This afternoon I drove the stretch of highway between Squaw Valley and Truckee.

Did I hear right, next year this highway , the main artery between Truckee and Lake Tahoe is going to be choked off yet again? Drive that stretch yourselves. OK, the shoulders are in rough shape, the shoulders. But does that roadway look like itand#8217;s even close to needing another disruptive repaving? What is Caltrans trying to pull here with this flagrant waste of almost $9 million of taxpayer money? Itand#8217;s obscene.

That money would do so much more good if allocated to something useful. Nine million dollars? How many teachers and programs could that money fund for the local schools, you know, an investment in the human infrastructure? Or, how about hiring a couple more bus drivers and a heck of a lot more fuel to run our wanting mass transportation system, which doesnand#8217;t even run into the evening hours, much less late night, year-round?

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Or, since the rationale provided for this repaving was bicycle safety, use the money to build a real bike path, like the one between Tahoe City and Squaw? Sorry, but repaving the shoulders isnand#8217;t going to make cyclists any safer from the maniacs hurtling down the highway at 60 miles per hour while doing whatever it is that they do while driving that distracts them. But this kind of highway policy isnand#8217;t really about safe and efficient transportation in the first place, is it?

Maybe those big electronic roadway signs, installed and rarely used in the summer, to remind us to report drunken drivers, (gee, why didnand#8217;t we think of that?) should just flash the message to all visitors and residents, while we sit in needless traffic jams from June until October: and#8220;NOT WELCOME, GO HOME!and#8221;

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Bob Casales

Carnelian Bay