All winter, all I heard were people of NEPA griping about the roads. Well, that's really a lie, they griped about the cold, the snow, the wind and just about everything else you can think of. I was proud of the people of NEPA. The really know how to Gripe. The one thing that I heard the most was people complaining about the roads. In fact you hear about them and encounter these auto damaging demon holes all year around. It's really nothing new to NE Pennsylvania, we have been dodging potholes all of our lives. So to start out this Gripe, I'm going to let you know that I am bringing back the POTHOLE OF THE WEEK side bar feature. If you encounter a pothole of massive proportion or even one that you just hate with every fiber of your being, snap a quick pic of it and either post it to the R2G Facebook page or email it to me at our email address at the top of this Blog. Your pic could be The Pothole of the Week
So why are the roads in NEPA so bad? The powers to be will tell you that it's the weather. Yea, right. The government said the UFO that crashed at Rozwell was a weather balloon. How about some swamp gas? I say bullshit to that excuse! I've been to plenty of places in upstate New York, Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia where the weather is the same as ours and their roads are nothing like ours. Their roads are smooth as a baby's behind. Our roads suck around here for a few reasons and let me tell you what I think.
First off, the idiots around here either don't know how to pave a road or they are skimming money off the top and doing a half ass job on purpose. When you watch them grade down an old road surface to get it ready to be paved, it looks like they only take it down about 6 inches or so. That's no where near enough. I watched them work on Market Street in Kingston and N. Franklin Street in Wilkes-Barre and I don't think they even went down that far. This does not allow for a sub base to be put down which creates a frost barrier and reduces winter damage. This is the key to reducing the freezing and thawing that creates all of those little cracks that you see in the roads which eventually lead to the potholes. All they do is grate down some of the old road and then slap on some new pavement. In a short period of 5 years or so, we will be dodging new potholes again.
Another thing I don't understand is when they pave roads around here, why don't they set the manhole covers flush with the road surface? Instead they indent them down a few inches so when your driving it's like your hitting a pothole. People in the Valley have to swerve all over the roads to avoid these things, sometimes swerving into oncoming traffic. Do the powers to be want us to hit potholes? Do they own car repair shops in the area? I just don't understand why they do this? The only thing that I could think of is they want the rain water to run into the manhole covers but isn't that why the roads are pitched toward the curbs and toward the storm drains? Take a drive down Church St in Kingston past the baseball and football complex there. It's brutal! And don't get me going on Welles St. in Forty Fort. The manhole cover right down from the White House Diner is sinking into an abyss. Wait until those dump trucks from the Swoyersville culm bank removal project start whacking the crap out of it.
(Note: I just went by to snap a pic and this manhole cover has been fixed. Cudo's to Forty Forty)
Finally, why, please tell me why is it when a road is newly paved and we all feel good about it, either the gas or water company comes along a few weeks later and tears it up? WHAT? WHAT? ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME! Why don't they fix what they need to when the road is torn up? This happens all of the time. In fact 4 weeks after North Franklin Street in Wilkes-Barre was newly paved, someone came in and tore up a portion of it and then did a lousy job patching it back up. Now, I know for a fact, that these entities such as the water and gas companies are required to return a street to a pristine drive able condition when they are done. As we all know, they DO NOT! So why are they not held accountable? Instead they throw a half-ass patch on the hole they dug and off they go. Within a week or two, the patch is torn up and we have a pothole. Then whatever city or town it is in is responsible to take care of it. The town then comes out and puts another half ass patch on it and the cycle of half-ass-ism begins. Our hard earned tax dollars being thrown into the pothole of no return. It's really a sick joke.
The bottom line here is, all of this pothole stuff can be alleviated if the roads were paved and maintained correctly right from the start. Instead, our tax dollars are being thrown away by the politicians who give out contracts to friends and family members to pave roads in a half assed manner because they know in a short time they will be back to pave it again. It's a vicious cycle of theft by pavement and pothole. In the meantime, the people of NEPA are trying to dodge these massive craters and when they miss are damaging their vehicles. Tire stores and car repair shops are raking in the dough while the politicians get away with not being held accountable. This has to end. It's time for NEPA to rise out of the potholes and to take control of our roads. We should be as mad as hell and we should not take it anymore. I'm sick and tired of the roads around here.
Send me your pothole pictures and don't forget to include the location. I will also pass them on to the town that they are located in and post them here on the R2G and on Facebook. Maybe a little embarrassment will get them moving.
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