As I drove down a road detour past the orange cones in the city the other day, I thought about that question and about my past experiences.
 
I thought about what it was like when my past company built a pipe plant in Venezuela. I drove down roads there
that had not been kept up. I drove past sidewalks that were broken up and not repaired. In the small town I was working in, we had weekly electrical blackouts due to the infrastructure not having been kept up.
 
Then I thought about the time I was doing some work in India. I remember watching women in their Saris using hand picks and shovels helping to rebuild local roads in their village because the community did not have the money or the equipment to fix their roads in any other way.
 
I remembered visiting Puerto Rico and walking down the roads there. The electrical grid system had not been kept up properly there. And in the last while after their last hurricane, their power system went down over most of the island, and due to disrepair, is a major problem for them to get back up and
running again. I thought about what it would be like to not have electricity for months at a time.
 
I recalled walking down the roads of a town in Mexico where the roads were old and in disrepair. I remember how dirty and ill-kept the area was there.
 
So as I thought about the orange cones, I remembered seeing how the Utah Department of Transportation took off the top layer of the road and repaved it a month ago on 800 North. I have watched as University Parkway has been
widened and is being rebuilt for the UVX line. I have watched as the city has put tar slurry over many residential neighborhood roads this summer to keep them up. I have seen where the city has performed utility infrastructure
work beneath the roads on 8th East and on 4th North. And I have watched Rocky Mountain Power perform utility work in the city.
 
I am thankful for the great benefits we have as a community of good infrastructure in the way of roads, sewers, water pipelines, storm water drainage, electrical grids, telecommunications, and natural gas lines to serve our community and give us a high quality of life.
 
I know that we mostly take all of this infrastructure for granted. But it really comes home to me how blessed we are as a community to have such a luxury as a high quality of infrastructure there to serve us. When I turn on the water
it is there, when I use the bathroom it works, when I drive down the roads I can get where I want to go, and when I turn on the lights the electricity works.
 
So no, I don't look at the orange cones as an inconvenience but rather with thankfulness that our city and the other utilities continue to reinvest and repair and build up the infrastructure that keeps our city running and makes our life possible with great services.

Mayor Brunst