Bridge collapse in MSP

For reasons I can't quite explain -- because Quebec's income tax is higher than just about every other province -- La Belle Province has the worst roads in the country. If you drive from Toronto to Montreal, say, when the Highway 401 turns into the 20 at the border, suddenly you're rolling over pot hole city.

I'd say overall, our infrastructure is good, especially when you consider the climate. (There's a running joke here that we have two seasons: winter and construction.)

Probably the best roads in the country are down east. You can drive across New Brunswick on four perfect lanes of empty, smooth asphalt.

But I have to say -- again, recognizing that things aren't perfect up here; a bridge collapse in Laval a little while ago killed a mom and dad -- that I notice the drop in infrastructure quality when I'm in the U.S. Everything's just a little... shabbier, somehow. Like, driving from Manhattan to the airport in Newark, it looks a little wartorn, and I don't think that's just because you're in Jersey.

I think it's a fact that you get what you pay for. Higher taxes = Better services.

Except in Quebec.

Maybe it's because they're still paying off Olympic Stadium.

 

Just a point on your drive from Manhattan to Newark...

Last night Dan Abrams on MSNBC showed a segment where he went to New Jersey's worst conditioned bridge. I watched the tease and said, "yeah, that's the Pulaski." Sure enough it was. It is very likely that this is the road you were on.

Anyway, the point is that these things definitely need repair. People just don't want to pay for it.

 

I read today that the Department of Transportation (presumably run by a Bush appointee) recommended a highway construction budget of $350 billion this year. Bush trimmed it to $200 million.

Construction projects are great for the economy. A serious re-investment in this country's infrastructure would be one of the biggest jobs program in this country's history. And in the end we'd have something to show for it, other than burned-up Humvees and more caskets landing at Dover.

 

If we don't drive on decrepit bridges the terrorists win, and we'll be late for work.

 

I think it varies from one state to the next.

Michigan and Illinois are nasty, but Indiana and Ohio are pretty good. Missouri is so-so, but Iowa is excellent.

I think the thing people forget sometimes is that the U.S. is a lot like 50 independent countries in some respects.

And I don't think higher taxes always equal better services. NY and NJ aren't exactly low-tax domains.

 

B.C. is much better at taking care of its road infrastructure, I have found. The Atlantic provinces -- other than the areas where the TCH has been twinned in the past 10 years -- are abysmal.

I can't speak much for the rest of the county.

In Alberta, Ralph Klein was elected premier some 15 years ago and proceeded to hack away at funding for various agencies, including roads, health care and social work.

Yes, Alberta is the only province in the nation with a surplus ... but our services have suffered to get to that point.

In some of the other provinces I have mentioned, they are only now starting to find a resource economy outside of fishing and forestry. Thus, their economies are picking up but, at the same time, their transfer payments will decrease as they become wealthier.

It's a Catch-22, I suppose, and often times the basic infrastructure gets left out in the cold.

 

As it crumbles to the ground.

 

$200 million or $200 billion? If it is million, that is a ridiculous amount of cutting.

 

Fix my bridges, don't raise my taxes..... you gets what you ask for, people

 

Nebraska only has something like 17 deficient bridges and none of them were built later than 1997.

 

Now, since Nebraska is dominated by the GOP, I guess I could credit them for that ... but that would be just as stupid as what the knee-jerks on the other side are doing.

 

200 billion. my bad.

As for Nebraska, there's just not a lot of water on I-80. It only crosses the Platte two or three times.