Only in New York, kids… only in New York. That is closing line on New York Post columnist Cindy Adams’ usual run down of the weird and famous of the Big Apple. But we might say the same of the NYC Department of Transportation’s clever method for communicating the relentless enterprise of pothole repair. The department sponsors a website called The Daily Pothole, which does what you might expect: it provides a tally of the number of potholes filled every day.

For many farmers and residents of rural areas in the U.S., it’s like a step back into time. Due to inadequate road repair funds, several states and counties across America are converting once-paved roads back to gravel. According to conditions reported in The Wall Street Journal in 2010, the price of petroleum has a lot to do with it. Asphalt is made with aggregate mixed with oil byproducts. With the soaring price of crude, the cost of maintaining and rebuilding asphalt roads has become economically prohibitive to many counties and…read more