LAST WEEK’S potholes on Interstate 93 shut down Boston’s major roadway and turned already painful traffic into a commuting nightmare. The potholes were attributed in the article “Road caves and tempers rise on I-93’’ (Page A1, Aug. 5) to “years of postponed maintenance,’’ but could easily have been blamed on a crippling lack of investment. Governor Patrick and the Legislature have made strides toward fixing our transportation system by reorganizing the transportation bureaucracy and repairing hundreds of bridges. But without a long-range plan to fund maintenance and repair of both roads and transit, we will continue to experience major infrastructure failures across the state.
Last month, Our Transportation Future, a diverse coalition of organizations working for increased transportation investment in Massachusetts, released a white paper that found the failure to invest in our transportation infrastructure will negatively affect our economic competitiveness. The potholes on I-93 remind us that a failure to invest will also harm the safety and convenience of our citizens. It is critical that Massachusetts develop a transportation investment plan and provide the needed dollars to prevent future disasters.
Ann Donner
West Newton
The writer is director of Our Transportation Future.
