Who Built This Road?

Who paid for and built the roads and bridges you drive on every day? 

Former President Obama (sadder words were never spoken) was widely criticized by the right when he said “You didn’t build that,” to make the point that we all benefit from government infrastructure, research, education, protection, and so on.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business – you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

Mitt Romney and others gave Obama a lot of grief for that now catch phrase.  But I am here to testify and to thank Obama and many others for having gone before me and built all kinds of things I benefit from today.  Like roads and bridges.

I met the guy last week whose job title is “Monterey County Director of Maintenance for Roads and Bridges.”  He and several of the other staff from the county’s Division of Public Works came out to our rural neighborhood to listen to our concerns and share what they planned to do about the county road, which has taken quite a beating this year.  We had a huge wildland fire this summer, and then this winter’s record rains and creek runoff have clogged culverts with burned debris and burn scar sediment, washing out huge chunks of pavement and forcing periodic road closures.

The people in our canyon neighborhood have a reputation for being a bit rough.  I call some of them “hippie rednecks.”  We’re not crazy about outsiders and are very self-sufficient.  At the end of the meeting the county staff said they’d been a little nervous coming down here, and they appreciated our support and cooperation.  I like to say “we are rough  - and ready,” meaning we are a can-do group who don’t just call and complain, but go out in the middle of the night and clean culverts, and pull neighbors out of flooded ruts.

Rocky CreekBut we eager to know when the section of road washed out at Rocky Creek might be fixed, so people wouldn’t have to walk across the temporary pedestrian bridge over the rushing creek to get to the car they’ve parked on the other side, carrying groceries and their kids.  Mercifully my house is on the “civilization’ side of this washout, but I do have to navigate other narrowed roads and potholes and rushing creeks to get to town. 

So there’s been all kinds of cool road equipment down here, chugging away during the day, and some they just leave along the side of the road overnight.  I drive by this backhoe every day and it is strangely reassuring.  I remember when my kids were little how much they loved tractors and dump trucks.  When we lived in the suburbs we’d spend hours at the park playing in the sand box with little backhoes or just a bucket and shovel.  It also seemed that whenever we took a walk along a creek the kids would make little dams and bridges along the way. Is there an engineering phase that kids go through like the anal and oral stage, the pushing-earth-around stage?

Some kids never grow out of this phase.  Thank God for that, otherwise we wouldn’t have people like the county road staff.  Our neighbor Norman, who is a private road contractor, was probably such a road builder kid as well.  He has so many different tractors and backhoes and dump trucks and earth movers on his property that our kids used it as a theme park when they were little – “Let’s walk up to Normans and climb on the tractors!”  (Here’s our son Owen on such an excursion.)

Since we and most of our neighbors live on dirt roads, Norman is a busy man, especially this wet winter, clearing rock and mud slides, opening up culverts blocked by debris or sediment, putting in new culverts.  Before the rains came he used that same equipment to carry fire debris from people’s burned home, metal, cars, down to the paved county road and put it in the huge dumpsters that were there for months after the big summer wildfire.  Norman has pulled me and countless others out of ditches.  He takes his big old truck to town and brings back load after load of gravel to put on our goopy muddy roads.

I guess you would call this a “private-public” partnership.  We pay our taxes and are appreciative that the county is down here doing emergency work this winter and that they will rebuild sections of the road this summer.  We go out in the middle of storms and make sure the water is running off the road into ditches, not making ruts down the middle.  We take up a collection for Norman to work on our private dirt roads.  And we are reassured to see Norman and the county bridge and road guy consulting on what’s the best solution to the Rocky Creek mess.

I didn’t build this county road, Palo Colorado Road.  It began as a path along the creek formed by the native Ohlone people, maybe following deer paths.  Then it was a logging road as the area was practically clear cut of redwoods a century ago.  When we first came here in the 1970’s it was paved for only three miles in from the coast highway, and then it was just gravel for the five miles to the National Forest.  That stretch is now paved, but currently the last section of it is closed indefinitely, the country says, because of fire and flood damage. What will the Boy Scouts do this summer when they can’t get to their camp at end of the road?  I saw the Boy Scout director talking with the road and bridge guy also.

Who built the road?  All of them and all of us, we all build it together, and we have to keep building, maintaining, repairing, rerouting, cooperating, reminding the country supervisors that the Public Works folks need more money, offering to bring our neighbors food from town, and saying thanks to all who have built and will build.  

Copyright © 2017 Deborah Streeter