6 ms·
>The most crushing aspect I saved for last though. Taxes here are significantly higher than I’ve experienced anywhere. This means you’re squeezed both on your t
by DanBC2 14y ago
>The most crushing aspect I saved for last though. Taxes here are significantly higher than I’ve experienced anywhere. This means you’re squeezed both on your take home pay and your expenses.
...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads, so the road surfaces are lousy. Maybe I've been spoiled by our great road surfaces in UK.
- lmm 14y agoI'm guessing you never drove through Essex?
- jrabone 14y agoOr Edinburgh. Maybe it's places starting with 'E'...
- petercooper 14y agoTruth. Edinburgh has the worst road surfaces and quality of any British city I've driven in (one of the nicer cities otherwise though!)
- arethuza 14y agoYou do know that we have a lot of cobbled streets here in Edinburgh? ;-) On a serious note - I think the ongoing billion pound Great Tram Fiasco resulted in a lot of streets being left half-repaired for a long time as they were once part of the ever-shrinking tram route. Either that or the council is saving money on road repairs to help pay for it. Or it might be part of the ongoing attempt to discourage driving in the city - which I don't mind as I pretty much walk everywhere!
- roc 14y agoCompared to the US in general? Probably. Though it's surprising that even a temperate US city would have dodgy road surfaces. In the north and northeast, it's at least understandable with our winters and the multiple freeze/thaw cycles we usually see before spring.
- JoshTriplett 14y agoHere in Oregon we have less than half the taxes of California, and yet we have well-maintained roads (to the point of joking that the state flower is a traffic cone), and well-maintained everything else. And the state doesn't gripe about not having enough money nearly as often (and when they do it doesn't make the national news). The state even (by law) gives back any excess tax revenue they collect each year, though the state legislature puts a measure on every major ballot to try to prevent that (and it thankfully always fails). I genuinely wonder what California has done so differently to end up doing so badly when they have twice as much tax revenue per person.
- philwelch 14y agoCalifornians pay more in federal taxes than the state receives in federal spending. This is also true of Oregon, but in California it's true to a much higher degree. So the state is essentially subsidizing the rest of the country and doesn't have enough left over for itself.
- citricsquid 14y agowhy is that?
- philwelch 14y agoThe US political system gives disproportionate influence to people living in less populous states.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoThis would only be the determining factor if you believe that California on its own would not vote for the federal government providing support for the lowest income people. The evidence seems to indicate that is not the case.
- philwelch 14y ago
- clauretano 14y agoIn the northeastern US, they have to fix the roads every spring from damage caused by plows and frost heaving. In SF and other mild cities, there's now much seasonal component to road maintenance so roads tend to go much long between repaves. Similar stories play out in cities like Seattle.
- dandandan 14y agoWhat freeways in the northeastern US have average daily traffic volumes above 300k? Do those have alternative routes or see significant traffic volumes overnight? It's tough in Southern California because of a lack of north/south transit corridors.
- petercooper 14y agoLA has some of the worst road surfaces I've seen anywhere, even on the freeways. On the flip side, though, I suspect the US has more than 5x the roads despite only having 5x our population.
- smhinsey 14y agoIt's also a really big deal when you shut down a freeway, even if it is for maintenance that'll improve it. Not many cities make national news with road closures like LA has done with the 405. The cost of this maintenance goes way beyond time & materials.
- majormajor 14y agoI love how much denser the suburban parts of LA are compared to other places (though I do wish it had more of a super-dense urban core), but it does take a toll infrastructure-wise. LA has a pretty extensive network of freeways, and they're still all packed. It's crazy. And impressive, in a way (I have a love-hate relationship with the 405 in particular). On the other hand, the city I'm from originally is finally getting to widening one of the core freeways in an area that's seen a ton of growth over the past twenty years, and it sounds like just as much a pain for the people living there as the 405 construction has been in LA. There's just a far lower total of affected people since the city is so much less populated. :)
- smhinsey 14y agoI am right near the 101 myself, so I hear you on the love/hate thing. I figure, at least it isn't the 710. Even the medium sized midwestern city I am from has problems with road widening. I think it's basically a scourge wherever it goes on. There are some freeways in LA that almost seem impossible to shut down under any non-catastrophic circumstances, such as the 5 downtown (or anything downtown, probably) so it'll be interesting to see how they approach that over time.
- bobbles 14y agoThe problem we see down in Sydney is that they spend a lot of time and money on the widening of the freeways, but nothing on the infrastructure as soon as you get OFF the freeway. So the traffic still piles back up with huge traffic congestion through all the towns that are connected.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago"...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads" Of course they don't! They spend it on public-sector employee pensions, and boondoggle public-transit projects like that high-speed rail link between Bakersfield and Fresno. :P