I had a conversation with one of the city engineers in Ann Arbor once about why a street near my house was gravel for like 6 months, and he said that one of the

I had a conversation with one of the city engineers in Ann Arbor once about why a street near my house was gravel for like 6 months, and he said that one of the big asphalt contractors had bought out the one that bid on that single block of repaving and then wouldn't do the project on anything like the original timing because they needed the equipment elsewhere. At this point, there's only one or two road asphalt contractors that do anything in greater metro Detroit, so it's hard to get stuff done on time and in budget. It also didn't help that we had a strike from the union that does the work for that contractor and shut down major projects for an extended period in 2018 or 2019. Beyond that, we have a history of not making good on things like road warranties -- the state called in the warranty on I-275 back in the 90's and that caused the construction company to literally go bankrupt, so now there's a general reluctance to call in major warranty work. For instance, they haven't replaced the chunk of I-94 near the Indiana border that feels like you're in a paint mixer because the steamroller that did those few miles had a bad bearing, but everyone over there knows about it. It's getting replaced nearly a decade later in the next 6~18 months because that section just needs repaving in general now.