Let's talk about how the roads around here are PISS POOR, and an embarassment.

[Kevgoblu]

New infrastructure is paid by new users. If a developer builds a subdivision in some random exurban township, the developer and homebuyers are paying the costs of utilities, water, roads and the like.

You basically can't buy in a new subdivision without separate bill for associated infrastructure, at least for the first few years.

So, no, the roads in Redford Township aren't crappy because they're building new roads in Milford Township or wherever.

Really? How much is that Oakland County I75 expansion supposed to cost. It's projected to be about $1B. That B stands for Billion!!!!!! Imagine how much road repair could be done with that money if the region still utilized the footprint from 1970.

[Bham1982]

Really? How much is that Oakland County I75 expansion supposed to cost. It's projected to be about $1B. That B stands for Billion!!!!!! Imagine how much road repair could be done with that money if the region still utilized the footprint from 1970.

I-75 isn't new infrastructure, obviously.

$1 billion is not a large sum when it comes to maintaining the most important route in Michigan, and the repairs have nothing to do with whether there's new sprawl.

And the improvements are only happening in older communities. It doesn't even reach M-59 [[which is already sprawl from 40 years ago).

[masterblaster]

New infrastructure is paid by new users. If a developer builds a subdivision in some random exurban township, the developer and homebuyers are paying the costs of utilities, water, roads and the like.

You basically can't buy in a new subdivision without separate bill for associated infrastructure, at least for the first few years.

So, no, the roads in Redford Township aren't crappy because they're building new roads in Milford Township or wherever.

We have the same population as we had in 1970 to MAINTAIN maybe 50% more road infrastructure. For instance, 9 Mile Road and 10 Mile Roads through South Lyon/Lyon Township were probably 2-lane gravel roads in 1970 and the cost of maintaining/replacing those roads didn't cost nearly as much as they do now.

We have less people per square mile to pay for the maintenance of all of these roads

[313WX]

We have the same population as we had in 1970 to MAINTAIN maybe 50% more road infrastructure. For instance, 9 Mile Road and 10 Mile Roads through South Lyon/Lyon Township were probably 2-lane gravel roads in 1970 and the cost of maintaining/replacing those roads didn't cost nearly as much as they do now.

We have less people per square mile to pay for the maintenance of all of these roads

In 1970:

*I-275 did not exist

*M-59 was a much smaller road [[outside of Pontiac and Rochester)

*Telegraph was a much smaller road outside of Wayne County

*I-696 was only partially completed

*M-5 did not exist

BTW, in Macomb County, a satellite image I found shows that the contiguous development in 1984 stopped north of 16 mile. While there was some sporadic development up around M-59 at that time, a lot of it was still farm land.

[erikd]

New infrastructure is paid by new users. If a developer builds a subdivision in some random exurban township, the developer and homebuyers are paying the costs of utilities, water, roads and the like.

You basically can't buy in a new subdivision without separate bill for associated infrastructure, at least for the first few years.

So, no, the roads in Redford Township aren't crappy because they're building new roads in Milford Township or wherever.

The developers and homebuyers of these new developments are paying for SOME of the initial construction costs of the additional infrastructure, not all of it.

However, the initial construction of the expanded infrastructure is only part of the overall cost. After the additional new infrastructure is built, there is just that much more infrastructure to maintain and pay for. This would be ok if there was an increase in population to pay for it, but that hasn't been the case in metro Detroit for the last 50 years.

The overall deterioration of the infrastructure in metro Detroit is due to a number of factors. However, the rampant expansion of infrastructure, in the face of declining population, is one of the primary reasons [[if not THE primary reason) for the current situation.

[bust]

New infrastructure is paid by new users. If a developer builds a subdivision in some random exurban township, the developer and homebuyers are paying the costs of utilities, water, roads and the like.

You basically can't buy in a new subdivision without separate bill for associated infrastructure, at least for the first few years.

So, no, the roads in Redford Township aren't crappy because they're building new roads in Milford Township or wherever.

Take a step back and look at the big picture. You're not seeing it with a clear perspective.

True: Bloomfield Township residents have only themselves to blame for failing to properly maintain their local roads. At least so long as Bloomfield Township isn't suffering from dwindling property values and population loss.

But besides local roads there are county roads, state roads, and federal roads. Your subdivision doesn't pay for the upkeep of those. There's a complex system of funding. Whatever taxes were temporarily assessed to partially defray infrastructure costs related to the construction of your subdivision represented only a drop in the bucket, if they contributed anything at all to those roads. They rarely do.

