Why Does the F.D.R. Drive Look Like an Unmade Bed? As you wake up tomorrow morning, take a look at your bed just after you've climbed out of it. Unless you're some kind of zen monk who doesn't move a muscle, your bed probably looks pretty roughed up at the tail end of a good night's sleep. Most likely, it'll be rumpled, the sheets will be twisted around and perhaps there will be a big pit in the pillow where your head was. Remember that image next time you drive around New York City, because that's pretty much what the Big Apple's roads look like. Even the freeways, dreamed up by oft-maligned Robert Moses to be smooth ribbons of asphalt arcing gracefully between buildings and along waterways, can be best characterized today by their faded lane markings, potholes, and warped asphalt that seems calculated to fling your vehicle from the road. What's surprising is that the city is a place filled with superlatives. It's America's most populous city. The metropolitan area is one of the most diverse cities in the country. The Big Apple certainly has more money floating around than a lot of places, even when compared with the rest of the globe. Why then does it have what are arguably some of the worst roads in the United States? It's clear that in the city that never sleeps, it can be difficult to keep up with road repairs at the rate problems spring up. According to the New York City Transportation Department, the agency is responsible for about 6,000 miles of streets, or roughly the distance to California and back. Below the road surfaces lies a warren of water mains, electrical lines and gas conduits, which the agency says is one of the densest in the nation. The department said that it fixes potholes on city and state-owned roads within the bounds of New York City, but that major projects like resurfacing and road bed work are split between the city and state departments based upon ownership. So even though the city keeps on top of pothole repairs the best it can - there's even a Tumblr page dedicated to showing how many holes city work crews have filled at any given time - the wild furrows motorists have gotten so used to are the result of roads that were built generations ago and often require more extensive work than mere surface repairs. The wide range of temperatures New York's roads are subjected to - scorching hot summers and below-freezing winters - throughout the year don't help much. Some of the problems related to temperature fluctuation and ease of repair and replacement have to do with road design, particularly on the city's highways. Adam Levine, a spokesman for the New York State Transportation Department, wrote in an e-mail that many of the city's major arteries float above surface level on viaducts, which he said accounted for nearly 25 percent of bridge deck area statewide. "Upkeep on elevated facilities is understandably more complex and expensive than on at-grade roadways," he said. Having said that, pavement conditions have been getting better in recent years, with at-grade roadway conditions better than they've been in a generation. He said that among capital projects the state is tackling were replacement of the 74-year-old Kosciuszko Bridge, which connects pieces of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, as well as significant improvement projects on the Major Deegan, Prospect and West Shore expressways. For its part, the city's Transportation Department says it has resurfaced 732 miles of roads citywide. Although the F.D.R. Drive is likely to look like an unmade bed for a while longer - seriously, I've driven on better roads in Southern Italy, where tunnels end in mountainsides and highways stand unfinished for decades because of corruption - but it looks like the city and state transportation departments are on the right track. Just try not to think about it too much when you return from a road trip to another state where roads are smooth and traffic lanes are wide and accommodating.