Roads

I'm thankful for roads. Yes, they blight the landscape and, if only indirectly, despoil the environment. Yes, they were spawned by the ancient imperial need to move chattel -- often in human form -- around a kingdom. Yes, they are mostly potholes come Spring. But for better or for worse, they are the veins of a nation, and I've come to embrace the connectivity they bring. They permit us to visit areas of the country to which we might not otherwise have access, They are among the first things we think of when we hear the word "infrastructure." They are unabashedly the product of collective effort, never "entrepreneurial." Despite the ease of erecting tollbooths, they resist privatization even in libertarian idylls. They can be avoided at will, and traversed with bike pedals as readily as gas pedals. And they remain where you put them, whatever else may change around them. When the elements prohibit their use, as they have recently in Buffalo, we suffer. The ambulance that fetches me when my heart finally gives out will arrive by road as will the doctor at the hospital. The hearse that carries my remains away will do the same. And the paramedic, the doctor, and the undertaker will each be able to look beneath her feet and say, "See this? Our cooperation put this here, and it connects me to you."