I was glad to hear PTH talk about dedicating more money to roads and infrastructure. In the case of the water department and reclamation, we really have no choice. As for roads, the 2nd penny is SUPPOSED to be mostly dedicated to these kind of projects, but we have gone off the rails a bit over the past 16 years building play palaces.
When it comes to streets, what I would really like to see is more money being dedicated to engineering the streets better. The city needs to partner with local contractors to build better roads by investing in research and development. Instead of sending our Public Works director to a 3rd world country to teach people about Jesus and running water, we need to be sending him to Europe to learn how they build stronger, better roads. We also need to start making contractors warranty their work. Will this make our roads cost more? Yes, but the payoff is that they will last longer. I have often joked that our pothole hotline should be called as much as the Maytag repairman, this happens by building roads that don’t crumble every Spring when we have a slight temperature change.
While I appreciate the bigger investment in roads (even though it is what the money is really supposed to be used for) I would like to see more innovation building those roads. Wouldn’t it be great if the city became the leader in the Midwest for building rock solid infrastructure and roads. Wouldn’t it be great if people visiting our city talked about our modern euro-style roads instead of our money sucking Events Center?
I would also like to give a thumbs up to whoever decided to finally fix the roller coaster ride on Cliff Avenue in front of Avera last week. It only took them about 5 days to fix something that has been horrible for around 3 years. The only other question I have is ‘What took so long?’