If you traveled all over this state, you'd see where politicians in favor with current administrations were paid with "roads to nowhere". There's a 4 lane highway on the other side of Guntersville State Park where there are no people and no electricity, for example. There are hundreds of examples in this state.
And why did little Franklin County get their 4 lane highways from Moulton-Russellville and now to Red Bay built 20 years earlier than Hwy 157 was finished from Cullman to a much larger Muscle Shoals. Did it have anything to do with Roger Bedford being the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee every other year? Could it have been with the fact that Bobby Denton was ineffective as a State Senator since 1972? You're doggone right it was.
And why did we get shortchanged in Montgomery? Weak state legislatures? Voting the wrong way in elections? You're doggone right it was.
And why did we not get the highways built that would bring in jobs. Well, we had the jobs in the 1950's and 1960's. This was an economic hotbed until too many union jobs cost companies like Reynolds profitability. And the union companies closed up. We had a chance to be an economic powerhouse and blew it.
There's no reason we're not getting our fair share of highway funds. US 43 to the state line should have been the first road built 15 years ago. Hwy 72 to Athens and a bypass to the interstate is long, long overdue. Hwy 157 was far, far too late. And the Wilson Dam Road disputed lands should have been taken by eminent domain rather than making the owners of unused, unwanted land semi-wealthy.
After all, it's just all Alabama politics at it's finest worst.