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The new oil boom in Texas has come at a steep price. Heavy trucks and industrial equipment have destroyed miles of roads. Texas’ failure to collect taxes, fueled by anti-taxation rhetoric given out by corporatist puppetmasters. To resolve this issue, the state of Texas has decided to eliminate paved roads over 80 miles of state highway.

This will reduce the top speed of these roads down to 30 miles per hour, along with increased wear and tear on vehicles. Texas automobile owners, already having one of the highest costs for auto insurance in the nation, will now be facing rate increases over and above the 13% increase they faced last year alone. . We can thank Rick Perry’s push for deregulation for much of these increased costs, as cutting corners pays off in the short term, but harms the companies long-term profits.

While it may sound like a smart solution, the truth is the construction of a gravel road is something which takes a lot more work overall. Instead of a one-time paving effort with routine maintenance, gravel roads require almost constant attention, and fall apart quickly if not maintained:

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Representatives for the state’s transportation department told the Texas Tribune that construction would begin Monday on a project that involves tearing up over 80 miles of asphalt that has been severely damaged over the years due to heavy traffic brought on by even heavier machinery. An oil boom has caused an energy industry to emerge near the state’s southwest border with Mexico, but that extra business has also brought extra traffic.

Now local roads ravaged by oil-industry trucks are far too damaged to be repaired by what resources the state has, and the solution officials saw as the most affordable involves serious downgrades.

"Since paving roads is too expensive and there is not enough funding to repave them all, our only other option to make them safer is to turn them into gravel roads," Texas Department of Transportation spokesman David Glessner told the Tribune.

TxDOT Deputy John Barton announced last month that the state agency was moving forward with the plan after efforts to secure upwards of an extra $1 billion in annual funding for repairs went unanswered.

Earlier this year the department asked for $4 billion in additional funding just to maintain roads in their current condition and another $1.6 billion to address the damage brought on by the energy sector. State legislators responded by approving $450 million towards repairing county and state-owned roads effected by the oil biz. TxDOT said it needs more than double that sum on an annual basis just to maintain and repair the roads consistently damaged by oil-industry trucks.

Additionally, those new roads won’t be able to accommodate high-speed travel and will require truck drivers to slow down their pace drastically. “Instead of whipping in at 70 miles per hour, they’ll have to move in there at 30 miles per hour,” Barton told the commission, according to the Star-Telegram.

But though the state commission entertained TxDOT’s plan before putting it into place this week, local lawmakers in the areas being affected say those calling the shots neglected to confer with community members before agreeing to dig up their roads.

State Sen. Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio) said in a statement that the agency “imposed a unilateral solution on these communities with no notice, no opportunity to seek alternative solutions, and no clear understanding of what to expect in the future.” Dimmit County, a district represented in part by Sen. Uresti, will see over 30 miles of farm-to-market roads reduced to gravel, Ian Floyd reported for the Tribune. http://rt.com/usa/texas-gravel-asphalt-txdot-748/

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Energy boom brings wear and tear to area's county, state roads

Trucks hauling tons of oil drilling equipment, water tankers and other industrial rigs are vital to the oil boom across West Texas, but can be too much for some area roads — especially unpaved ones.

The heavy traffic has prompted counties like Gaines and Dawson to spend additional money to upgrade or repair county roads

Doug Isaacs, road superintendent for Dawson County, said some of the nearly 950 miles of unpaved Dawson County roads have taken a beating or have been under-equipped to handle the extra demand.

“Sometimes the big fracking trucks get stuck in the sand (on the unpaved roads),” he said.

Nearly 1,200 loaded trucks are needed to bring just one gas well into production — the traffic equivalent to roughly 8 million cars, according to the Texas Department of Transportation’s Roads for Texas Energy Task Force. For example, Endeavor Energy has more than 4,800 wells in Dawson County, according to OGI mapping and data management services. http://lubbockonline.com/regional/2013-01-09/energy-boom-brings-wear-a
nd-tear-areas-county-state-roads#.Uhafy4nn-DY

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