Just look at Mound Road, where problems have gotten so much attention recently. It was the Michigan Department of Transportation that failed to keep up the repairs. A temporary fix is finally coming, and only 10% of its cost will come from local budgets.

Every county, state, or federal dollar spent building, expanding, or repairing a far suburban or exurban road is one less dollar available to maintain the roads that pre-dated the sprawl. County, state, and federal governments have finite resources, of course. Less and less, lately.

Meanwhile, when population migrates from Redford Township to new homes in Milford Township the local taxes they pay leave with them. New roads are built in Milford. Redford's roads remain. Old, now overbuilt, and with less tax revenue to pay for them, Redford's roads deteriorate. It's that simple. Local tax revenue is a zero-sum game.

But let's not just look at roads. Sprawl negatively impacts all infrastructure. It impacts schools, libraries, police departments, fire departments, emergency care, parks, streetlights, snow and trash removal, and all other city services that rely on local taxes too.

And it's not limited to the local level.

As the water system expands, water pressure has to increase to service the fringe ends of the system, straining the aging network closer to the plant. As the power grid expands there is more and more power loss along the transmission lines. It strains gas lines. It strains sewers. It strains transit service. It impacts the whole region.

It's not limited to public services and utilities either.

It strains phone service, cable tv, and internet service too.

It's expensive infrastructure to build in the first place. And as their footprints expand their complexity and potential points of failure multiply. The ability to maintain, improve, and repair them stretches thin.

Everyone in these systems foots the bill. Even those who live close where infrastructure isn't expanding and who are not driving up the costs.

If revenue doesn't keep up with expenses you get the disrepair that exists today, with those dealing with the oldest infrastructure suffering the worst consequences. Even though they're not responsible for the additional costs.

How ironic it is when people in places like Lake Orion, Bruce Township, Macomb Township, etc. complain they won't support a transit initiative because they say there isn't enough in it for their distant, sparsely populated communities. The roads they drive to get to the city, their power, water, internet, and the rest of their utilities [[to the extent to which they exist) are subsidized by everyone else. And it would be much less expensive to serve them if they didn't live so far.

No one in Detroit, Dearborn, Ferndale, or Eastpointe will benefit from MDOT's $60M reconstruction of Hall Rd. And it wouldn't be necessary if so much sprawl hadn't recently occurred around there. There'd be that much more money to invest somewhere else.

Stretch of crumbling Mound Road to be resurfaced this summer as temporary fix
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20180221/news/653501/stretch-of-crumbling-mound-road-to-be-resurfaced-this-summer-as

Get ready! $60M Hall Road reconstruction starts in March
https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...comb/97938346/

[Hornwrecker]

I'm not sure if this has been posted in this thread before, so here's a SEMCOG map showing the ratings of all major roads in their area, with a look back to the condition a decade ago:

http://maps.semcog.org/PavementCondition/

[softailrider]

Take a step back and look at the big picture. You're not seeing it with a clear perspective.

True: Bloomfield Township residents have only themselves to blame for failing to properly maintain their local roads. At least so long as Bloomfield Township isn't suffering from dwindling property values and population loss.

But besides local roads there are county roads, state roads, and federal roads. Your subdivision doesn't pay for the upkeep of those. There's a complex system of funding. Whatever taxes were temporarily assessed to partially defray infrastructure costs related to the construction of your subdivision represented only a drop in the bucket, if they contributed anything at all to those roads. They rarely do.

Just look at Mound Road, where problems have gotten so much attention recently. It was the Michigan Department of Transportation that failed to keep up the repairs. A temporary fix is finally coming, and only 10% of its cost will come from local budgets.

Every county, state, or federal dollar spent building, expanding, or repairing a far suburban or exurban road is one less dollar available to maintain the roads that pre-dated the sprawl. County, state, and federal governments have finite resources, of course. Less and less, lately.

Meanwhile, when population migrates from Redford Township to new homes in Milford Township the local taxes they pay leave with them. New roads are built in Milford. Redford's roads remain. Old, now overbuilt, and with less tax revenue to pay for them, Redford's roads deteriorate. It's that simple. Local tax revenue is a zero-sum game.

But let's not just look at roads. Sprawl negatively impacts all infrastructure. It impacts schools, libraries, police departments, fire departments, emergency care, parks, streetlights, snow and trash removal, and all other city services that rely on local taxes too.

And it's not limited to the local level.

