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courageous_liquid t1_j2s2hph wrote

Reply to comment by Agent-Quinn in I discovered a lot about PA by simply not using the Turnpike. by Yinzerman1992

...oh boy, wait till you learn how unaffordable the giant network of roads in PennDOT ROW are.

Roads are expensive as fuck but nobody knows/cares because it comes out of the gas tax.

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Lawyerdogg t1_j2upbg7 wrote

It's all these welfare queens living out in the middle of nowhere. Us upstanding metropolitans have to foot the bill for all the 4 wheel drive dickheads who live on a 5 mile road with one house.

Roads aren't that expensive. The guys that bid on the work inflate their price by like 300%. They use shit quality materials and stretch everything out as much as they can. Then you have tolls, obviously not going towards roads or bridges. Taxes, wars for oil, emminent domain and subsidies all go towards keeping wages down, healthcare high and unions obsolete. There's just no more money after that to fix the roads.

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courageous_liquid t1_j2urevb wrote

Just some very minor disagreements -

>They use shit quality materials and stretch everything out as much as they can.

Partially true, the aggregate mix is typically specced out in the RFP and can't really be deviated from but the contractor will do everything they can to bend on that.

>Then you have tolls, obviously not going towards roads or bridges.

Again, partially true, turnpike tolls go to a lot of things that aren't roads or bridges (ITS projects, SEPTA until the lawsuit) but the turnpike on average does a pretty decent job at road maintenance.

>It's all these welfare queens living out in the middle of nowhere. Us upstanding metropolitans have to foot the bill for all the 4 wheel drive dickheads who live on a 5 mile road with one house.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but unironically yes, a thousand times yes. AADT of like 35 and gets repaved every 4 years vs. 100k AADTs that are basically pothole centrals. Unreal.

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MRG_1977 t1_j2uysm0 wrote

PA Turnpike is the most expensive single toll road (not crossing a bridge) in the world end to end and yes it is poorly paved compared to other toll roads in the Midwest and Northeast.

Portions of 95 that are tolled around NYC are in worse shape as well as several toll roads around Chicago. Not many others though.

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NEBook_Worm t1_j3cuzmw wrote

Because the state extorts money from the turnpike and gives it to PENNDOT.

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NEBook_Worm t1_j3cuulz wrote

Yeah, totally no one on welfare in the cities. Sure buddy.

In reality, it's the city transit systems taking money from PENNDOT and the state extorting the turnpike to get it back.

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Lawyerdogg t1_j3ddzu2 wrote

No, it's mostly republican rednecks using up all the taxes and encouraging people to be morons. Stupid people like to pay taxes.

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NEBook_Worm t1_j3ecjqj wrote

Yeah, big cities totally don't have huge welfare districts.

Oh...wait.

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