Last week I was heading out on one of my usual cycling routes only to find the pavement end abruptly with a greeting of “Loose Gravel” from an orange sign. The road past Richardson Millpond was gravelized, with pavement replaced by sticky wet rocks which trashed my bike. It was impassible on a road bike, so I turned around and haven’t gone back there since. I hope VDOT is just repaving that section, but now I’m not so sure.
Is the deterioration of our nation’s road system yet another hole in the dike of government failures? Michigan’s transportation department is now giving up on road maintenance and turning many of its rural roads into gravel. Is this happening in Virginia? It sure seems like it.
A road over the dam on Jolly Pond was closed by VDOT since it decided the repairs were too costly. A few weeks ago following a storm, another cycling route of mine was blocked with orange barriers for several days because downed trees were not removed quickly enough. The ancient bridge over the Chickahominy on Route 5 was often closed until it was finally replaced late last year (it was a 60 mile detour).
There are plenty of rural roads in the counties surrounding Williamsburg that are in desperate need of repaving. Occasionally, a road crew will come out and put down a patch, which often crumbles faster than the older pavement around it and only makes things worse. There are bike lanes that I cannot ride in because the potholes are so bad. Most of these rural roads are probably going on decades since they were last paved, which was probably also the first time they were paved. Ironically, some of the worst sections (including the new gravelized section) are only within a few miles of a VDOT maintenance station in Croaker. All the people and tools required to fix the crumbling roads are at hand, but it took them well over a year just to fix a giant lane-consuming pothole right at the station’s entrance. I would go into the oncoming lane just to avoid it.
Supposedly, Virginia is getting $810 million in stimulus funds for transportation improvements, and it is also the last to request such funds. While I don’t really agree that dumping money on everything is the best answer to aid a struggling economy, the roads in this state could really use some help. The state had better put it to use wisely and start repaving before another Grand Canyon consumes a car on I-64.
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