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The State recently upped the State gas tax for the "roads and bridges" but the taxes collected have had a part allocated to pay the State police. How does that pave roads?
IMHO - the biggest problem facing New Hampshire is the willingness of our politicians to deny what the existing conditions actually are. We really need to evaluate the entire transportation system. Then we can set repair priorities based on road condition and traffic. Once we know the expected cost we can develop a program for rebuilding the highest priority roads and repairing the less important and ignoring the politically insignificant roads in the smallest towns. We will have to pay for all these repair to the State roads from the State taxes. The town roads from local taxes and pray the Federal government pays for the Interstate and Federal highways.
The State can raise road use and fuel taxes to pay for its responsibilities. The towns, particularly the very small towns in the "empty quarter" and the North Country can raise property taxes only small amount. As this is a national problem the Federal can revise the spending priorities from protecting our pet dictators in the Middle East to repairing our own highways. Like that is going to happen anytime soon.
The base problem is we have differed maintaining the roads to the point they have failed and they have become a transportation annoyance and a public safety problem. Without spending more money than proper maintenance would have cost the roads will only get rapidly worse. It is what it is.
CD - Having ridden or driven over many of NH's roads I have noticed the roads that were rebuilt. Rt 107 north of Pittsfield to Laconia is a notable example. Rt 107 south of Pittsfield is a minefield of frost heaves and potholes and has been for several years.
To add to my comment much of the money was spent on bridge repair or replacement. Painted steel bridges simply do not last very long when covered with wet salt soaked bird poop. Galvanized guardrails do better unless they are knocked down by people that do not have proper tires and do not know how to drive on slippery snow/ice covered pavement.
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