Potholes

There are more potholes in the street where I live in the USA than in all 1200 miles of highways, byways and backroads we drove during two weeks in Sweden during August.

It is not that Sweden is a car-centric nation. That’s the USA, a car culture where decades of government and corporate investment was in interstate highways, while mass transportation was ignored outside of a few large cities.  Sweden has both….excellent mass transportation AND roads. There are neither potholes nor patches in what seemed like 99 percent of its roads we traveled.

It is not that Sweden’s climate is kinder and gentler to roads than the weather in the USA. Sweden is a more northern country where winters are harsher and longer than in 49 of 50 states in the USA.

Rather, what I noticed is that Sweden uses asphalt as the primary ingredient for its roads, rather than the concrete slabs that pave most major highways in the USA and eventually cause a teeth-chattering ride when the sections lift, buckle and crumble.  Sweden’s roads are more seamless, and much smoother.

It could also be that the nation of Sweden makes the greater users of its roads pay a greater share of the expense for the construction and care of those roads.  It cost well over $100 to fill up my mid-size SUV in Sweden, which is two to three times  the cost for a fill-up in the USA.

What is needed more in the USA than cheap gasoline relative to most other nations in the world is a greater national commitment to improving our nation’s infrastructure, including roads, bridges and, most importantly, clean-energy powered mass transportation. Those who build and maintain this infrastructure and those who use it will both benefit.

More jobs and fewer bone-jarring, teeth-rattling roads.

JER