Why do streets not get a coat of sealant like parking lots do?

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Why do I see entire parking lots get a coat of sealant, but never really see streets or highways get a large coat of sealant?

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For example: [https://youtu.be/Lmd1r0P0GWE?t=192](https://youtu.be/Lmd1r0P0GWE?t=192)

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20 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Government waste.

It’s cheaper up front and easier to give contracts to a construction company to do a shit job every 2 or 3 years than it is to pay more up front to a company to resurface a road the right way 1 time.

When you’re on annual budgets in a municipal government they’re going to choose the option that’s cheaper short term than it is to do the more expensive thing that lasts longer because they have budgets to work within. But they also have to justify their budget every year, which is the incentive to spend to that budget. And that is how the cycle of government spending —> tax increase—> more spending begins.

if you know you need to resurface a road every 2 years you can build that into your budget. If you don’t know when you’ll need to resurface the road because you had it done right and expensively, it’s harder to predict when it’ll need to be done again. Could be 5 years or 10 years or more. But that means there would be uncertainty in the governments budget and the idea of shrinking the budget and lowering taxes is unpalatable for a government.

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