Among the the wide galaxy of public policy, infrastructure maintenance is famously unsexy, at least here in North America. Probably most other places, too, though I can imagine Cultural Revolution China intensely focusing on the Seven Paths to Glorious Infrastructure or some such, with college professors and students hustled out for months at a time to pave roads and lay pipe for projects that never quite got finished.

So most infrastructure projects proceed unnoticed, unless they happen to impede one’s routines. Early in the road construction season this year here in northern Illinois, that is, after the last of the dirty snow piles had melted, work started on a nearby road that’s more than a side street but less than a major arterial – and one that I use a lot.

Took a stroll along the street late one afternoon recently.

Near the rubble and the dislocation.

Idle heavy equipment.

Major digging is under way. From the looks of it, the project involves not so much the surface of the street – though I suspect that will be repaved as well – as replacing major underground structures.

Ones that, I hope, continue to direct surges of water away from certain places. Such as my house.