Tagged: roads

If you had the idea that our elected representatives in the legislature were mature, rational adults, yesterday might have cured you of the idea.  As many of us know, the state’s roads are falling apart.

Yesterday, the Transportation Asset Management Council said that less than 1/5 of Michigan Roads eligible for federal highway funding are in good shape. A third are in poor condition. The rest are in fair condition, sliding towards poor.

Roads, by the way, don’t heal themselves, especially when heavy trucks keep driving on them. Local roads, which are not eligible for federal assistance, are in far worse shape, with slightly over half in poor condition.

Even the expressways aren’t great. Sixty percent are in fair condition, 16 percent poor. Those roads, however, are most likely to be improved. The rest of the system is what we need to worry about, unless you never plan on going anywhere, or you drive a military surplus tank.

There was a lot of criticism of President Obama for devoting so much time to his health care plan during his first year and a half in office. Some felt he should have also tried to get through a massive job creation plan, or a program to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. However, he did succeed at getting what we now call “Obamacare” passed, and it is now transforming medical coverage.

Governor Snyder says he wants more than a billion dollars just this year to pay for road and bridge repairs.

Our state has seriously bad roads that lawmakers in Lansing appear to agree on.

How to pay for road repairs is a whole other story.

We’ve talked a lot on Stateside about the different options to raise the money for these repairs.

Many Republicans appear unwilling to vote for any increase in taxes.  Amidst facing a possible primary challenge, would Republicans consider voting for any possible legislation?

There have also been concerns that this funding increase would mean local governments and schools would lose upwards of $850 million in funding.

For months, Governor Snyder has been trying to get support from lawmakers, but we haven’t seen a whole lot of progress on how to increase funding.

Recently, a state House committee has begun hearings on a road funding strategy.

Chris Gautz is the capitol correspondent for Crain's Detroit Business. He sat down with us on Stateside to give us the details of the new proposal and how exactly it would work.

Listen to the full interview above.

This week in Michigan politics, Jack Lessenberry and Christina Shockley discuss funding proposals to fix Michigan’s roads, the number of lottery winners on welfare, and how a human rights ordinance is moving forward in Royal Oak.

The conservative group that pushed for Michigan to become a Right-to-Work state wants Governor Snyder to drop his call for higher taxes to pay for repairing Michigan’s roads.

The governor wants the Legislature to approve higher gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees to raise more than a billion dollars to fix Michigan’s crumbling roads.

Scott Hagerstrom is the state director of Americans for Prosperity. He says Michigan shouldn’t be raising taxes.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The drive to fix Michigan's roads is centered on winning support from lawmakers for at least $1.2 billion a year in additional taxes and fees.

But hardly any attention is being paid to how that cash should be divvied up.

Gov. Rick Snyder wants the bulk of new revenue to go to a new fund that would pass along additional dollars to road agencies. Yet few specifics about how the money would be distributed have been released since his budget was unveiled two months ago.

Governor Rick Snyder is pushing lawmakers to act soon to adopt a plan to raise more than a billion dollars in new revenue for roads and transportation projects.

He wants a revenue package ready in time to for projects to begin in the coming spring and summer construction season.

A deal does not seem to be near, but lawmakers are discussing different ideas.

The governor says that’s promising.

"Obviously, there are pros and cons to any approach. There are no perfect answers, but there are good answers that should be possible out of this," said Snyder.

The governor says he’s pleased there seems to be general agreement that roads need to be fixed - even if there’s no agreement yet on how to pay for it.

One proposal would raise the sales tax by a one cent.

That would have to approved  by voters.

That idea would have to clear the Legislature this week to appear on the ballot in May.