Taking Potshots at Potholes:
Public Stewardship & Public Enemy #1
An immediate gratification,
“rock-star” culture says, “you can have
it all;” so why can’t the City of Houston have sexy parks, bridges, trails,
foliage, bayou views, separate paths for bikers and runners; as well as smooth streets without
potholes?
Citizen drivers weave around on decaying streets, further burdening them as they try to live their stressful lives. A smooth ride is interrupted by a sudden jolt, unexpected and jarring. Pressure builds, heightened by the inconvenience and pain of traffic in Houston: too many people going in the same direction at the same time. I believe that minimally, our government owes us good roads, just as it says it owes its citizens equal justice under law. Don't you agree?
As my car’s under-carriage
rattles over concrete crevasses, dodging massive cracks in our pavement the size of the San Andreas Fault;
there’s no avoiding the havoc wreaked by this civic catastrophe. If you’ve ever survived the
gauntlet of Houston’s potholes in almost any neighborhood, look at the vehicle
in front of you as the road tries to eat it alive; most of our automobiles weren’t made for this kind of abuse.
Watch the violent shaking and jostling of the car’s suspension in front of you; if you see natural mechanical reactions then let me
know: it looks horrible to me.
Blogging about this problem is my humble
attempt to echo satirist Paddy Chayefsky’s famous line spoken by the outrageous
Howard Beale in Network (1976). Don't view my effort as caricature; indeed, my hopes are that at least one local elected
official, even the Honorable Mayor, would read this and know that there are
thousands of honest, taxpaying citizens of this city that are thinking the same
irate thoughts but don’t have the time, voice, or platform to yell out from
their car windows:
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this
anymore!"
(MGM, 1976)
Buffalo Bayou Park
stretches over 10 miles from Shepherd to the central business district with a wide
variety of public recreational areas on both sides of the bayou. Multiple years and millions have produced a gem for all Houstonians. I’m not anti-park or anti-public
recreation; this new area along the bayou is Houston’s answer to Central Park.
Having exercised in this area, it's clear it is a wonderful addition to our public life; however, I
also drive hundreds of miles all over Houston’s lousy streets, bouncing from
one canyon to another in the regular roadways of our city. To which person
do we cater? The commuter or the tri-athlete; the delivery truck or the strolling mommy? If the solution is not unlimited taxation; civic priorities must constantly be weighed like a personal budget: wants versus needs?
Buffalo Bayou Park Under Construction
I’m not complaining that there
are as many construction cranes and concrete trucks barreling along Houston’s
roads as any city in the country. There is inconvenience in “progress;” just as
the drought and roots of our massive live oaks buckle the ground underneath the
road beds.
This blog-post is heavy on advocacy and light on blame; potholes surpassed mosquitoes as public enemy #1 in the bayou city—the solution is not complicated: spray for pests and patch the holes in every neighborhood. If NASA can put spaceships into orbit, our elected representatives can fix the plague of potholes. One district, one street at a time!
This chastisement of public stewardship finds root in the recent wasting
of city funds on non-performing investments like red-light cameras (Civil
settlement, $12MM), or Astrodome maintenance ($1MM/annually). One repaired hole costs $20, so I'd trade a dark Astrodome for 50,000 less potholes, wouldn't you? And this pothole-burden
isn’t an isolated situation; there are other city's municipal budgets shrouded in
debt, or floundering in mismanagement whose streets engulf drivers too. On the other hand, this city is booming; there’s no reason all our gasoline taxes can’t fix the crumbling roads. It's a management problem Houston; but where is the political will to fix it? Is anyone listening?
Government at the local level is
about as basic as it gets in politics! This isn’t about Super-PACs, Hilary
Rodham-Clinton, or Meet the Press.
CNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton won’t stoop so low as to talk about potholes, because they
don’t involve race. Nevertheless, this political message carries immediate impact: the same way
my car shakes with a boom; unexpectedly careening over a gaping chasm of concrete. If Houston is a first-class, global city; it should act like it.
Mayors famously lose their
elected offices for not clearing snow or rescuing stranded citizens in a
hurricane? The key component of a city government is their Budget: it’s the
city’s business plan. Whether to
spend important budget dollars on one project over another (especially when they're both good) provides
circumstances in city government critical to quality of life in the town. Even
in a city as large as Houston, tough choices can cost elected officials their
jobs. Now is this sort of time. I’m urging our city government to drive around
the streets and realize the embarrassing condition of the roads: pocked and pitted, gaping gashes, ribbons running like giant fissures; streets grey and cratered like the Moon's surface. While running along our largest bayou is a newly constructed, pristine fitness path:
Trail under the Waugh Bridge
Unlike Howard Beale, I’m not trying
to get you to do anything. No class-action lawsuit, no riots, don’t call your favorite talk show on
AM Radio, don’t even write your Congressman. I wouldn’t know what to say to a
Congressman anyway. They answer your letters with canned forms,
computer-generated rhetoric, anyway?! If you feel led; communicate however you feel comfortable. If you hear me, forward someone a link to my blog. I’m speaking for you right now by
saying, "I'm mad as hell about these terrible Houston roads ruining my nice car!”
Scenes from the Pothole Playhouse:
(Screaming) (Citizen): “I'm not going to take this horse-pookey anymore; our city has enough money to fix the potholes; if it would just use the political capital to do so;” he adds, "I'll be the chairman of the Pothole Task Force."
(Pointing accusingly)
(Second citizen): “For once, do something practical with our money; not just what gets the fancy attention, like a pretty new Park!” “Jeez, dude. Do your job, or let someone else try…” "It's not that darn complicated."
Op-ed©2014—Mark H. Pillsbury (Houston, Texas)
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