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_peteyfourfingers_ t1_jeblf9i wrote

Reply to comment by Thiccaca in A new report found that Mass. has the highest GDP per capita in the country and is among the states least dependent on federal dollars. by truthseeeker

Please god pave the dammed roads. It’s fucking embarrassing how bad they are.

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Thiccaca t1_jebo7q1 wrote

It's funny how every Masshole claims that winter is why the roads are bad, but Canada and upstate NY have better roads.

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_peteyfourfingers_ t1_jeboeqn wrote

No joke. The Adirondack area has amazing roads.

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Thiccaca t1_jebou5q wrote

Hey, who are going to believe, some townie who has never been outside the 495 loop, or your lying eyes!

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J_Worldpeace t1_jecc0fy wrote

VT is also laughing...

(With a 1/10 of the cars)

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intentionallybad t1_jeeeqtg wrote

1/10th the cars is part of it. The level of traffic affects how quickly a road deteriorates.

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AboyNamedBort t1_jebqb2a wrote

Canada has higher gas taxes. You get what you pay for. Anyone who voted against indexing the gas tax to inflation has themselves to thank for potholes.

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Thiccaca t1_jebqokq wrote

Not sure that is it. MA spends twice per mile on building roads than Hawaii.

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DJScrubatires t1_jebv0b1 wrote

I can point to one area where money can be saved. Most states control traffic with construction laborers doing flagging duty. We open up the OT chest for the Staties to do the same thing essentially.

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Crop64 t1_jeebz42 wrote

Some states have programs where under-employed people can be trained to work as flaggers.

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BadDesignMakesMeSad t1_jed8k4i wrote

The secret is that winter weather isn’t the main cause of road damage. It’s mostly wear from vehicles, particularly large freight trucks but the big SUVs and oversized pickups that so many people drive are not helping either. A lot of this traffic could be offset if freight railroads weren’t shit and if the MBTA was functional but I guess that’s too much to ask

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Thiccaca t1_jed8q7e wrote

Why make it functional when you can keep using it as a way to funnel money to your friends in the form of consultancies?

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dede_smooth t1_jed9d5d wrote

If passenger rail wasn’t shit either small cities of students move around the state multiple times throughout the year every year. Putting trains from out west to Boston (preferably near Logan) could relieve tons of student and holiday traffic.

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RandyCheeseburgers01 t1_jeeze9p wrote

To be fair, (Greater) Boston, with its huge student population, is part of the Northeast Corridor, which connects cities from Boston to DC and has the best intra- and intercity passenger rail in the US-- not that that's a very high bar, but still.

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MammothCat1 t1_jee5vxi wrote

We could even use some old unused railway that was installed ages ago... Oh wait they just made that into a bike trail....

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kaya-jamtastic t1_jec3l1y wrote

The freeze-thaw cycling of our increasingly mild winters isn’t doing us any favors

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Thiccaca t1_jec6uq1 wrote

Again, Canada...upstate NY....the mountain west....other places have the same weather and better road maintenance. There really isn't anything amazingly unique about MA weather.

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kaya-jamtastic t1_jeckcw0 wrote

It can be 10 degrees (F) colder up there, does that not make a difference? Anyway, not trying to defend road construction in MA, I like to joke that the reason the roads are so terrible is because some politician’s brother owns a road construction company

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Thiccaca t1_jeckn2h wrote

Ummm....have you ever seen a map of North America?

Canada literally includes parts of the Arctic. Their roads are sometimes built on permafrost.

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kaya-jamtastic t1_jecpfr7 wrote

That’s why I was confused when you said that Canada has the same weather as Massachusetts

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Thiccaca t1_jecq7kk wrote

I meant cold, wintery weather with snow.

My bad.

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ben70 t1_jecqxx0 wrote

Did you forget your /s ?

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kaya-jamtastic t1_jecu17k wrote

I’m clearly missing something here. Not sure why I’m getting downvoted since I’m not disagreeing with u/Thiccaca, I’m just saying that because we keep getting freezes that then warm up the conditions seem to be getting even worse than they used to be when we had longer periods of deep freeze

I apologize for whatever I’m misinterpreting because I’m apparently clueless

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metrowestern t1_jecxf7v wrote

Also the nice rumble strips as well so you can tell where the lines are when they are snow covered. Highly underrated.

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Marco_Memes t1_jebp3ie wrote

It’s because they don’t make enough money to pay for their maintenance, and the repair costs are so high that it gets kicked down the road. So you end up with a bunch of toll free roads slowly falling apart because they can’t afford maintenance, because their toll free nature removes any revenue streams. If you want better roads what we need to do is convert highways to toll roads and invest in the T so less people drive on them, which lessens their use, which makes them last longer, which saves money on maintenance.

