FOR FRUSTRATED motorists, the hundreds of millions of dollars in highway money flooding into the Bay State this summer stimulates more than the construction economy: Fury rises like a thermometer on a hot day when an expected five-minute jaunt to the market turns into a half hour on steaming asphalt.
Motorists are right to be furious, and to blame state officials - mainly those past officials who directed money to the badly mismanaged Big Dig while allowing other roads to go without maintenance. Now drivers have to endure thousands of hours of backups for nothing - just to get the same old roads repaired.
There are things the state should do now to minimize congestion. Delays have been exacerbated by contractors whose work spills over the appointed construction times. Instead of just reprimands, officials should use all levers, including docking payments, to ensure that work doesn’t continue during peak travel hours. In addition, the state should require that all its agencies communicate with each other so that alternate routes are always available during hours of construction. For example, the work on the Tobin Bridge and I-93 are under different managers; though the managers say they talk to each other, both north-south routes are sometimes blocked at the same times. Talking apparently isn’t enough. The state should require that work be staggered to minimize delays.
Managing transportation is notoriously unpredictable, and drivers should exercise patience whenever possible. But managers must realize that there are real and serious costs to road delays, from tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity to family events that are missed and vacations that begin and end in clouds of misery. Both Governor Patrick and President Obama have rightly maintained that the state and nation’s infrastructure is suffering from three decades of neglect; some emerging countries have better highways, trains, and airports. But the mark of improvement is not orange signs warning of delays for patchwork repairs. It’s a transportation system that smoothly and efficiently meets the needs of travelers.
