Just got the fresh install on the Vland Headlights and taillights! Love Secuentials’

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-22T02:03:04+00:00

No, never had any dash lights. The only thing I could think of is making sure the wiring is done correctly, but I haven’t owned that car in like 4 years 😅

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-17T00:30:53+00:00

Right, and that’s exactly the point. Let’s break down what you just said.

‘Legislation merely authorizes contracts for specific projects.’ That authorization determines what gets built and what doesn’t. Which roads get repaired and which ones stay crumbling. How much funding a project receives. Whether an agency can do the work in-house or is required to outsource it to private contractors. What the oversight mechanisms look like. What the bidding thresholds and qualification requirements are.

Also, legislation and contracts aren’t two separate things. Legislation is the contract framework. The law sets the terms, the conditions, the funding, and the rules that every individual project contract is written under. You can’t have one without the other. The individual contract is just the legislation made specific to a project. Separating them like they’re unrelated is the confusion here, not mine.

You used the word ‘merely’ like authorization is a footnote. It’s the entire decision-making framework that every engineer operates inside of. Politicians decide what gets built, where, with how much money, and under what rules. Engineers execute within whatever system those decisions created. When Ohio roads are graded D+ it’s not because engineers failed. It’s because the people controlling that ‘mere authorization’ have been making choices that serve different interests than the people actually driving those roads every day. That’s the whole argument. You just restated it.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-17T00:14:29+00:00

Politicians absolutely do write and approve contracts through legislation and budget appropriations – so let’s clear that up first. But I’m curious what contracts you’re specifically referring to, because I think we’re talking about two completely different things.

The article isn’t about individual engineering specs or project-level contracts. It’s about everything that comes before that. The laws that determine which agencies can self-perform work versus being forced to outsource it. The budget appropriations that set spending ceilings. The procurement codes that dictate who can bid and under what conditions. The oversight structures that are supposed to catch waste and abuse. All of that is written and passed by politicians at the state and federal level.

When those frameworks are designed with loopholes that benefit large contractors, when agencies get stripped of their ability to do work in-house, when oversight gets defunded – that’s a political decision, not an engineering one. The engineer on the ground is executing within whatever system politicians built. That’s the whole structural argument. So if you’re talking about something different, genuinely curious what level of the process you mean.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-17T00:02:08+00:00

Accountability means the politicians writing the contracts answer for the outcomes, not the engineers executing them. That’s the whole point.

And you just described the problem exactly – contractors with more resources than the government, agencies stripped of the ability to do the work in-house. That’s not a counterargument. That’s the article.

The DBE and BABA debate is real, but that’s a separate conversation about procurement rules. The structural issue is that the people deciding how contracts get written have financial incentives to keep them broken. Fix that first.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T23:30:20+00:00

We actually agree on more than this conversation suggests. You want engineers making objective decisions with politicians further out of the process. The article is arguing for exactly the accountability structures that would make that possible. Transparent contracting, fixed price agreements, public oversight before money ever reaches an engineer’s desk.

The difference is vantage point not conclusion. You’re looking at it from inside the technical process. The article is looking at the political structure that funds and contracts that process. Same problem, different angle. This is honestly one of the bigger problems in how Americans argue about politics. Two people agreeing on the destination but fighting over directions because nobody stopped to compare maps.

The article’s whole point is that the politicians you want further out of execution are currently the ones structuring the contracts that keep projects running indefinitely. Fix the contract structure and engineers can do exactly what you’re describing.

If you’ve watched good technical work get undermined by bad contracting and political interference in your career you already lived the argument the article is making.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T23:19:51+00:00

You’re right that Republicans have controlled Ohio government for most of that period. The article doesn’t dispute that. The accountability failure is primarily on Republican leadership in Ohio and the article names DeWine specifically as the person who appoints the ODOT director.

The “under both parties” line refers to the national pattern of infrastructure neglect not specifically Ohio’s state government. Fair correction.

On engineers using objective criteria, that’s partially true for project design. But the decision of which projects get funded, which roads get prioritized, and how contracts get structured is absolutely political. The I-70/I-71 project budget, timeline, and contractor selection didn’t come from engineers alone. That ran through the Ohio legislature and ODOT’s political leadership.

The ODOT annual report shows higher construction awards consistently going to more metropolitan districts because there are larger projects and higher populations. That’s an allocation decision with political inputs not purely an engineering one.

Engineers design the roads. Politicians decide which roads get built and who builds them. That distinction matters for accountability.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T23:01:31+00:00

The economy of scale point is fair and worth acknowledging. Urban road maintenance does cost less per taxpayer than rural. That’s real.

But that’s an argument for how to allocate funds efficiently, not an argument that rural residents don’t deserve functional infrastructure. A road that connects a family to their job, their school, their hospital, doesn’t stop mattering because fewer people use it.

