LANSING – To get most state and local paved roads into good or fair condition, another $1.83 billion per year will be needed from 2012 to 2023, according to a bipartisan report from two members of the Michigan House Transportation Committee.
The study was geared toward getting 95 percent of state trunkline freeways in good or fair condition with 85 percent of state trunkline highways in similar shape. The report did not examine potential sources of funding, only the gap in how much money is needed compared to what is available under the existing transportation revenue structure.
Rep. Rick Olson (R-York Township) and Rep. Roy Schmidt (D-Grand Rapids) led the study, which comes as Governor Rick Snyder prepares to deliver a special message on infrastructure, expected in late October. Mr. Olson said he got involved with the report as a result of wanting to verify the assessment from the TF2 report in 2007 that also said more than $3 billion a year was needed to maintain the state’s existing road system. The new report called for $3.155 billion in annual spending.
“I was expecting the number to be fairly large, but I’m a fiscal conservative and was hoping not to see it this big,” he said. “I was hoping for a smaller number, but what this demonstrates is we’ve got a problem out there.”
Olson said he hoped the House report would persuade skeptics of the TF2 report, in which transportation stakeholders were largely involved, of the severity of the problem. That view was echoed by Keith Ledbetter, director of legislative affairs for the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association.
“What we have here is a couple legislators who really put their nose to the grindstone and did their own evaluation,” he said. “And after the dust settled, they agreed with the TF2. We need to more than double our investment in roads and bridges in order to have a decent, functioning system.”
Olson noted that the study looked to accomplish the goals through the lowest-cost scenario.
Olson said he is participating in Snyder’s workgroup on infrastructure, which is examining whether new revenue for roads should be proposed.
“I’ve got my opinions and whether my opinions are worth a darn is another question,” he said. “There’s a lot of ideas being tossed out and exactly what the governor will recommend, we’ll have to wait and see.”
But Olson said the revenue would have to come from a “user fee of some sort,” calling both the current gasoline tax and vehicle registration charge user fees. But he also noted that to raise all the revenue through a gasoline tax hike would require more than doubling the levy, and that’s not going to happen.
There has been some discussion of a mileage-based user fee although the trouble with that proposal is it conjures images of Big Brother with a device to measure mileage. Olson said he is exploring whether such data could be gathered without a device.
“Still looking at a lot of options, but one way or another I think we will come to some conclusion and reach that before the end of the year,” he said.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
a>>
