LETTERS: If we hate the heat, why do we cover Phoenix with hot, black asphalt?

What is wrong with the Arizona Department of Transportation and the Phoenix Street Transportation Department?

Why in the world would they keep putting black asphalt, which radiates heat, on our city streets and freeways, instead of cooler concrete?

Have you ever noticed how it can be raining all over the Valley except in central Phoenix, the "heat dome?" Not to mention the evening weather reports. The "average" high temperature for a certain day continues to grow higher , as well as the average low temperature.

Who are we trying to fool when we talk about average temperatures? When I came out to Arizona State University in 1967, there was a total of three days that hit 110 degrees (and nothing higher) in June, July and August. The lows ranged from 57 to 86 degrees during those three months.

We all know it's getting hotter, but I don't think most people realize how significant the change is.

Let's get the freeways and roads back to concrete, plant way more trees all around the Valley, and have many more businesses with green roofs.

Beverly Janowitz-Price, Phoenix

We were safer drivers back then

A couple of things come to mind after reading the letter to the editor titled " Call people who speed or run red lights what they are: Killers ."

I got my drivers license in 1973 and received my first speeding ticket in 1974: 34 mph in a 25 mph zone. I was a real speed demon in those days. But the point is, I wasn't at all surprised to be stopped.

Back then, police presence was a way of life on city streets and highways. As a result, people drove much safer as there was always the threat of getting caught. It was not uncommon to be cited for not signaling a lane change or having a taillight out.

That threat doesn't exist anymore. It's a rare occurrence when you see a traffic enforcement officer, and drivers know it. With budget cuts and staffing shortages , there are probably not enough offers to fill that need.

And maybe best of all, having that level of enforcement just seemed to teach people to follow the law, whether they agreed with it or not, instead of picking and choosing which laws should apply to them.

Maybe back then we were just a bunch of dopes for doing what we were supposed to do, but the roads, and society in general, were definitely much safer.

Jim Valenziano, Chandler

Why use our water to make creamer?

We are always talking about preserving water and water conservation, but now we have Nestlé opening a factory in Glendale to make plant-based coffee creamers.

Why aren't we asking more questions about this? How much of our water will this use? Where will these creamers be shipped and sold?

It sounds like Nestlé is going to export what little water we have, and no one cares. For what? A couple hundred jobs in an area with more than four million people?

Rane Wallin, Buckeye

I see what you're doing, dollar store

After reading an on " shrinkflation ," I must note a purchase with shrinkflation plus inflation.

When a dollar store announced a price increase from $1 to $1.25 for all products two to three years ago, I bought five packs of coffee filters for $1 each with 150 per pack (33 cents per 50).

When I needed more, for $1.25 I only got 100 filters at 62.5 cents per 50. I now have one less stop to make when shopping.

Mark Petteway, Peoria

Other reasons for GOP madness

Now, at last, we have the truth about the disintegration of the Republican Party and its dive into a fictitious world of imagined threats and paranoia.

According to Phil Boas, a respected editorial writer, it's all the fault of the universities (" The GOP has now become the exact thing it hates "). This stuff is being taught there by post-modernists and post structuralists. Our universities are packed tight with them, and they learned it all from the French.

It explains everything. Reason and logic have been thrown overboard. All the fake conspiracies of voter fraud, pet eating migrants in Ohio and armies of raping, crime-loving immigrants pouring over the border have been forced on the Republican Party by foreigners.

This has nothing to do at all with rich, property-owning white people terrified of losing their traditional control over society and the levers of power, or the appallingly low levels of general education and literacy among Americans, or the right-wing controlled media like Fox News, or the spread of stupidity on the internet, where any idiot can get himself heard by millions.

Post-modernists are to blame for it all and must be destroyed. Put them on the list.

Alan Austin, Phoenix

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