As the water system expands, water pressure has to increase to service the fringe ends of the system, straining the aging network closer to the plant. As the power grid expands there is more and more power loss along the transmission lines. It strains gas lines. It strains sewers. It strains transit service. It impacts the whole region.

It's not limited to public services and utilities either.

It strains phone service, cable tv, and internet service too.

It's expensive infrastructure to build in the first place. And as their footprints expand their complexity and potential points of failure multiply. The ability to maintain, improve, and repair them stretches thin.

Everyone in these systems foots the bill. Even those who live close where infrastructure isn't expanding and who are not driving up the costs.

If revenue doesn't keep up with expenses you get the disrepair that exists today, with those dealing with the oldest infrastructure suffering the worst consequences. Even though they're not responsible for the additional costs.

How ironic it is when people in places like Lake Orion, Bruce Township, Macomb Township, etc. complain they won't support a transit initiative because they say there isn't enough in it for their distant, sparsely populated communities. The roads they drive to get to the city, their power, water, internet, and the rest of their utilities [[to the extent to which they exist) are subsidized by everyone else. And it would be much less expensive to serve them if they didn't live so far.

No one in Detroit, Dearborn, Ferndale, or Eastpointe will benefit from MDOT's $60M reconstruction of Hall Rd. And it wouldn't be necessary if so much sprawl hadn't recently occurred around there. There'd be that much more money to invest somewhere else.

Stretch of crumbling Mound Road to be resurfaced this summer as temporary fix
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20180221/news/653501/stretch-of-crumbling-mound-road-to-be-resurfaced-this-summer-as

Get ready! $60M Hall Road reconstruction starts in March
https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...comb/97938346/

I’ll stop at your first sentence. To me the big picture is we’re being fleeced by the road building industry, but I’m sure it goes way deeper then that.

[sirrealone]

I’ll stop at your first sentence. To me the big picture is we’re being fleeced by the road building industry, but I’m sure it goes way deeper then that.

So many base their theories on the assumption that Michigan builds roads to lesser standards than surrounding states. That is not the case. MDOT and agencies like the RCOC have shown time and again that they their specifications are in line with roads built in surrounding states. So why do our roads fall apart before theirs? The answer is not the quality of construction, it's about preventative maintenance. That concept is actually something most residents aren't familiar with, because it doesn't get done here.

When does a road in Michigan get repaired? Easy answer, right? When it starts falling apart. That's the way we do it here and the way we've always done it, but it's the wrong way. Because by that time, it's basically too late. The road is already shot. We put a layer of asphalt on a crumbling road and it certainly comes out nice and smooth, but as we all know, that starts falling apart within a couple of years. Why? Because the overlay was applied to a road surface that was already falling apart, and putting a layer of asphalt over it does nothing to stop that from continuing.

What's the right answer then? Putting that overlay on before the road actually starts to fall apart. People here would be so confused if that happened. They'd ask, why are they putting an asphalt overlay on a road that still appears to be in perfectly good shape? Some would probably go so far as to call it wasteful. But, it's not wasteful. It's the way it should be done.

If we start putting asphalt overlays on a road prior to it starting to fall apart, both the underlying road and the overlay will last longer. That in turn will support more overlays, thereby extending the useful life of the road. In the end, a road that is handled this way can last 40-50 years, where the way we handle it sees roads rendered useless after 20-25 years [[or less).

So why aren't we doing this? Because the roads haven't been properly funded. MDOT and local agencies spend to fix the crumbling roads, and by the time that money is gone, there's nothing left for preventative maintenance. Ohio will spend $2.4b on road construction this year. A huge chunk of that will go toward preventative maintenance.

So many here in Michigan think that there's some magic formula where we should be able to spend less but have our roads last longer. It doesn't work that way. If we want roads like Ohio, we have to spend like Ohio does. If we spend like Ohio does, eventually our roads will be in good shape. There's no shortcut, folks.

[ABetterDetroit]

Pathetic problem solving. "First lets fire the inspectors..Next all the auditors...It will save taxpayers money!"

http://maps.semcog.org/PavementCondition/

[Richard]

I’ll stop at your first sentence. To me the big picture is we’re being fleeced by the road building industry, but I’m sure it goes way deeper then that.

I had an acquaintance that was an estimator for a highway construction company,it was not uncommon to submit estimates that were 35,000 pages long,then in the middle of every government project they stop and say it was underbid and get double of the original bid.

If I had ever tried that I would have been out the door on my rear.

The numbers they come up with is insane.

[Jakewayj]

In Duggan's State of the City speech he stated he is committing $90 million to fixing roads in the city this by 2019