Asphalt

USA Today: “Fewer roads will be repaved this summer, thanks to soaring prices of oil-based asphalt.”
That’s pretty much what I expected. And it’s worse here in Calhoun County, Michigan. Forget re-paving. We don’t even get patches, except that here and there a road crew will throw some asphalt in the general direction of the potholes. I used to say that the worst roads in southern Michigan were in the two extreme corner counties: Berrien and Monroe. I used to defend other Michigan roads when out-of-state riders criticized them. Used to. My county of Calhoun is now competing heavily with Berrien and Monroe for worst place. At the rate it’s going, it will take 10 years to patch last winter’s damage. Pretty soon we could just replace some of the paved roads with gravel, like in Hall County, Nebraska. I can deal with it. I can get wider tires for my bicycle. And maybe it will help bring property values and property taxes down, too. That’s life under Bernanke’s weak dollar regime.