My plan to blog about my peaceable kingdom must defer to my annoyance at dot gov. They must be kidding me with this report. Why is the focus on revenue for road maintenance? Less traffic means less wear and tear on the road. Less traffic means there’s not so much of a need for road expansion. With costs like those decreasing, the need for revenue decreases. I’ve been trying not to obsess, but I can’t help it. Why take the encouraging news that we could be a less oil/gas dependent country with cleaner air and turn it into crap? Even the Today Show took the baited hook this morning!

(About 2 min 30 sec in)

Having nested next to a busy road where people routinely drove their vehicles right up the curb and into our wall, living with the noise and particulate poisoning, cleaning road grime from inside my home, I think the fewer miles driven are a blessing. Perhaps kids living near highways will have less asthma, attention deficit, and whatever else comes with miserable traffic. You could google innumerable articles on it, but common sense would tell us not to suck on a tailpipe unless death is the goal.

Plus, the oil and gas companies are running a bunch of “you must be a dufus” ads. “You think you don’t own a gas company? You do if you have any sort of financial investments.” In between the lines they say controversial drilling and imported (stolen?) gas will put money in your pocket. Also, are we really supposed to think the warmth created by gas pipelines that attracts caribou is a good thing? I might be convinced that some off shore drilling is needed or even that we need to open up ANWR, but you have to give me a better argument that what I’ve heard so far. Cheap gas isn’t convincing because you get what you pay for.