4 ms·
It has never made sense to me that a neighborhood is responsible for paying for a road that people beyond the neighborhood can use. Portland and Multnomah count
by oooyay 3y ago
It has never made sense to me that a neighborhood is responsible for paying for a road that people beyond the neighborhood can use. Portland and Multnomah county work this way and as a result, part of our 1950s neighborhood has a gravel road that's become extremely problematic. The economies of scale make it easier for a city or county to maintain machinery for paving roads and making sidewalks, and yet some municipalities force this on residents. In our case, not everyone in my neighborhood make enough to be able to contribute to the construction of a road, much less repaving.
- bewaretheirs 3y ago> The economies of scale make it easier for a city or county to maintain machinery for paving roads and making sidewalks Generally that equipment is useful for more than just paving roads and is owned by private contractors in the US - the same contractors could be hired by county, city, or neighborhood.
- SoftTalker 3y agoIt depends. Where I live the city owns a lot of roadbuilding equipment directly, and employs people to operate it. The roads they build are garbage. Uneven, bumpy, rainwater pools on them, etc. Sometimes they have too much work and contract some jobs to private paving contractors. The roads they build are flat, smooth, and drain well.
- alistairSH 3y agoNot claiming this is the best solution, but with a formal HOA there are mandatory annual/quarterly dues, a proper budget for services/maintenance, reserve funds, etc. I'd prefer road maintenance was handled by the state, but the HOA works for maintaining common space and other services not handled by the government (trash collection).
- michael1999 3y agoThere are often profound DISeconomies of scale in municipal contracting. Sloth, corruption, feather-bedding, etc. are all chronic problems in cities. If nobody in the neighbourhood can pay for a paved road, then maybe the road should be gravel. Especially a cul-de-sac -- the road exclusively serves the residents. If they won't pay for it, why should anyone else?
- coryrc 3y agoAnd if you're an elderly person no one likes and are destitute, why should anyone else be forced to pay all your expenses?
- astrange 3y agoI think you could equally say it's a nice gesture that people are allowed to use roads built on private land. Better than having to go around.
- alistairSH 3y agoUgh. That’s a pet peeve of mine. There are a fair number of farms to the west of me that once had passable farm roads. They’ve since been sold to developers who put up gated communities. So now you have to go around the whole development. None of these are high traffic areas - they aren’t preventing unsafe or noisy traffic, just being selfish.