Detroit Free Press: Roadwork stymied as state's repair funds dwindle

January 24, 2011 15:22

"When the big trucks go by, it shakes our windows," said manager Ann Ditri.

Owner Dan Krucher said Macomb County sends out road crews when the potholes spring up, as they did last week, but "within just two or three days, it's back to slamming again."

Gov. Rick Snyder, in his State of the State address last week, said help is on the way.

Snyder said the federal government has signed off on Michigan using $550 million from the Canadian government -- money Canada has offered to front Michigan its share of building a second bridge between Detroit and Windsor -- to help the state leverage perhaps $2 billion in federal funding. The money would pay Michigan's share of federal matching funds that require a 20% local match.

Road officials say the money is welcome but is, at best, a temporary patch for a big problem: Plummeting gas tax revenues mean more crumbling roads will go unrepaired.

Bad roads may double by '15

Michigan roads are in bad shape and getting worse.

Officials say the state's roads -- which had been improving before the state's economy unraveled -- are on track to deteriorate rapidly, particularly county and city streets that get less attention and funding than big, heavily traveled freeways

The state gas tax increase -- by 4 cents to 19 cents per gallon in 1997 -- helped fuel record spending on roads, allowing the Michigan Department of Transportation to get 90% of its roads in good shape by 2007.

But the benefits of the tax hike are disappearing quickly, transportation officials say. And although the extra money greatly improved the ride on freeways and major state roads such as Telegraph, Michigan, Woodward and Gratiot, local road agencies -- counties and cities responsible for more than 90% of the state's paved roads -- didn't fare as well.
Moving backward

"We've lost everything we gained," said Craig Bryson, spokesman for the Road Commission for Oakland County, the state's largest road commission based on miles of roadway. "We're back to where we were prior to the 1997 gas tax increase."

Advocates of more spending for roads paint a distressing picture of pavement crumbling faster than it can be rebuilt or repaired, reversing progress made since the 1990s.

Pavement monitoring statewide shows that the number of Michigan roads in poor condition more than doubled to 33.2% in 2004-09, according to a report by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council. The data apply only to major state highways and county and city roads eligible for federal funding, which generally do not include residential streets or lightly traveled local roads.

Without more money, conditions will only get worse. MDOT forecasts suggest the number of roads in poor shape could double by 2015.

County and city road agencies handle the vast majority of the 120,000 miles of paved road in Michigan -- all but about 10,000 miles MDOT oversees.

Gov. Rick Snyder announced last week that the state would be able to use $550 million from Canada for the Detroit River International Crossing, a proposed second bridge between Detroit and Windsor, to qualify for federal road money for unrelated road projects. That would help MDOT avoid losing $2 billion in federal funds the state is too broke to match.

New ideas needed

But none of that money would be used on city or county roads, and the onetime boost wouldn't change the reasons for the current road funding crisis -- mainly gas taxes pulling in less revenue as automotive fuel efficiency improves and Michiganders drive less in a sputtering economy.

Revenue from gas taxes -- the primary source of road repair money -- peaked at about $2 billion in 2004, and has since dropped by $200 million a year, even as costs for materials, equipment and labor rise, said Monica Ware, spokeswoman for the County Road Association of Michigan.

Local roads will bear the brunt of the decline in road funding, Ware said. Some rural outstate counties have returned to gravel asphalt roads they can't afford to maintain.

"We have an aging system that's been underfunded for generations," Ware said. "It's not that suddenly we're not spending road money wisely."

The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, the regional planning agency, estimates that the seven-county region has $2.8 billion in annual transportation needs but only $1.3 billion available.

"A long-term solution is to look at something other than a gas tax increase," said Carmine Palombo, SEMCOG's director of transportation planning. "The gas tax is providing us with less and less money every year, because our national and state policy is to consume less."

Palombo and others say they hope lawmakers seriously look at replacements for the gas tax. Possibilities include taxing drivers based on vehicle mileage, setting up toll roads, new infrastructure taxes and other measures as fuel consumption declines.

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Detroit Free Press: Roadwork stymied as state's repair funds dwindle

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