ARRA Projects – More Waste?

In my travels last week, I came across the inevitable road construction that one finds every year at this time.  One thing that stood out for me was the effort that was made to ensure that you knew the project at hand was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).  Something else stood out for me about those projects, though.

ARRA Waste?

Now, I’ve mentioned before that I’m no botanist.  For today’s message, I’ll point out that I’m also no civil engineer (nor a boorish engineer, for that matter).  But as I was driving alongside a resurfacing project, I noticed what seemed to me like an awful lot of asphalt being applied – as in, nearly a foot of asphalt.  So much that it was being applied in multiple passes.

Perhaps this much asphalt is appropriate when the road is unlevel or low – but this particular stretch of highway was relatively flat, with lowered shoulders.   And the incredible layers of asphalt went on for miles and miles.  I’d just chalk it up to a strange thing if I only saw it once in my travels, but I saw three or four extended construction projects, all attributed to ARRA, that used similar amounts of layered asphalt.

Again, not an engineer here, nor am I someone who has ever built or resurfaced a road, but it seems to me like this is overkill, perhaps a way to squeeze more money out of a project that likely didn’t need to be done in the first place.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I hope someone can correct my impression.

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Jim Blankenship, CFP®, EA, is an expert in personal retirement, IRAs, and tax issues, with more than 20 years of experience in the industry.  . Read more from this author