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Thiccaca t1_jebpnn2 wrote

MA has the second highest cost per mile for road construction in the US. It is literally twice what it costs to build in Hawaii.

HAWAII....

Where literally everything has to be shipped in.

Wonder who is hoovering up all that cash.

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Marco_Memes t1_jecglge wrote

Probably the idiots in charge? We all know the T is run by incompetent fools, but that doesn’t make mass transit a bad thing to invest in bc once you have some mass firings you’ve got the problem fixed. Either way their always expensive, that’s why the roads are bad EVERYWHERE. Every state complains about the roads because even where it’s cheap it’s still to expensive

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Thiccaca t1_jechbsm wrote

MA roads are Alabama bad though.

And yeah, mass transit is great. Sadly, nobody on Beacon Hill wants it.

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CableStoned t1_jecr5di wrote

Never mind the impracticality of transferring enough of the entire state’s driving to MBTA stops to offset our road damage.

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Thiccaca t1_jecsaw6 wrote

Unless the system was expanded and made frequent and affordable. Oh, and made to go above 7 mph.

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medforddad t1_jecnrdh wrote

Much less traffic on them than the roads around Boston. Out in western ma, there was much more snow this year, but nowhere near the number of potholes.

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Thiccaca t1_jeco8gs wrote

Toronto doesn't have traffic? Buffalo doesn't have traffic?

Man, why do people defend shitty things?

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medforddad t1_jeeywsg wrote

I thought we were just talking outside cities. If you want to talk about cities, it's not like buffalo is known for their pothole-free streets: /r/Buffalo/comments/sxy10m/allen_street_potholes_this_is_getting_ridiculous

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NickRick t1_jed36f0 wrote

The winters do cause the road issues. Those other places have less traffic and pay more to fix them.

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Thiccaca t1_jed5fdx wrote

Good thing nobody else has large population centers where it gets cold and snowy!

Nope....MA is super special that way.

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NickRick t1_jedcfyk wrote

Sorry I forgot about the megacity of Buffalo in upstate NY. And the famous population density in Canada.

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Megsmik8 t1_jedjkvx wrote

NY state has a toll system for most of its highways. MA DOES NOT. This is HOW THEY KEEP UP THEIR ROADS and MA does not. It's not rocket science.

Both I-90 and I-87 in NYS are Toll Roads. Except I-87 North of Albany. Tolls in NYS are not cheap, the ONLY Tolls you pay in MA are on I-90 or the Ted Williams, Sumner or Callahan Tunnels.

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Thiccaca t1_jee3knu wrote

Then why does everyone claim the weather is the problem and then shrugs?

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Megsmik8 t1_jefgrlg wrote

Because no one actually thinks it through. They don’t know NYS. Most people east of 495 know east of 495 and that’s it. They travel North to NH, ME for both summer and skiing. Maybe also VT for skiing. Then there’s also the Cape in the summer. If they do go to NYS it’s typically not often and it’s downstate. You don’t hit Tolls on I-95 until you hit the Bridges. If you take I-84 it’s the same, you hit a toll at the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. If you drive on the parkways in NYS, which aren’t toll roads, they aren’t nearly as good.

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Workacct1999 t1_jee8j8j wrote

Fewer people means fewer drivers and less wear and tear on the roads.

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TheLyz t1_jebu2zb wrote

Marlborough finally repaved two roads I use pretty often and it feels like a luxury.

But hey if you want to feel better about our roads take a quick trip over the border to RI, you'll feel much better after that.

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Cabes86 t1_jec1vvw wrote

I’m hoping they do my street this year. I live on one if those unofficial huge cut through streets.

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SheeEttin t1_jebp3wz wrote

And clean them! Why is there always so much trash and leftover sand?

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MammothCat1 t1_jee6er8 wrote

It's gotten worse since COVID. I've watched all manner of life just toss everything from the average McDonald's to vape charges and even a phone once (could've been for other reasons but still thrown).

Came to the conclusion that people just dont give a damn about their cities anymore. Or your city if they are visiting. Look at Walmart parking lots in general, cesspools.

But what are you going to do? Yell at them? No enforcement causes this, no repercussion means it's no crime right?

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sailhard22 t1_jecfwhn wrote

If we spend money fixing roads and the MBTA then we won’t have so much money though

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Waluigi3030 t1_jec1bw8 wrote

The roads are good in my town. Whereas Fitchburg is basically dirt roads at this point.

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