Motorcycles, Say Goodbye to your Scenic Roads

We went riding today and I was having a really good time enjoying the beautiful scenery all around us. Kentucky has some of the most beautiful winding country roads to ride on and I love them. But, within 50 miles we ran across three of these signs. I laughed at the sight of the first one because they were making a nice curve in a perfectly straight stretch of road and my first thought was, what a waste of money, but I do like curvy roads.

The second and third signs made me mad because here I was riding on a beautiful road and right beside it they were building what looked like a super highway and I knew what would happen to the road I was on....it will be shut down and closed off in sections which will make it unusable to me and I'll be forced to use the new straight road when it's complete. It's happened already to some of our most beautiful riding roads around here.

I'm all for giving people jobs but do we need so many new roads? Why can't the old existing roads just be repaired and repaved and where needed widened a little if necessary. Pretty soon we'll have nothing but paved roads to look at criss crossing the land. How about spending some of that money paving the gravel roads? Or building sidewalks and making bike trails?

As I made my way through the countryside I could see mounds and mounds of dirt being moved and piled high because apparently the new road is going to be about 30-40 feet higher so when you have a problem or someone runs you off the road you'll really get hurt as your vehicle tumbles down the steep embankment.

Motorcyclists are losing their scenic highways and byways each time a new super highway is built to replace the beautiful landscapes across America. Yes it gives the road departments lots of work but we also passed businesses that will suffer and go out of business as a result of moving the existing roads away from their businesses.

I was really surprised to find such a massive road being built to connect such small towns together or maybe even to get traffic over to I-75. Most of the country folk we talked to don't like, don't care and didn't want this new highway in their communities and they didn't have much say so in the matter. Their land was taken, their farms split and divided all in the name of progress. They were paid for their land whether they wanted to sell or not.

I personally like living in the country because of it's quaint little two lane roads and quiet atmosphere, and if I wanted to drive on a super highway I'd find one and drive on it. I find no lack of roads to get wherever I want to go but with all the highway construction going on you'd think we actually needed more roads. Well we don't! All I ask is that if we have to spend all these tax dollars on roads, then use it to repair & repave the old roads.