The State of the State’s Roads
Pictures eloquently show why more road funding is needed
The numbers are staggering: $59 billion in deferred maintenance on state highways and $78 billion on local roads and streets. But what do those numbers mean to the average Californian who has to drive on those streets, highways, freeways and bridges every day?
To find out, the Alliance for Jobs communications staff took a Bad Roads road trip last week and visited communities in the Bay Area, Central Coast, Central Valley, San Diego and Southern California. We shot video and took pictures that document just how bad the roads are in many localities. The results in many cases are unconscionable in the world’s seventh-largest economy.
And don’t blame the local officials for these pockmarked, rim-crushing, alignment-destroying streets. Transportation funding has long been primarily a state responsibility and has been largely neglected since the last state gas tax increase was passed in the late 1980s.