Would you pay 28 cents more per gallon for roads, bridges and mass transit options? 56.9%: No. The roads do need improving, but I’m not paying for them out of my pocket.
–Pennlive Poll, November 2013
A scene from sometime in late 2014:
It’s almost hard to believe that a year has passed. This time last year, I was parked in traffic on I-83, just like most days during my 40-mile round trip commute from the suburbs to my job in the city.
“Won’t somebody do something about this?” I screamed out in frustration, as I swerved around a pothole and a tractor-trailer nearly sideswiped my car. “Somebody who isn’t me?”
I’d been complaining for years about the horrible state of our roads and bridges and all the traffic congestion that keeps getting worse.
“Betty,” I’d say to my wife, “why doesn’t the state or the county or the city or whoever fix my free roads?”
Betty corrected me by saying that the roads weren’t actually free to build and maintain and clear accidents and plow snow from, etc. Someone had to pay for them, she reasoned, but she wasn’t exactly sure who it was either.
“Maybe the Chinese?” she said.
It seemed like a good guess, and I thought she probably was right since I’d heard somewhere that the Chinese owned all of our houses. Or at least they did until the bubble collapsed and now it might be J.P. Morgan, whoever he is.
But, anyway, I didn’t like it one bit when I read that those politicians in Harrisburg wanted me to pay for my roads out of my own pocket. Why should my gas tax go up so I can continue to drive my car every day, wherever and how far I want? I was outraged.
So, it was terrific news when I read something on the Internet about this cul de sac somewhere, maybe in Montgomery County someplace, that seemed to fix itself. At first, I thought maybe it was one of those Internet things that might be true but probably isn’t, but maybe it is.
But, as everyone in Pennsylvania now knows, it was indeed true!
Suddenly, all the highways and neighborhood streets and bridges and tunnels began to fix and expand and improve themselves. So, for instance today, I got on a smooth, eight-lane highway with wide lanes that took me right into work, like the road was built just for me. It was beautiful! There’s even a new light rail system that maybe someday I’ll take (but probably not).
I’m not really sure how this all happened. No one seems to know. Some people have said that little road fairies burrowed up from the earth, wearing tiny little hard hats and driving tiny little bulldozers, and got busy. Other people say it was our alien-protectors or maybe Bill Gates or the NSA or the Lord.
Today, outside my office, a few guys wearing hard hats were leaning up against a building as a road nearby was being fixed. They didn’t seem to be doing any work, just standing there, smoking, chatting.
I leaned into one of them and quietly whispered, “Fairies?” They glared at me, rather unkindly at that, but wouldn’t spill their secret.
Whatever. I don’t really care. All I know is that I got bridges and roads and mass transit options at absolutely no cost to me, which is exactly what I voted for in that poll.
Now my problem is with all the other things that those politicians in Harrisburg want me to pay for out of my own pocket. Sure, kids need to go to school, but I’m not a kid anymore. Once again, I’m outraged!
