are we t-t-there y-y-yet?

The roads in New England, and the Boston area in particular, tend to suck. I'm not talking about the fact that they appear to have been laid out by drunken squirrels fighting over who gets the last cheez-it (the subject of a whole different screed on its own); I'm talking about the general quality of the roads themselves.

I suppose a lot of it is just due to the weather. Between the frigid winter and the broiling summers (see seasons, (n) quaint weather cycles, indigenous to New England, couldn't live without them), all those extreme thermal cycles take their toll (right along with the greedy turnpike bastards). But it can't all be due to the weather; at least some of it is due to abuse and neglect..between the ruts, potholes, manholes, scars of old sewer-line work, and the patchwork of asphalt on asphalt that attempts to cover it all up, the roads around here are kind of a mess.

I was driving to work the other day with my morning egg & cheese bagel in one hand and the steering wheel in the other. Leaving the bagel shop in Belmont center, the road is so torn up that I almost got bounced into oncoming traffic in the other lane. Note to local authorities: surface streets should not endanger the lives of the taxpayers who use them. Lesson learned: put down the damn bagel and grip the wheel with both hands. Tightly.

I recently had to dump $725 into the front end of my 2000 Jeep Cherokee. Front differential replaced, a bolt that holds the front wheel assembly in position replaced (was broken clean off), new brakes after less than 15,000 miles, and some other miscellaneous odds and ends. Think about it...this is a car that was designed to go off road. You've seen the Jeep adds, right? The ones where they drive a Jeep right up the side of a mountain? This car is only four years old. It has only 50,000 miles on it. Despite being designed to handle the wilderness, it has never left the asphalt. Yet it needed a major overhaul because it's already been completely torn up by the wretched streets of Belmont and Cambridge. My tax dollars at work, right there.

To the credit of the esteemed town of Belmont, they do at least make an effort. I was driving home a few weeks ago when I suddenly realized something really really wrong with a particular stretch of road I travel every day. It was...smooth. My teeth and bones weren't being rattled as if I were strapped to a paint shaker. The town had paved a quarter-mile stretch of road just around the corner from where I live. Now whenever I reach that stretch of road I actually get nervous...it gets all quiet, like in the movies right before the killer jumps out of the shadows and hacks the unsuspecting Jeep owner into little pieces. And then puts down his chainsaw and finishes his box of cheez-its.

So that's a quarter mile down and about a hundred miles to go...hooray for small victories. Let's get cracking guys.