I happen to pay money to my city, county, state, country, and government. I expect that at least I can drive on a smooth road. Why is this sooo hard?

I live in Huntington Beach, CA. Surf City. A large tourist city, especially down by Main street. Everybody comes to HB–locals, tourists, even national surf championships. And yet, our busiest area feels like your are off-roading. Potholes, cracks, gravel, the works.

And so, yesterday, I see some road work crews (of course not in downtown, but at least in high traffic areas, areas that I travel in a lot and started to notice how the terrain and changed) and I think,

“Great, smooth roads again!”

And later in the day I’m driving over large metal plates. WHY am I driving over large metal plates? Can’t we just fix the road? It will costs us more money to put the plates down, and then go back and take them back up and then fix the road. I’ve seen streets resurfaced before. It does not take THAT much time, THAT much traffic, or THAT much more money. I have seen more and more of these plates.. and they stay for a very long time. It’s a quick fix. It’s not a lasting solution. Eventually the road gets fixed, but until then, we play the bouncy-car game. These plates are not any better than the damned potholes, except that you are going up instead of down. In some areas, it feels like a roller coaster.

If I wanted to ride a roller coaster, there are a lot of amusement parks I could go to. Just fix my roads.