Local opinion: Why I dread repair work on Tucson's streets

Roads in Tucson are in deplorable condition, the result of decades of deferred maintenance and bad governance.

In turn, this is the result of a political monopoly in the City of Tucson and surrounding Pima County, a monopoly that keeps being re-elected, regardless of the embarrassing conditions and awful socioeconomic problems that it has wrought.

So, why do I dread seeing roadwork being done? Because the workmanship is usually shoddy.

The same for work done along shoulders by Tucson Water, Southwest Gas, and Comcast.

Tucson should adopt the motto: We excel at shoddiness.

Typically, the work sites aren’t cleaned up after the work is completed. Barricades, safety pylons, blinking warning lights, sandbags, piles of dirt, and other debris are left on the roadside or in the brush. And when a vehicle hits a barricade or pylon, as invariably happens, no one picks up the broken pieces.

Well, that’s not entirely true. My wife and I will do so on the four miles of road that we keep clean of litter and trash on our daily walks. Whenever roadwork is done on the stretch, we know that we’ll be picking up debris from the work for months.

A case in point is work currently being done by Comcast along Kolb, north of Sunrise, within sight of our house.

We heard a loud bang in the middle of the night and awoke to find that someone had driven into a safety pylon that had a blinking light on top, one of about twenty of them lining the street.

We picked up the shards and batteries from the warning light, knowing that no one else would and that there will be many more broken pylons in the coming weeks.

A driver would have to be pretty buzzed not to see a row of pylons and warning lights. Judging by how many liquor and beer bottles are thrown on the roadside and picked up by Kim and me, the odds are pretty good that he was indeed buzzed.

It’s also highly likely that he was traveling well above the speed limit of 35 mph. Because there is no speed enforcement on the stretch — or in the entire metropolis for that matter — speeds of 50 mph are not uncommon.

There are no sidewalks along the stretch, even though the road passes by an elementary school, and even though scores of pedestrians and cyclists walk and ride along it each day.

Meanwhile, the monopolists who run metro Tucson can’t figure out why the metropolis is a leader in pedestrians being run over.

If you think that I’m exaggerating the danger, consider what has happened over the years in close proximity to the broken pylon.

Several years ago, a motorcyclist ran into a car and was killed. A couple of years ago, a car flew off the road, went down an embankment, hit a large boulder in a wash, and burst into flames. This year, a car crossed the road, went over a curb, and plowed through brush, where it came to stop and had to be towed.

A few years ago, a block up the street, another car crossed the road, jumped the curve, and knocked over a 30-foot saguaro. And a couple of blocks farther up the street, a car crumpled 35 feet of guardrail and went down an embankment.

Again, the speed limit is 35 mph.

A different but nearby road is in terrible shape and has needed repaving for over a decade. I’m speaking of Sunrise between Kolb and Sabino Canyon. It is the gateway to the Sabino Canyon recreation area and national park. The busy road is traveled by tourists, and many pedestrians, including schoolchildren, walk along the shoulder, because there are no sidewalks.

And then there’s the unsightly dirt pile that the county left along the stretch after doing some work on a wash about a year ago.

Just another example of Tucson living up to its motto of We excel at shoddiness.