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Comment by i_am_nomad | Hacker News Reader

And yet the Bay Area has the worst-rated road maintenance of any American metropolitan area. I still can’t understand how that happens in a region with the most billionaires per capita on Earth.

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Year round fair weather means that roads last longer without maintenance and perform better. If there were frost heaves and common storms to worry about then road maintenance would be a bigger issue, but as it is the condition of the roads matters less and so it gets less attention. The statistics are also skewed by extreme outliers like Oakland which have an unusually large number of unusually broad streets which naturally leads to an unusually large maintenance problem. Any rational person could see that, but road maintenance is not something most Americans relate to rationally.

Probably because a large percentage of those billionaires have their wealth in the form of company equity which is untaxed or taxed at the low capital gains rate.

That the most upvoted comment right now, in reply to an article about socioeconomic injustice, in a forum read by people who benefit from the status quo, is complaining about the roads not being good enough is rather telling.

While I get and agree with your point, coming from the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum you reference I must say, our roads in the Bay Area are seriously broken. Dangerous for motorcyclists and drivers the same.

I had moved away for a couple years and when I came back they were a mess.

Yes, we could put more money other places, but the roads would be a decent place to put some money to have a lasting impact.

Better public transit with expanded routes would be pretty nice too. It still blows me away that some higher city public officials make a quarter million or more.

They're suppose to be public servants yet they forget what it's like to live on the lower rungs.

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