Michigan’s top transportation official says the state Legislature cannot wait much longer to boost funding for roads.
Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) Director Kirk Steudle says the state’s infrastructure continues to crumble while lawmakers debate the issue. He testified Wednesday in front of a joint House committee studying the issue.
“They’re going to continue to get worse every year,” Steudle told reporters after the hearing. “So the worst part is, the longer we wait, the more it’s going to cost us to go forward.”
He says history is repeating itself.
“In (1994), ’95, people were screaming, saying we need to fix these,” said Steudle. “It got so bad that the general public said, ‘do something, raise the gas tax, do whatever – these roads are terrible.’ So we did. So we spent the next 20 years getting them into good condition, and now we’re just going to let them all deteriorate because we can’t take care of them.”
