Editor’s Note: We welcome Letters to the Editor of local and general interest to our readers. Letters should be typed and include the writer’s first and last name, home address and phone number for verification. No anonymous letters will be printed. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and libel. Send letters via email to rc****@ne********.com , or mail them to 522-B Broadway St., King City, CA 93930.
Highway work wasting time, taxes
Here I am again trying to bring attention to how we the people of California are getting taken for our hard-earned taxes being spent by our government not watching how they are spent. I have been watching the freeway work going on south of King City. How can we let the work going on take twice as long as it should take to do the job?
Right now the contractors for the state are taking both of the inside lanes out first, which I totally disagree with for this very simple reason — they have two K-rails to protect the workers as the work is being done on the center divider, which is great, but in their next move, everything must be done on the outside shoulder, which is going to be hard with the much more less space to do the work.
This is what I suggest should have been done: put the K-rails on one side of the freeway dividing northbound and southbound lanes on the same side of the freeway.
When they did it their way, they had to saw the cement in half; no need to saw it my way, break it all out at once, do their compacting of the road bed and have a machine built to pour both lanes that need to be replaced on the side that was just removed. Bang, one side done! Now just reverse the job to the other side and be done in half the time.
Plus, all the work can be done by use of the center divider, where there is plenty of room to do the work, because when they try to do the work on the outside lanes, there is not much room on the shoulders.
Also, I believe that by making the northbound or southbound lane being poured in one piece will make it stronger and also have no cracks in it, like in the way they are doing it — a place for water to enter at time in later years of use.
The amount of savings in these approximately six to eight miles is going to be in the millions of cost-saving time. Who is watching that there can’t be an easier and cost-saving way of doing these difficult jobs that can be done in way less time, which is a saving of our tax dollars?
The way I would have it done would only take two moves, they would have three moves because they can only do one outside lane at a time.
Here again, the people are not getting their taxes being used correctly. We need to get people in our government who care about how our money is being spent.
Joey Tognetti
King City
