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

**DetroitPlanner** · February-15-14, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by ABetterDetroit

I'm shocked that Mark Schauer didn't come right out of the gate on how bad the roads are in his commercial. Everyone I run into that you have a catch up conversation with right now the condition of the roads comes up almost as fast as the winter weather. Bouncing down one of these destroyed roads in a car with a camera rolling about how the republicans won't fix them is something that everyone would relate to. Instead he rolls out the exact same talking points that didn't work last election. Its the roads IDIOT Polititions fix them! Tax the gas and diesel. Do it or we will find someone who will.

Schauer is running for governor. The current guv has had an infrastructure plan sitting there waiting for the house and senate to approve it. It is not the governor who is starving transportation. http://www.michigan.gov/documents/sn...e_367113_7.pdf

**ABetterDetroit** · February-15-14, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Schauer is running for governor. The current guv has had an infrastructure plan sitting there waiting for the house and senate to approve it. It is not the governor who is starving transportation. http://www.michigan.gov/documents/sn...e_367113_7.pdf

I am fully aware of that, but it doesn't change the fact that he hasn't accomplished his agenda on our terrible roads with his own party controlling everything.

Exactly how much FAIL to get it done do they think we will take? What's the excuse here? Oh,it is the "other" republicans, not our guy. Right. If that isn't a recipe to broom one party I don't know what is.

Just an observation, but I am getting a strong vibe that the majority of people are sick of political infighting resulting in inaction and it would be political suicide to claim that would be the problem within ONE party. Of course that point could be outside the fact that republicans are experts at commiting political suicide.

**Cliffy** · February-16-14, 10:36 AM

You don't even need to raise taxes. That pig Snyder already did it for us. Just divert that "surplus" to roads and be done with it. I don't need a .1 percent tax refund. My car is getting trashed everyday.

P.S. Its not that hard to use google. MDOT has pages on their website that breaks everything down.

**Honky Tonk** · February-16-14, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by Cliffy

You don't even need to raise taxes. That pig Snyder already did it for us. Just divert that "surplus" to roads and be done with it. I don't need a .1 percent tax refund. My car is getting trashed everyday.

P.S. Its not that hard to use google. MDOT has pages on their website that breaks everything down.

Thanx, Cliffy. Now I know what year it is AND how to use Google. This is from the "other" thread on transit and road repair. [[http://www.detroityes.com/mb/forumdi...iscuss-Detroit, I Googled it in 2014, by the way) "In '97 or so John Engler crafted a user fee on top of the 1964 tax, that fee more than doubled the amt of money collected but it didn't change the original edict that all the proceeds must be used to build and maintain roads." So. MY question's this: how much money is being collected "to build and maintain roads", and where is it going? And you're right, IF there is a surplus, and it should be allocated towards infrastructure repair. Raising taxes in a State that's loosing population daily doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

**Richard** · February-16-14, 11:06 AM

Canada is to pay up to $550 million to cover Michigan's expense on the bridge, which will then allow the state to get up to $2 billion in U.S. federal matching funds.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...85E18X20120615

There you go,just sit back and relax until the check clears.

**Honky Tonk** · February-16-14, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Richard

Canada is to pay up to $550 million to cover Michigan's expense on the bridge, which will then allow the state to get up to $2 billion in U.S. federal matching funds.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...85E18X20120615

There you go,just sit back and relax until the check clears.

Is that in CA funds????

**Richard** · February-16-14, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

Is that in CA funds????

Nope,that would be in renminbi,or Yaun.

http://www.chinability.com/renminbiconverter.htm to convert into dollars.

**Cliffy** · February-16-14, 02:56 PM

Just wait another week or so when we get our thaw this week. The roads will be even worse. Levy a 1% sales tax and just give it to infrastructure on top of .25 cents a gallon. We keep kicking the can down the road and compromising our safety. Say no to the election year rebate check bullshit and fix our roads and bridges.

**Cincinnati_Kid** · February-17-14, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Cliffy

Just wait another week or so when we get our thaw this week. The roads will be even worse. Levy a 1% sales tax and just give it to infrastructure on top of .25 cents a gallon. We keep kicking the can down the road and compromising our safety. Say no to the election year rebate check bullshit and fix our roads and bridges.

