close

LETTER: Who’s paying to restore roads?

2 min read
article image -

Who’s paying to restore roads?

Hosanna!

PennDOT announces it will repave Route 19 North from Washington Township, Greene County, to an undefined area near Amity. Wasn’t this same stretch repaved not too many years ago (if tar and chipping is considered repaving)?

Perhaps it was decimated by some unknown force.

Perhaps we have a monster in our midst and it’s rearing its devouring head on this same stretch of road.

Could that monster’s name be called “prosperity?” That same monster prosperity that feeds on the huge gas and oil deposits beneath the counties?

We all know the answer, but we encourage prosperity to continue ravaging our countryside with impunity and provide a measured improvement in our lives.

But what does monster prosperity do when it has its fill of the gas and oil deposits? Does it repair the broken infrastructure it has damaged during its quest for food?

Not likely. It will swish its tail with total abandon and move on to the next feeding grounds of opportunity. So who fixes things?

We do – if we can afford to. Otherwise our roads, bridges and other parts of our infrastructure will be left to rot.

Oh, the politicians and whomever remains after the pillage from the monster prosperity will still tell you, “we’ll fix it” (just a few minor tax increases here and there).

Anyone traveling Greene Street east from Waynesburg will be greeted by another unfolding third-world-country-type road. Potholes and worse are in the making.

Certainly private enterprise should always be welcomed here. No one disputes that. If a multistory building is built here, contractors should clean up the mess after construction and make right any damages to the infrastructure. Right? Not shove the cost to the taxpayers.

Didn’t our grandparents teach us to “always leave things better than we found it?”

I’m sure grandparents used to teach that same tenet in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Bill Brooks

Waynesburg

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today