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mcvoid1 t1_jd9d7o5 wrote

Ohio, Delaware, and NJ are flat as pancakes and don't have the road challenges we do with the geography and climate coming together into a perfect storm of road maintenance. Also they have fewer cars. (Well Ohio has slightly more registered vehicles, but fewer people, so fewer cars on the road at any given time)

NY has similar climate / geography / number of drivers but it gets to be subsidized by the largest and richest friggin city in the whole damn country.

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Socketfusion t1_jdb6xdo wrote

I'm a civil engineer, specifically geotechnical, who has done a lot of work in the area. PA isn't really special. Many PA roads were just built shitty, so they require more maintenance, which costs more money in the long run, which means money is drained on maintenance that could have been spent on actually building the roads right in the first place. All those other states have their own challenges when it comes to road construction. Go ahead and build a road in Delaware when groundwater is six inches below grade. See how easy that is. Just look at border transissions. The climate and terrain don't typically change because you are one mile or so either side of the state line. But road conditions definitely do.

We have built pretty good roads through much more adverse terrain and climate than you will find in PA. We've only been building paved roads for a few thousand years, but I'm pretty sure we can overcome the climate and terrain challenges offered by PA if it was done right from the start.

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ewyorksockexchange t1_jdar12z wrote

To add to this, PA has more miles of waterways than any state other than Alaska, so we have a shit ton of tiny bridges that drive road costs through the goddamn roof. Seriously, the number of small creeks and streams in this state is staggering.

Also worth noting that PA does not put general fund dollars into transportation infrastructure, so every dollar that goes into roads, bridges, etc. comes from the gas tax and other transportation-related fees that go to the motor license fund and grant programs.

Total state and local tax burden in PA is comparable to other states in our region, but road users get hit harder at the pump and notice. If that funding came from an extra .5% of income tax instead of gas taxes, people wouldn’t bitch as much.

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