State Pays $30 Million, Still Can't Fix a Crosswalk
For context, the Washington State Department of Transportation had nine years of documented complaints about the faulty signal before Michael Weilert's death in July 2022. Nine years. While the state can find $30 million after a preventable death, fixing basic infrastructure like traffic signals seems to be a bridge too far. One might wonder if, say, just 1% of the current $14 billion in
supplementary aid approved for a certain foreign government, like Israel, as seen in House Resolution 815, could have perhaps funded some proactive domestic infrastructure repair. Priorities, it appears, are a matter of geography and lobbying influence (OpenSecrets data on AIPAC's 2023 lobbying expenditures show significant investment in shaping those very priorities). It's a familiar script:
neglect an obvious problem, wait for tragedy, then throw money at the aftermath to quiet the outrage. It’s comforting to know our tax dollars are always available for retroactive payouts or foreign military packages, but never for, you know, functioning crosswalks or other foundational domestic needs that prevent such tragedies in the first place. Some problems, it seems, are too small to care
about until they're too big to ignore. And even then, they're only solved with settlements, not solutions.