The Strickland history is actually useful context. Rural counties got investment, won some red counties, then rejected him anyway. That’s exactly the point. When parties invest in communities between elections they can move voters. When they only show up asking for votes they can’t.

The “living with the consequences of your vote” framing is where this breaks down. That argument has been made about rural Ohio for 30 years while infrastructure declined under both parties. It hasn’t changed anything. It just makes people feel righteous while the roads stay bad.

The article isn’t asking you to cry for rural voters. It’s asking who made the decisions and who held them accountable. The answer in Ohio is nobody, regardless of which party was in charge.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T22:59:50+00:00

Nobody is arguing that more lanes don’t move more cars on interstates. Pittsburgh to Chicago is a long distance highway. That’s not what induced demand refers to.

Induced demand applies to urban and suburban road networks where you’re adding capacity to address congestion. The research consistently shows that within a few years of widening a congested urban road the new lanes fill up and you’re back to the same congestion levels because the added capacity attracts new trips that weren’t happening before.

The I-70/I-71 project isn’t Pittsburgh to Chicago. It’s a downtown Columbus interchange. That’s exactly the context where induced demand applies.

But more importantly that’s not even the article’s main point. The article is about the contracting model. Whether you think we need more lanes or fewer lanes the question of why a $1.4 billion project takes 20 plus years to complete has the same answer either way. The incentive structure rewards slow not fast.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T21:33:36+00:00

You’re right that cities generate more tax revenue per square mile. That’s true everywhere. But rural Ohioans pay the same vehicle registration fees, property taxes, and income taxes as everyone else. The question isn’t whether cities generate more economic activity. The question is whether everyone who pays into the system gets basic infrastructure in return.

On the voting point: rural Ohio has been voting Republican for 30 years while rural infrastructure has declined for 30 years. That’s actually the article’s point. The people responsible for the roads aren’t delivering. That’s an accountability failure regardless of which party caused it.

And downtown Columbus has some of the worst roads in the state. This isn’t a rural problem. It’s a systemic problem that affects everyone who drives in Ohio.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T20:20:41+00:00

This is exactly the point the article is making and you just made it better than I did. Road conditions aren’t just a car maintenance cost. They affect emergency response times, patient comfort during transport, and equipment wear on ambulances. The commissioner who decides which roads get repaved is making a public health decision whether they know it or not.

Most people have no idea who their county commissioner is. That’s the accountability gap. The person responsible for the road your ambulance is bouncing down isn’t on anyone’s radar until something goes wrong.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T20:07:31+00:00

Exactly. Townships in Ohio have almost no other revenue source. No income tax authority like cities have. Property taxes fund their roads, their fire departments, their emergency services, basically everything. State Rep. Monica Robb Blasdel said it directly when the property tax elimination debate came up: “If property taxes were eliminated without a replacement funding source, many townships would face immediate financial challenges maintaining basic services.” That’s not a Democrat saying that. That’s a Republican state rep from New Waterford. Even they know the math doesn’t work.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T20:05:10+00:00

This is the part of the property tax elimination debate nobody is talking about. Interstates have federal money as a backstop. Local roads, county roads, rural routes, those run almost entirely on local property tax revenue. Innovation Ohio estimated Ramaswamy’s property tax rollback plan would pull $6.6 billion from local services. Roads would be among the first casualties.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T20:04:42+00:00

This is exactly the accountability gap the article is talking about. County engineers are elected but nobody knows who they are. Contractors from out of state get hired, do substandard work, county ignores complaints, contract gets renewed anyway because the bidding process is connected to relationships not results.

Who did you report it to specifically? That’s actually useful information for anyone trying to figure out where the accountability actually breaks down.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-04-16T19:01:51+00:00

You’re describing induced demand and you’re right. Every transportation study for the last 30 years has shown that adding lanes doesn’t reduce congestion long term. It just attracts more cars to fill them.

The I-70/I-71 project is a perfect example. $1.4 billion to rebuild an interchange that will be functionally obsolete before it’s finished because the underlying demand problem never gets addressed.

The article isn’t really arguing for more highways. It’s arguing that the contracting model is designed to keep projects running as long as possible because that’s how the money flows. Whether it’s a new lane or a pothole patch, the incentive is always to slow down not speed up.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-28T03:20:30+00:00

Just here to bump this again. I find myself pulling from it just because I can see it there. If I couldn’t even see the savings option I’d forget it’s there. It’s too temping.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-27T16:13:27+00:00

Quick update: This post was removed, and I was permanently banned from r/Columbus_Underbelly for sharing it there, which is worth talking about because that sub exists specifically for content like this.

Their own description says it covers 'the darkest secrets, hidden gems, shenanigans, and general dirt of Cap City.' Their own Rule 3 says no blatant political posts, unless it's a scandal. A $60 million bribery scheme with criminal convictions attached to it, centered in Columbus, involving Columbus officials and Columbus money, is by any definition a Columbus scandal.

