West End News: November 27

This week, the venerable 60 Minutes television news program ran a piece about the atrocious condition of America’s transportation infrastructure.  They laid out a grim story of crumbling highways, dangerous bridges and backed-up airports.  They pointed out that mass transit in the United States is decades behind the rest of the developed world.
 
The reason for this sad state of affairs was attributed to out of date tax policy along with political gridlock, resulting in the long-standing erosion of transportation funding combined with a failure to develop a cohesive plan for the future.
 
Some economists, planners and engineers also suggest that we have overbuilt our road system as a part of a society that has organized itself around the flow of automobiles for nearly 100 years now.
 
This has all come home to roost in the West End.  The U.S. Forest Service has asked for local input on which of our local forest roads are important to us and which roads are we okay with closing.
 
So far, the reaction, and I include myself in this camp, has been to keep all the local Forest Service roads open and maintained.  This is logical to those of us who use the forest roads for hauling timber, hunting, fishing, biking, wildlife viewing, riding ATVs and snowmobiles, and so on and so on.
 
The truth is that we cannot maintain the road system we have, even if we wanted to.
 
The Forest Service alone maintains 380 thousand miles of roads across the nation.  As of today, they’re facing a maintenance backlog of more than 8 billion dollars.  They only receive 20 per cent of what they need for normal annual maintenance, so the backlog is growing and growing fast.
 
If you drive the Forest Service roads here in the West End, you’ll see a lot of washboard, erosion, collapsed culverts and other un-repaired damage.
 
A couple of weeks ago, the beautiful antique steel bridge over the Temperance River on the 600 Road in Tofte closed permanently.  There are no plans to replace it because there is no funding in the pipeline. 
 
The 600 Road is important to both the timber and tourism industries.  During the summer it carries a lot of logging truck traffic and many tourists who enjoy its scenic beauty.  During the fall color season, it is a favorite destination for thousands of tourists and locals who are drawn to the world-class beauty of its maple ridges.
 
In the winter, it is an important part of the state snowmobile trail system.  Snowmobiles will still be allowed to cross the bridge, but the trail groomer will not and that portion of the popular state trail will not be groomed.
 
So, even as I join the chorus urging the Forest Service to keep all their roads open and maintained, I know my position is the equivalent to believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  Or, perhaps more to the point, it’s like believing that Congress will take some action - any action - toward a long-term vision of a better future for our country – or that we taxpayers will agree to pay for that future.
 
On lighter note, I recommend that you travel back over the hill during this holiday season.  The recent light snow was wet enough to stick to every branch, twig and needle and is now frozen tight.  It’s a Currier and Ives painting everywhere you look in the West End right now - just one more reason to be thankful for the chance to live here in the beautiful West End of Cook County.