Day 15: Limon

Taking my afternoon break in Limon right now. It took a while to navigate my way out of Colorado Springs; its a pretty bike friendly town, with a lot of bike trails, but they are designed for recreational riding between the various city parks and not for getting out of the city.

I stopped at Falcon, a small suburb on the NE edge of the.city to pick up some sun block and stock-up on trail food. Leaving Falcon, I made great time going on highway 24 to Limon, doing 60 miles in about 3.5 hrs.

A large portion of the highway had been repaved thanks to the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which made for a nice smooth and fast ride. But, I wonder about the economic value of this "reinvestment".

I have riden through 5 of these road projects in Colorado, they are all very well marked with a big sign at the start stating it is a Recovery and Reinvestment project and has the Governor of Colorado's name under, presumably showing he approved the project (also great for him politically). At each project I typically see 4-5 "flaggers" or sign holders/placers and 1 or 2 guys doing the actual work with heavy machinery.

The common wisdom for economic stimulus is to employ people doing infrastructure improvement. But, these projects are repaving rural country highways that are not heavily used. They aren't contributing to any value chain, do not provide much benefit, and seem to employ primarily no-skill sign holders. Great for the sign holder's employment opportunities, but I doubt the economic stimulating effect of their spending.

These projects also have great second order effects for the asphalt, heavy equipment, sign making, and trucking industries. But, why do we want support, invest in, or stimulate any of these industries?

I talked to one sign holder and he was fascinated and jealous of the traveling I am doing and have been doing, and asked what I did so I could do this. I told him; and, because he is 25 and seemed like a fit guy, I recommended he join the Army. He wasn't interested: smoking weed, drinking, and holding signs seem to be his priorities in life and the Army would interfere with that. Besides, business is good and he is getting plenty of hours as he travels all over the area holding signs for various projects, so why should he do anything else? Nothing against him and his priorities, but subsidizing his lifestyle does not seem like good public policy.

They do allow me to go slightly faster, so at least the projects have some value and aren't worthless or destructive, that is something of an accomplishment!