When my pal World Explorer lived in Santa Fe he used to brag about how low his property taxes were relative to the big honking value of his house.
I used to explain to him that this was partly because the only paved roads in New Mexico were the interstate and state highways. All the county roads were washboards until someone ran a blade across them once a year.
It seems that with the economic times we're in we may have to expect more of this. Paved roads are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets
Read more about it over at the WSJ.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I grew up in an area where most roads are gravel. Works just fine. Also, it is a canard that paved rural roads are needed for milk trucks -- plenty of dairying where I grew up also.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded that were we hunt birds in SD all the roads are dirt. Not even gravel.
ReplyDeleteTwo years ago I returned with an entirely brown vehicle. It was so caked with mud I had to run it through the car wash twice to get it all off.
And what was the concentration of active farmsteads on those dirt roads? The parts of SD (Watertown/Brookings area) I am most familiar with have gravel on roads that people live along, while roads that have no one living next to are still required for farmfield access are dirt. Roads that have neither have been closed.
ReplyDeleteGood question.
ReplyDeleteI dunno.
I have a memory of miles of corn, occasional abandoned farmsteads (like right out of Steinbeck's novel)and roads with mud holes that challenged most 4WD or AWD vehicles.
I'll have to pay closer attention as there weren't many farmsteads that I saw.