico, but that extra business has also brought extra traffic.
Now local roads ravaged by oil-industry trucks are far too damaged to be repaired by what resources the state has, and the solution officials saw as the most affordable involves serious downgrades.
"Since paving roads is too expensive and there is not enough funding to repave them all, our only other option to make them safer is to turn them into gravel roads," Texas Department of Transportation spokesman David Glessner told the Tribune.
TxDOT Deputy John Barton announced last month that the state agency was moving forward with the plan after efforts to secure upwards of an extra $1 billion in annual funding for repairs went unanswered.
Earlier this year the department asked for $4 billion in additional funding just to maintain roads in their current condition and another $1.6 billion to address the damage brought on by the energy sector. State legislators responded by approving $450 million towards repairing county and state-owned roads effected by the oil biz. TxDOT said it needs more than double that sum on an annual basis just to maintain and repair the roads consistently damaged by oil-industry trucks.
Additionally, those new roads won’t be able to accommodate high-speed travel and will require truck drivers to slow down their pace drastically. “Instead of whipping in at 70 miles per hour, they’ll have to move in there at 30 miles per hour,” Barton told the commission, according to the Star-Telegram.
But though the state commission entertained TxDOT’s plan before putting it into place this week, local lawmakers in the areas being affected say those calling the shots neglected to confer with community members before agreeing to dig up their roads.
State Sen. Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio) said in a statement that the agency “imposed a unilateral solution on these communities with no notice, no opportunity to seek alternative solutions, and no clear understanding of what to expect in the future.” Dimmit County, a district represented in part by Sen. Uresti, will see over 30 miles of farm-to-market roads reduced to gravel, Ian Floyd reported for the Tribune. http://rt.com/usa/texas-gravel-asphalt-txdot-748/
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Remember those commercials Perry did, inviting businesses to come to Texas?
PERRY: "I want you to move your company to Texas so badly that I'll let you tear the state's infrastructure apart - and you don't have to pay taxes to fix it! If this screws over the taxpayers who actually built all that, oh well!"
Yes the taxpayers built those roads, and now have them taken away. In a rational system, companies who use the infrastructure should have to contribute to its upkeep. Not so in Texas, the state of corporate welfare.
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The French Revolution would have never happened if Marie Antoinette had just given every peasant an iPhone.
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Alas that problem ain't limited to TexASS, some roads here have gone that way as well.
Were it not for Congressman Dingell going personally to washington and twisting arms about it, some of our bridges WOULD have fallen down - by the time he got them to cough up a TIGER II grant, they had to close part of Stadium Ave cause chunks of concrete were literally falling out of the bottom of the bridge.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/east-stadium-bridges-risks-to-the-public-
from-falling-concrete/
http://www.michigandaily.com/news/stadium-bridge-reconstruction-moves-
toward-october-start-date
Of course this is partly complicated by SOME local authorities not wanting to fix the roads even when there is money cause that is their last straw of an excuse to have the speed limits set illegally low to drive up ticket revenue - which is triply enraging cause that issue was one of the REASONS the Feds were so reluctant to cough up a TIGER II grant, and the logic that said ticket income is supposed to be used to... what ?
FIX THE BLOODY ROADS!
But no, instead they *don't* fix the roads and present a dangerous situation to drive up ticket income which goes... where, exactly ?
Not welcome at local townhalls anymore for asking THAT question, and they didn't give me an answer.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/opinion/ann-arbor-needs-to-get-up-to-spee
d-on-its-speed-limits-along-main-roads/
So it's not always the big guys, sometimes the little guys on the local end are every bit as guilty of bastardy and chicanery, but on the plus side you can actually go hassle them in person.
The culture of corruption does rot from the top down though, I'll give you that.
-F
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Asphalt is made from what ?
Oil.
The Left should be PRAISING Texas for its green awareness.
Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen
Resident USA Freedom Fundie
" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall
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I live on a gravel road and I can tell you they take a lot of maintenance as well as being tough on cars. And these aren't major roads, but little slow ones in the back blocks.
The council has to come and fix them up many times per year. They wash away in the rain (and end up on our block), get pocked and rutted very easily. In Summer they have to be coated with something that minimises the dust, otherwise your house and car ends up like something from toughmudders.
Silly short term solution that'll end up costing more in the long run.. Not to mention the danger element of a gravel highway.
Additionally, why shouldn't business have to cough up for infrastructure?
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Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Asphalt is made from what ?
Bituminous rock, concrete, mineral products, and even tires, some of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphalt_concrete
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberized_asphalt
Seriously, go read a book, LEARN something, hell EAT the damn thing, maybe learn by osmosis, or one could hope.
Oh, and if you thought TexASS would bad, this little bit gives a whole new meaning to the words...(wait for it) ...Highway Robbery.
http://news.sky.com/story/1124691/russian-man-arrested-for-stealing-en
tire-road
-Frem
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Yea I gotta go with the libs on this one, my old boss would sometimes send me to a company near by with a gravel road to pick up some paper work, I'll never forget the *tink*tink*tink* sound the gravel made bouncing off my paint job. Sometimes the little gravel pebbles would get stuck in the treads of my tires and make that *clack*clack* noise for miles.
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Asphalt -
a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum . It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product; it is a substance classed as a pitch. Until the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used
Do you need to be told what PETROLEUM is too ??
Good grief.
Asphalt concrete is a separate product, combining asphalt and other elements, like aggregate.
Lucky for you stupid isn't painful.
Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen
Resident USA Freedom Fundie
" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall
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LOL! Way to go off topic and miss the point.
Apparently, according to RapLogic, if my industry produces an ingredient in a product than I have a right to destroy that product and not replace it.
Hey Rappy, I produced the glass that makes up your TV screen, computer screen, and smartphone screen. (Really I didn't, for those overliteral nitpickers. You know who you are. It's hypothetical.) So I'll be over tonight to smash those to bits and I'm sure you won't mind, right?
Back to the point: this is exactly what Obama meant when he said: "You didn't build that." Those roads that consumers use to get to places of businesses, that businesses use to ship products about, are not built by the companies themselves. Plainly, the TX oil industry has no interest in fixing the damage they did. Hence: there must be taxes to support the infrastructure. This is what made the US a powerhouse post WWII. It is why we are declining now, because the 1% (those in TX for sure!) are taking all they can out of the system without investing back to ensure future growth.
Wow, still astonished at how off topic Rappy goes. WTH does it matter how much petroleum product is in various kinds of pavement? The point is: you use it, you pay for it. You break it, you pay for it. This SHOULD apply to corporations as much as it does to individuals.
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The French Revolution would have never happened if Marie Antoinette had just given every peasant an iPhone.
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Gonna be real interesting if they ever try to drive those asphalt-busting big oil trucks over the new gravel roads. Prolly sink clear up to their fenders.
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