Ali Swalha

Prof. Rachel Rigolino

ENG160, Sec. 22

1 Feb. 2024

I-87, one of the major highways in the Hudson Valley.

Orange County, NY Roads Need to Improve

Living in Orange County, NY, there are a lot of problems in my town that I have to deal with, such as poor cell service and not a lot to do (especially living near Monroe), but without a doubt the biggest problem in the area is just how lacking the infrastructure is here, especially the roads. Driving around here is already made difficult by an abundance of poorly-skilled drivers making the most dangerous decisions. But what if the roads have something to do with it? I think the main question is, why are the roads in Orange County, New York just so bad?

It’s been something I have been wondering for years, watching my father get annoyed at how shoddy the roads were, listening to my friends complaining about how they almost got into an accident because of them and also just seeing how they can make drivers make dangerous decisions. Judging from what I have seen and heard from others discussing about the roads, they tend to be pretty bumpy in some areas and there are also a lot of potholes. Diving deeper into this, however, this is likely related to how the US has a significant amount of its infrastructure in poor condition. In fact, according to a White House statement from 2021, over 45,000 bridges are in very poor condition, which can be very dangerous because the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed in 2007, leading to 13 deaths.

For Major Project 1, I have a couple of sources to use and why I think they will be useful. Starting off, I have the official whitehouse.gov website, specifically on its blog post about modernizing the US infrastructure via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021, which aims to invest up to $108 billion to modernize the US infrastructure. I think this will be a very useful and reliable source for my research because all the data from that website is coming directly from the US government. The US government has all the tools necessary to collect data regarding their roads, infrastructure, demographics, etc. They do run the country after all. Another source I believe to be useful and reliable will be New York State Governor Kathy Hochul’s official website, governor.ny.gov. Like the official White House website, the Governor’s official website has all the data collected on the infrastructure, but is dedicated exclusively to New York State, and since I am researching about the state of infrastructure in Orange County, New York, the data here will be specialized for New York State.

The infrastructure here has always been a topic of conversation with politicians and among average Americans. Many of my friends, even those not from New York State but from Pennsylvania or Illinois, have also complained about just how lacking the roads and infrastructure are here in the US compared to Europe or other developed nations. I’ve always been interested in this topic, so hopefully with this research topic I’ll be able to figure out what really goes on behind the scenes of US infrastructure.