Tom Says: “There’s got to be something better…”
Sometimes I wish I was a whole lot younger, a whole lot smarter with a whole lot more energy — because if I could combine all three I would come up with an invention that is simply crying out to be invented.
If you’ve driven anywhere in the Maritimes, you know exactly what I’m about to talk about.
At the very least you’ve lost a hub cap, blown a tire, ruined a rim, knocked your car completely out of alignment or all of the above and maybe even more. Asphalt just doesn’t cut it, cement is not the answer so where are all our smart inventors?
The other day I happened to drive on Rothesay Avenue, one of the busier streets in Saint John and it’s a joke.
The city and the province of New Brunswick spent a couple of million dollars to have the road completely re-done. When I say completely re-done I mean completely re-done, everything. The old black top was shaved off and it seems like they dug down ten or twelve feet putting in new sewers and new material and we were told Rothesay Avenue would be good for the next twenty years.
Were the kidding us?
The new Rothesay Avenue is just like the old Rothesay Avenue and I’ll bet you can point to one or two examples in the community in which you live where the roads this spring are just a disaster. Forget pot holes, most of them are too big to be pot holes, I’m calling them “road craters.” It is virtually impossible, at least on the roads that I drive on and that includes provincially funded four-lane highways to avoid them.
I’m not smart enough to tell you what works, but we all know what doesn’t. Asphalt and cement.
Surely, some young man or woman with some type of scientific brain can ensconce themselves in a lab some place and come up with a road surface that once it’s put down will remain relatively smooth and “road crater” free year after year.
Just think of the money to be made and saved with this new invention.
Let’s get to work.
I’m Tom Young.