When I saw the big trucks around the corner I got really excited. Oh boy, street paving. I know how geeky that sounds, But, I live in an old neighborhood, where the water pipes are 75 years old and break in the middle of the night. The transformer blew at the corner and it took 5 days of power outage in 100 degree heat before there was a temporary fix. The concrete streets have been overlaid with asphalt, and they fall apart every 4 years.
L.A. approved a bond to fix this a couple of years ago and now we are seeing the streets get paved again. This is not just a problem here in Los Angeles. The whole country needs roads, bridges, internet to rural areas, etc. I was hoping Trump would do it as he promised but I guess he wasn’t all that interested. It is up for a vote now. We should all get behind it.
The one trip I took out of state since the pandemic was to Washington state. Like most of the country, road work was in full bloom during the summer when the weather allows it. We had long delays on 2 lane roads where first one side then the other would pass the construction area. Did I get upset? No! I love infrastructure getting fixed.
Downtown the Regional Connector Transit Project is set to open 3 new stations and cut down on changing lines in 2022. As crazy as it seems, LA may soon have a reasonable metro system even extending to the airport by 2024. Maybe when the Olympics come back to LA in 2028, I’ll be able to travel around LA the way I did around Sydney at the 2000 Olympics.
The US has a lot of catching up to do to match the infrastructure in China, Europe and the rest of the developed world. We can’t compete if we don’t invest now.