Robert Byrd Quotes

Whether stuck in traffic because of construction or fixing a flat tire after hitting a pothole, Michiganders feel frustrated with the quality of our roads.

One way or another, we're going to fix the roads in Michigan.

The state of some of our roads is a matter of national embarrassment.

In New York, there are so many potholes, they're like craters on the moon. That's another traffic thing.

You can go to any city in America and see roads and bridges that need to be fixed…. I would not call them unsafe … they are dangerous…. The best highway system in the world is falling apart.

When I am driving my car down the street, I try not to go down the potholes.

I ran on fixing the roads... I ran on cleaning up drinking water.

Roads are not practical in Africa.

We actually know that our crumbling pipelines, roads, and bridges are ticking time bombs. That is why President Obama and Congressional Democrats have pushed to fund jobs that repair our roads, runways, and railways - we can't have first rate American communities with third-world American infrastructure.

The road is not a problem.

When you travel across America, when you take the trains and drive on its roads, when you visit cities in the middle of the country, the dismal—even rotting—state of American infrastructure is surprising.

I've made it very clear that building, maintaining, and fixing Maryland's roads and bridges is our top transportation priority, and it is a top priority of our administration.

At some point, if you don't take care of the roads today, it's like any other maintenance issue: you're going to end up paying a lot more down the road.

Let's fix our roads, and be the state that's not paralyzed by partisanship, but works together. And create the blueprint for rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure.

You are paying for petrol, roads, tolls but what are you getting? Year after year, the roads go bad and then get repaired, but the number of potholes only keep rising.

Potholes and bumps? Welcome to the world. Every road gas them. They're there to be navigated, avoided, driven over, or through to the other side. Don't keep driving into the pothole.

I don't drive around London much. Any journey around Islington involves hundreds of speed bumps that seem to tear the bottom of your car off.

You guys in New York City can’t even get a hole in the ground fixed. And its been 5 years. Let’s be fair.

In the ordinary and low sense which we attach to the words "partisan" and "politician," a judge of the supreme court should be neither. But in the higher sense ... he is not in my judgment fitted for the position unless he is a party man, a constructive statesman ... keeping in mind his relations with his fellow statesmen in other branches of government.

It takes time to build roads. You can't just wave a magic wand.

I cannot answer your question because I am neither a Democrat or a Republican. I am a constitutional monarchy.

Among the means of advancing the public interest the occasion is a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to the great importance of establishing throughout our country the roads and canals which can best be executed under the national authority. No objects within the circle of political economy so richly repay the expense bestowed on them; there are none the utility of which is more universally ascertained and acknowledged

In 1818 I had the pleasure to congratulate the Legislature on the auspicious commencement and successful progress of the contemplated water communication between the great western and northern lakes and the Atlantic ocean, and I now have the peculiar gratification to felicitate you on their completion. On the 26th of October last, the Western Canal was in a navigable state, and vessels passed from Lake Erie to the Atlantic Ocean. In about eight years, artificial communications, near 428 miles in length, have been opened to the Hudson River from Lake Champlain by the Northern Canal; to Lake Ontario by the Oswego River and the Western Canal; and to Lake Erie and the other western lakes by the latter Canal – thus affording an extent of inland navigation unparalleled in the experience of mankind. The expense of these works and of some auxiliary, connected, and incidental operations, amounts to $9,130,373.80 …

The enhancement of the profits of agriculture, the excitement of manufacturing industry, the activity of internal trade, the benefits of lucrative traffic; the interchange of valuable commodities – the commerce of fertile, remote, and wide-spread regions, and the approximation of the most distant parts of the Union, by the facility and rapidity of communication that will result from the completion of these stupendous works, will spread the blessings of plenty and opulence to an immeasurable extent. The resources of the State are fully adequate without extraneous aid; and when we consider that every portion of the nation will feel the animating spirit and vivifying influences of these great works; that they will receive the benediction of posterity and command the approbation of the civilized world; we are required to persevere by every dictate of interest, by every sentiment of honor, by every injunction of patriotism, and by every consideration which ought to influence the councils and govern the conduct of a free, high-minded, enlightened, and magnanimous people.

Please see if it is feasible to create these roads so that they will pay for themselves.