Archive: Opinions

Talk about stimulus money and you have to ask why isn't more of it going into infrastructure like roads?  That would provide jobs in New York State, and... well... roads.  Talk about oil and you are probably grousing about the cost of gasoline, which is nearly three dollars per gallon at the time of this writing.  And talk about travel and you are probably going to conclude there are no straight lines in New York State.

Try driving from Ithaca to Boston, for example.  First you drive eastish.  Then you go south.  Then you go north.  Then you go east.  Then you loop around Albany until you are going south until you can take a left to Massachusetts.  Or you can go somewhat east, then north, then east, then the Albany loop, south, and take that left.  By contrast the part of the trip that goes through Massachusetts is a straight line: you go east.  Then you're there.

Or go from Binghamton to Buffalo.  You go west in a curvey loop, then you go northish until you can go north so you can hang a left to go west.  Ithaca to Syracuse?  East, north, west, north.  Ithaca to New york City: east, south - east loopy thingie, southish, loop, loop east, south, southeast, through a tunnel and you're there (except for at least an hour of traffic once you're on Manhattan Island).

That proverbial flying crow must think we're crazy.

Wouldn't it have been a good use of stimulus money to think through the routes people take in their cars and try to carve out roads that make sense?  That would provide jobs and save gas by shortening routes.  Sure, someone put those lakes inconveniently in the way.  We're always going to have to go south so we can loop north (or go the long way by driving north to loop south) to get from Lansing to Trumansburg.  But it seems to me that a little thinking inside the box could have made the box more usable when they were throwing around all that stimulus money.

Just a thought.

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