When people find out we live in Alaska, the first question they almost always ask is, “What are the winters like?” We answer honestly: “Long, cold, and dark; lots of snow.” As you might imagine, those long, cold, and dark winters with lots of snow are hard on our roads. Alaskans sometimes describe our state as having two seasons: Winter and roadwork. In spring and summer, it’s not only the road surface that needs to be repaired, but often guard rails, and usually a whole bunch of road signs have to be replaced.
Because of the screwball way federal highway funds are handled – namely, collected, sent to Washington, rinsed through several layers of useless bureaucracy, and then a portion divvied back to the states – each state is required to submit a plan for road construction before the mighty federal Department of Transportation (DOT) will release said funding.
This year, something…
