Letter: RIDOT not telling truth about road maintenance

To the editor:

Recent newspaper accounts regarding RIDOT and its signs tend to obscure the real issue. That is, RIDOT’s failure to maintain our roads and their inability to tell us the truth. 

For instance, in about 2009-10 we were told that Sen. Reed’s office had provided $1 million to engineer the Town Center/East Main Road. About three years ago RIDOT said that the money had run out because it was used on other projects. The scheduled construction, 2011-12, is history. 

In 1975 at the Portsmouth Middle School, RIDOT treated us to a superb dog and pony show about how all of East Main Road would be rebuilt. Scores of surveyors scurried back and forth taking measurements. Politicians assured us we were next. 

The solution: With a certain bureaucratic flair of surreptitious creativity during the Almond administration 1994-1998, funds were stealthily purloined for the R.I. Turnpike And Bridge Authority to resurface East Main Road. Please ask Gov. Raimondo to drive the Portsmouth length of East Main Road to help her create a sign appropriate to the conditions of the highway. 

To the local press, please develop a reporting mechanism that provides regular updates on RIDOT’s schedule as it pertains to their previous commitments. At least government could tell us that the era of non-sequitur oxymorons is over.

Philip Driscoll

169 Immokolee Drive

Portsmouth