The problem’s not really a lack of time — at least, not yet — it’s a lack of direction.
All of us have only 12 months in a year and about a third of them are not fit for working outside.
Especially if that work concerns repairing and repaving thousands of miles of roads.
Three months ago we asked the governor what exactly his plan was for improving secondary roads aside from throwing more money at them.
But it’s just not enough for him to say he’s going to fix the roads and wave around a list of them that need repaired.
He needs to show the public a detailed plan to do that.
But what’s even more disturbing than no plan and little visible action is the lack of communication from the state Division of Highways.
This week, the Preston County Commission affirmed that observation by agreeing that the DOH has failed to share what it’s doing, if it even knows.
This year we finally joined the chorus for farming out some of the state’s roadwork to private contractors and allowing municipalities to bill the state for maintaining some roads.
We have also urged the Monongalia County Commission to declare a state of emergency over road conditions, while our support for the North Central Road Caucus and a regional legislative road caucus has never wavered.
Our newspaper has also reported on audits and analyses of numbers from the DOH that incontrovertibly prove our region was shortchanged millions in road dollars.
Yet today, with nearly half of 2019 over we’re beginning to think the results of that — the governor’s empty promises — will only turn into political promises next year.
Preston’s commissioners have urged residents to flood DOH web sites with problems — “play the game,” as they put it— and calls with complaints.
Monongalia’s commissioners vacillate between bribing the DOH to repair Chaplin Hill Road and more meetings.
Neither of those strategies appear to have much chance of inspiring the DOH to spring into action. No plan, no communication and no action hardly seems like a roadmap for an ambitious schedule of repairs and repaving.
Admittedly, every time the governor or any public official starts expounding on fixing the roads we want to believe him or her. But we don’t.
Starting with a rash of revenue measures in 2017 to pay for the Roads to Prosperity initiative and announcements this year to speed up secondary road repairs, many thought we were about to change the road we’re on.
But whenever you fail to stop and follow common-sense directions you’re going to lose your way.
Worse yet, without a major change of course now to improve road conditions, we will have wasted our time, again.
