http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/05/12/stimulus-at-work-sunset-strip-paved-for-the-first-time-in-75-years/The Sunset Strip is one of the most famous streets on the planet, so you might assume it has been resurfaced every now and then over the 104 years it has existed — but you would be wrong.
Thanks to federal stimulus funding, the Strip — the 12 blocks of Sunset Boulevard that traverse the city of West Hollywood — is being repaved for the first time since the mid-1930s, when the dusty dirt road first graded in 1906 was paved using poured cement.
Even before it was paved, the 1.5 mile stretch had become a prime commuter route for movie stars who lived in Beverly Hills to the west and worked at studios in Hollywood to the east. Now, seven decades after the concrete was poured, the Strip still serves as a major east-west commuter route through Los Angeles’ Westside sprawl.
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Funding for the Strip’s upgrade comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus bill — over $700 billion intended to help the country recover from the devastating effects of the Bush Recession. In addition to $47 billion allocated to infrastructure projects like repaving the Strip, funding from ARRA was has been set aside to cover for health-care costs for the unemployed, supplement income for low income workers and the unemployed and to reimburse Social Security recipients who did not receive cost of living increases because COLAs are tied to inflation, which was wiped out by the recession. Other ARRA funds are intended to bolster education, energy, homeland security and law enforcement while the country recovers from the results of decades of disastrous right-wing economic policies.
The Strip has not been resurfaced in all these years primarily because it hasn’t needed it. The original concrete surface had held up well, mostly because the ground below it is never subjected to freezing. Still, as noted, Sunset is a major commuter route — traffic is basically strapped down during morning and evening commutes — and the concrete, which has been heavily patched over the years, has been showing its age. Sidewalks were also badly in need of repair and infrastructure upgrades to traffic signals and the like were overdue.
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Not everyone is happy about these long overdue improvements, of course. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who is facing reelection and running scared that he’ll be targeted by tea baggers who hate any government spending that doesn’t suit their own selfish needs — not to mention the fact that he’s facing voters for the first time since it was revealed that he has had a predilection for prostitutes — called the project funding “wasteful pork barrel spending.” The Senate Republican leadership put the project on its hit list, sneering at it as “a free million-dollar nose job from Uncle Sam.”
For the record, the congressman who represents the Strip is Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The senators are both Democrats, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
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