You could be sitting at home enjoying a nice cold beer on the deck or watching your kid play soccer but you aren't because you're stuck in construction traffic again. Or you've hit a pothole, knocked your car out of alignment and have to shell out money for a mechanic again. You must be driving in Colorado.
Why is it that when you're driving through another state the roads seem more solid, you don't get stuck in construction traffic and you don't land in a bunch of potholes like you do in Colorado? Because Colorado's roads are uncommonly, and notoriously, bad.
Our population is growing; more people are commuting from the suburbs and the roads continue to degrade. The two governors before Bill Owens for nearly 25 years didn't make roads a priority and didn't plan for our transportation needs.
A recent newspaper article pointed out that I-25 would be undergoing major construction for the next seven years. Utah suffered through nearly the same process for five years. A woman commented that one accident could shut down the reduced-lane highway long enough for others to actually run out of gas. Businesses suffered "major financial losses" and some even went bankrupt. Drivers took detours and sped through residential areas tearing up streets and endangering children in what used to be quiet areas. Ambulances and police cars had difficulty maneuvering through the traffic to contend with emergencies. The question for Colorado is how do we avoid this? How do we cut down on construction traffic and ensure that Colorado's roads are of optimal quality when they're built in the first place?
Currently the way roads are built in Colorado is that the state (or county or municipality) determines that a road needs to be rebuilt. They allow contractors to submit bids to build it to the government's specifications, and generally the lowest bidder wins. What leads to Colorado's substandard roads is that the winning bidder is not responsible for the road's upkeep after it is built - the government is in charge of that. The contractors have an incentive to underbid their competitors and possibly build a road of poor quality in order to keep costs low.
What if the people in charge of roads required the contractors to include a warranty? You get a warranty with your new car. That's part of the reason you may have decided to spend a bit more and buy a car from a dealer as opposed to buying one second-hand. You do the same thing with new homes, refrigerators, washer/dryers, TVs, etc. You want the warranty in case it breaks after you buy it.
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