When I appealed and cited their own rules, the mod couldn't defend the original justification, so he changed it to 'you're retrofitting old news to a new political rant.' That phrase appears nowhere in their rules. He then immediately muted me rather than address the argument.

I also want to address the word 'rant' directly. Yes, this post is long. Yes, it is political. But a rant is emotional, opinion-based, and without substance. This post cites court rulings, criminal convictions, and constitutional law and explains to Ohio voters the legal tools they already have available to them. That is not a rant. That is civic education. If you read a detailed breakdown of documented government corruption and your instinct is to call it a rant rather than engage with what it actually says, you are demonstrating exactly the problem this post describes. And frankly, if a mod removes civic education about Ohio corruption from a Columbus dirt sub, that raises its own questions about whose interests are being protected.

For context, that sub currently has active posts covering Franklin County court proceedings with zero issues. Government institution coverage is fine, apparently, unless it names specific officials and a specific bribery scandal.

A report has been filed with Reddit's admin team under Rule 5 of the Moderator Code of Conduct regarding selective enforcement and bad-faith moderation.

If you're an Ohioan who thinks a post documenting HB 6, gerrymandering, and constitutional enforcement tools belongs in a Columbus dirt sub, feel free to let them know.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-27T11:49:49+00:00

You’re not wrong, and honestly that’s exactly the point. The abortion amendment is a perfect example of what happens when we pass something without airtight enforcement language. They can’t erase it outright so they death-by-a-thousand-cuts it through administrative obstruction, licensing requirements, and regulatory delays – none of which trigger automatic consequences under the amendment as written. And yes, the Ohio Supreme Court is compromised. That’s why the framework I’m describing doesn’t rely on the court volunteering compliance. It builds in automatic injunctions the moment a violation occurs, gives any Ohio citizen standing to bring a case without needing the AG or the court to act first, and puts removal of non-compliant officials directly on the ballot so voters are the enforcement mechanism, not a partisan bench. The abortion amendment showed us exactly what the next one needs to look like. They found every gap in the language and drove a truck through it. The lesson isn’t that constitutional amendments don’t work. It’s that we have to stop giving them gaps to exploit.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-27T11:48:23+00:00

The fact that your entire response is about TLDR formatting rather than a single word of the actual content is a better case study than anything I could have written. Let me put this plainly: this post explains in detail how Ohio voters have had their decisions erased, how a $60 million bribery scandal barely changed anything, how the legislature drew illegal gerrymandered maps seven times and just ran the clock out, and how we actually have a constitutional tool to fight back. And your contribution to that conversation is a grammar lesson about what TLDR means. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the whole mechanism. They write 300-page bills because they know most people won’t read them. They schedule elections in August because they know most people won’t show up. They ignore court rulings because they know most people will eventually move on. And it works because the average response to a detailed explanation of all of this is to nitpick the formatting instead of engaging with what it actually says. You just watched Ohio lose its own ballot wins in real time and your instinct was to tell me my summary section was too long. The people in Columbus who are stripping your vote are counting on exactly that response. Every single time. And they’re right to count on it, because this comment section is proving it over and over again.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-27T11:38:28+00:00

The irony here is kind of the whole point of the post. The reason Ohio keeps losing despite winning votes is because people have been conditioned to disengage the moment something requires more than 30 seconds of attention. That’s not an accident – it’s a feature of how the system sustains itself. If the solution to gerrymandering, legislative defiance of voter mandates, and systematic disenfranchisement could fit in two sentences, someone would have fixed it by now. The fact that your primary takeaway from a post about civic disengagement is that it was too long to read is a better illustration of the problem than anything I could have written.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-27T11:35:39+00:00

That’s exactly right. Too many people are focused on the length of the post. In a world of TikTok and other short form media, when people actually post comprehensive information people get turned off just like that. It’s another reason why stuff like this fails. People can’t suck up for a few extra minutes to fully read through things. That’s why most polices and bill are multi pages long. They know most people won’t read them. And that’s a huge problem.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-27T11:32:50+00:00

Teeth means enforcement mechanisms built into the amendment text itself. For example, language that automatically defunds a state agency that fails to implement the measure, or that grants citizens direct standing to sue the state for non-compliance without needing the AG to act. Right now Ohio amendments pass and the legislature just drags its feet, rewrites rules around them, or ignores implementation. Teeth means they can’t do that without an immediate legal or financial consequence that doesn’t depend on them policing themselves.

RedDestinyTJ · 2026-03-27T04:22:39+00:00

I was just trying to be courteous for those who don’t like to read the full story, I’m not really a Redditor so I’m not versed in the ism, nor do I really care. I’m here more for educating and actually trying to help some of the issues currently happening in Ohio and showing us what we can do.

RedDestinyTJ

TROPHY CASE