The Governor’s Nightmare Road
An editorial critique of the state's failure to maintain a fifteen-mile stretch of road between Richland and Benton City.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
We are wondering what Governor Lister is going to tell the people of Kennewick when he comes tomorrow morning. It may be that the governor will elect to tell the people something of the state’s good roads program. In fact this is a subject upon which the governor likes to dwell, but anything that he might say here of the program that has been followed under his administration would be neutralized by the fifteen miles of 'nightmare' between Richland and Benton City which has turned hundreds of tourists away from Benton County over other routes of travel. Nineteen thousand dollars were used in building a grade, $8,000 more disappeared for engineering and extras and recently a contract was let for surfacing less than three miles, while the other 12 miles of rutted sand is left to the playfulness of the desert zephyrs. This is an example of the present administration’s interpretation of the 'pay as you go' plan of road building. You pay, but you don’t go unless you walk and leave the automobile behind.
“You pay, but you don’t go unless you walk and leave the automobile behind.”
Long before the modern highway system, Benton County residents were already fighting the same battles over infrastructure funding and government accountability. The 'nightmare' stretch of rutted sand described here mirrors modern regional frustrations with transportation planning and the equitable distribution of road tax dollars.
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