Prepare For the Road Cone Apocalypse

submitted by raven9 from self.corruption

Infrastructure bill means for congress to funnel trillions of dollars into the pockets of their state cronies that run the highway resurfacing crews that will dig up every road in sight to get a piece of that tax funded infrastructure pie and I guarentee at the end of it all America will STILL have most of their power lines and cable tv strung across wooden poles like something out of 1970s Europe and every time there is a bad storm tens of thousands of homes will STILL lose power because trees will bring those power lines down just like they always did because none of these people cares one iota about improving infrastructure it is all a ruse and an effort to serve the greed that is at the root of everything that happens in this country.

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[–]Retardation_station 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Traffic lights for days. Constant construction. Gridlock traffic that goes on for miles. Stop signs in the middle of nowhere. And it's the same no matter where you go.

I'm really starting to hate this country.

[–]IkeConn 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Power, cable, and phone companies maintain the poles. Local and state governments maintain the roads. Big difference.

[–]thefirststone 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

In a wet places with expanding clay soil, it's my understanding that burying power cables results in more-frequent power line damage. Not counting the higher cost. And currently a lot of the damage during, say thunderstorms is in the transformers hanging on poles, which may be able to be replaced with something better now, but it still may not be worth the cost.

Improving infrastructure is not the same as making it look like a cobblestone riviera filled with Algerians.

[–]raven9[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I lived in Europe for nearly 20 years I never experienced a single power outage during that time. When I came back to the US it was back to the same old power outages every time we have a storm just like it was before I left.

[–]thefirststone 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And I only experience outages when a hurricane directly damages the office-building-sized transformer stations, because wires on poles work fine.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Huh, I moved to a part of the US where that doesn't happen. If you're going to live in an area with hurricanes, tornadoes, and anything like that, you'll have to accept power outages.

People do hit power poles on occasion, and other glitches can happen. The thing is, no one really wants to pay 10X more for electricity that's guaranteed to never go off.

[–]raven9[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

no one really wants to pay 10X more for electricity.

In Europe the bill was about 1.5x higher but that has a lot more to do with their obsession with expensive renewable energy sources than how they run their power lines.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm sure PG&E, for example, would be willing to clear-cut forests near power lines to avoid shutdowns, but their operations are heavily restricted by people trying to be "green".

When they don't shut down power to bone dry regions with wind blowing trees into the lines, they face billions in costs when massive fires result. Instead of protecting their homes from wildfires, they expect PG&E to somehow prevent fires in the first place. But there are other sources of fires.