KCRA3 recently reported on the sorry state of Watt Avenue, noting the direct connection between the poor condition of the road's pavement and the vehicle repair costs imposed on residents and businesses who travel on badly-paved roads. This is not news to us, of course. But it IS interesting that a downtown-Sac-centric TV station is paying attention and it is helpful that KCRA3 is sharing the information out to its listeners across the region.

KCRA3's story quoted the County Transportation Department's spokesperson as saying we, "...can hopefully see crews starting around April, May, trying to fix some of the areas with pavement. They're not just fixing the potholes. These will actually be repaving the road and trying to make them a little smoother." That's nice, but brace yourself for traffic jams, people.

He also said that the County has crews that fix potholes every day, adding, "...there is a lot of ground to cover, with more than 5,200 lane miles of roadway throughout the county and only a limited number of crews." That is no small task, which makes one wonder if the County is really able to do the job. Consider:

• How did this situation come to be?
• Who decides which potholes and lane miles get priority treatment?
• Will the County ever be able to get ahead of the problems?

We realize there are plenty of anti-local-control people out there in Social Media Land who will naysay that a new city can never, ever, afford to fix its roads. Yet, we continue to notice that there are well-run new cities in our region that have made significant progress at dealing with pavement problems they inherited from the County when they incorporated. Do you agree with the naysayers? Do you think residents and businesses in other cities in the region are getting a better deal than the ones in our community?