According to WAJR, the User Fee was overwhelmingly defeated today. (I haven’t found it anywhere else, and the Dominion Post website (like the paper) is worthless.)

I’m disappointed, but not surprised. Local roads are a mess, but traffic is not going to improve until we’re willing to spend the money to make the desperately needed changes.

I suppose that to some this may seem trivial, but I’ve grown up here, and the changes in traffic, especially over the past decade, are incredible, and it’s all due to the fact that Morgantown is a small town that never expected the traffic associated with 30k students. Our two lane roads simply cannot accommodate the number of cars trying to move through town every day, and despite attempts to improve things, the situation gets worse every year.

University and Beechurst have to be widened, as does the Mileground. Unfortunately, the longer we put off these projects, the worse the traffic gets, and the more horrific things will be during construction. Unfortunately, with the failure of the user fee, these renovation projects remain on the back burner, while traffic continues to back up, and trips that should take two minutes stretch out to 30.

It continues to astound me that every time a levy or bond issue comes up in Morgantown, it is soundly defeated. As if we can continue to function without better roads, without a new high school, without improved emergency facilities and vehicles.

Everyone loves to bitch about the traffic, but apparently no one wants to do anything about it.