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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Lobby your local departments of transportation please (EDIT: really, please please please).

Iowa is coming around to letting underutilized roads return to gravel as a cost savings measure [1]; expect other government bodies to follow suit.

[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/7/6/iowa-dot-chief-...

EDIT 2: If you've already gotten this far in my comment, do take the 2-3 minutes reading the above citation/link; its eye-opening.

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One of my fathers friend's used to drive a grader on the Stuart Highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Highway), from Adelaide to Darwin in Australia, through the desert. 1700 miles through some pretty inhospitable country, in stifling heat (pre AC days, too, I believe this was late 60s, early 70s). He'd get to the other end, have five days off, and drive back.

I simply can't imagine that.

I met a man who was a long-haul trucker on the Eyre Highway, across the Nullarbor. Sounded bad, but the Stuart Highway looks worse!

There's a show on Netflix called Outback Truckers that shows some of these remote roads. It's amazing the work it takes to get basic supplies to some of the remote outposts.

Dirt/gravel roads still require maintenance, though. From the article, it almost sounded like he was saying that they would just stop doing anything to those roads.

For example, I've come across dirt roads with potholes deep enough that you really needed a vehicle with a raised under-carriage (e.g. pickup, SUV, etc) to not risk damaging your car while driving it. This wasn't way out in the boonies anywhere either. It was only a couple of miles past the DSL service area, and at an intersection that had a subdivision that was just built on one corner[1].

[1] This was probably a decade ago. I'm pretty sure that area has broadband, etc nowadays.

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