How good are American roads?

> Interestingly, in all cases urban roads are worse quality than rural roads, presumably because they see higher traffic than rural roads.

There's more infrastructure under urban roads. Crews come in to fix some utility, shred a section of a lane, patch it poorly with dissimilar materials, and leave.

This happens CONSTANTLY in Atlanta. They'll spend a bunch of money fixing a road, then a month later Public Works digs a huge hole and leaves a steel plate on it for a year, then patch it with either concrete that is an inch or two below the rest of the surface, or they don't pack the earth they put back and in 3 months the patch has sunk into a new pothole in a brand new road. The city has been trying to force public works to go do those things BEFORE road projects, but it's an uphill battle.

This happens in other countries too. Some people theorize that it's done because of internal rivalries between dependencies/political factions, but I suspect local governments are just inept at logistics.

>>This happens in other countries too.

This is everyday life in India. A big budget is sanctioned to build a road. Road gets built, then a month or two later, some body forgets they didn't do the sanitary/sewage pipes well enough and manholes are now overflowing, they tear down the whole road and then just leave it as is.

The process restarts again in two years or so. Here is the rub- The guy who builds it at the first place knows all this so builds it as cheaply as they can get away with.

Its just how corruption works, and money flow from tax payers to politically well connected contractors(often the politicians themselves, as the contractors are just shell companies owned by contractors). Even if the company is black listed a new one can always be floated next time.

>>I suspect local governments are just inept at logistics.

No they are just corrupt. Its easy money. No audits, no accountability and no questions of any kind.