by Neil Munro
December 1, 2008

Too many Michigan roads are worn out — especially the urban roads, and most especially those in Oakland County, which is struggling to remain the state’s most economically vibrant locality.

Michigan needs to be at its best now, not years from now. In light of what’s happening to its auto industry, the state must attract new business investment and accompanying new jobs. Crowded and crumbling roads don’t help make the sale.

Amazingly, the state’s leaders in Lansing do not have a plan in place to turn our streets and highways into an asset, instead of the liability they’ve become after decades of underfunding.

It is alarming that Governor Jennifer Granholm, despite moving up the timing of some road projects, has not presented the legislature with a proposed and uncomplicated solution it could vote on today, to put shovels in the ground tomorrow. Instead, she appointed a task force months ago that has come forth, not with an action plan, but with a lengthy list of possible solutions. In the midst of a literal crisis, we are to ponder and argue options!

Folks in Oakland County, including its road commission, strongly suggest the governor and a legislative majority agree right away to hike the tax on motor fuels. We understand it, have been paying it for generations, and it’s one of the options. The three-year, three-cent-a-gallon increase in the current 19-cent-a-gallon gas tax almost literally could put road builders on the job tomorrow, which is precisely when and where we need them.

Michigan’s Department of Transportation is so strapped for revenue it warns that without more cash immediately, it will be able to keep only the freeways consistently safe during the bad weather that has already begun!

The governor’s road task force might have ranked its possible solutions in terms of urgency, but for all practical purposes it didn’t.

So the lawmakers must.

Of course, there will be a temptation in the legislature and among the citizens to debate the various alternative plans the governor’s task force listed. Roads, and eyes, will glaze over if there’s a lengthy quarrel.

For example, another option from the task force is a percentage sales tax increase on gasoline, rather than the traditional per-gallon levy. It may be a better idea, but let’s opt for the latter, familiar approach immediately and debate the various alternatives at length while new revenue already is rolling in.

Why? The County Road Association warns us that the state will miss out on a billion dollars annually in matching federal highway money if it doesn’t increase its own contribution now.

The need should be obvious. Michigan is spending about $3.4 billion a year on roads, a number the governor’s task force concludes should be doubled. Our roads are lousy for a very simple reason: lack of money. Neighboring Illinois already spends twice as much as we do on streets and highways.

Not only should the current per-gallon levy be increased immediately, but the task force recommends that distribution of the dollars locally be based on how heavily those local roads are traveled, not simply on how many miles of them there are in a county. As it is, areas with light traffic receive road money they really don’t need, and vice versa. Now we know why everything in the “boonies” seems freshly paved while highways crumble where the people and jobs are.

Oakland County’s road commission is especially anxious to be allowed to also ask county voters to approve a local road tax, such as a vehicle registration surcharge, to raise additional money for its local roads. If a majority of the local citizens want to spend more on their streets they should be allowed to do so. That’s one of the options listed by the governor’s task force.

The county is one of the half dozen or so richest in the nation in terms of income. But you’d never know it from driving its too-often bumpy and patched highways and byways. Let Oakland, or any county, make its roads a selling point for attracting newcomers, rather than an embarrassment.

In addition to smoother pavement and more of it, we need more jobs. Too many Michigan residents are unemployed and could use the work a huge investment in the state’s roads could provide right away.

In fact, President-elect Barack Obama says his administration will be seeing “what projects already are being undertaken by state and local governments and making sure they have the funds to continue.” It sure sounds like those who get started now will be rewarded.

Unfortunately, as this was written, many lawmakers were hunting deer and it seemed as though they might not talk officially about roads, and their job-creating potential, until well into 2009. Nor does Gov. Granholm appear to be leading the road-investment, or any other, charge.

It all adds up to a road to nowhere at a time when our state needs to act responsibly and quickly to put Michigan’s road system back on the map.

Neil Munro is the retired editor of the Oakland Press in Pontiac.