That's your boy "Snidely Whiplash" Snyder for ya. Looking for new ways to pass the buck on to seniors and low to middle class taxpayers for the sake of pleasing business and his "rich" GOP supporters. Looks like we're gonna be stuck with this guy for another 4 years, since there isn't a viable candidate out here to dethrone him.

**rb336** · February-17-14, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Cincinnati_Kid

Looks like we're gonna be stuck with this guy for another 4 years, since there isn't a viable candidate out here to dethrone him.

no, it's more like the media adore him

**Cincinnati_Kid** · February-17-14, 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by rb336

no, it's more like the media adore him

Who cares what the media thinks? They don't control things. The media is part of the problem along with him, not the solution.

**nain rouge** · February-17-14, 09:16 PM

The potholes are a side effect of sprawl. There are simply too many roads to allocate money too. No large cold weather metropolis escapes the potholes of doom you see here. An extra billion would certainly improve conditions, but the constant construction work would probably annoy drivers almost as much.

I drove to my dad's house on 12 Mile in the Warren/Madison Heights area today and it looks like they'll be closing the right lanes for repairs all summer long. Citizens in the area will again enjoy 20 minute drives to I-75 during rush hour, followed by epic traffic jams near I-696 and also 14 Mile.

Go sprawl!

**Cliffy** · February-17-14, 09:22 PM

Originally Posted by nain rouge

The potholes are a side effect of sprawl. There are simply too many roads to allocate money too. No large cold weather metropolis escapes the potholes of doom you see here. An extra billion would certainly improve conditions, but the constant construction work would probably annoy drivers almost as much.

I drove to my dad's house on 12 Mile in the Warren/Madison Heights area today and it looks like they'll be closing the right lanes for repairs all summer long. Citizens in the area will again enjoy 20 minute drives to I-75 during rush hour, followed by epic traffic jams near I-696 and also 14 Mile.

Go sprawl!

Did you not read the part of NYC having craters

**ABetterDetroit** · February-17-14, 09:54 PM

Originally Posted by Cliffy

Did you not read the part of NYC having craters

Uhh... Have you ever driven NYC streets? Shit, they have 50 times as many good side walks as Detroit has good roads. Not even close, its not whether its apples to oranges its more like flying a kite to a trip to mars.

**DetroitPlanner** · February-17-14, 11:18 PM

Originally Posted by nain rouge

The potholes are a side effect of sprawl.

You're way out on a limb with this one. Ann Arbor is quickly becoming a very dense non-sprawly City, but its roads are in terrible shape.

**EL Jimbo** · February-18-14, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

You're way out on a limb with this one. Ann Arbor is quickly becoming a very dense non-sprawly City, but its roads are in terrible shape.

It all feeds in. Sprawl requires people to travel farther distances and requires more roads to support a similarly sized population than greater density would. Ann Arbor itself has density, but the state as a whole suffers from sprawl. That means money that could be spent maintaining streets in Ann Arbor has to be split supporting sprawl in Pittsfield Township or something like that.

**iheartthed** · February-17-14, 07:03 AM

I thought about this thread as I drove out to Long Island yesterday. Some of the potholes were so bad that they brought traffic to a near stop on the LIE.

**Cliffy** · February-17-14, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I thought about this thread as I drove out to Long Island yesterday. Some of the potholes were so bad that they brought traffic to a near stop on the LIE.

Funny you mention this. I listen to a radio show out of NYC and people were mentioning how bad the potholes are in NY.

**Cliffy** · February-18-14, 10:06 PM

Please. The sprawl people need to remove themselves from this thread. Your wet dream of people living in sardine cans like in Hong Kong is not helping us.

**Hermod** · February-19-14, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by Cliffy

Please. The sprawl people need to remove themselves from this thread. Your wet dream of people living in sardine cans like in Hong Kong is not helping us.

Cliffy, don't you know that Detroit is a shithole because people want to live somewhere else [[or is it they want to live somewhere else because Detroit is a shithole)?

**erikd** · June-21-14, 04:04 AM

Originally Posted by Cliffy

Please. The sprawl people need to remove themselves from this thread. Your wet dream of people living in sardine cans like in Hong Kong is not helping us.

Nobody is saying that people need to live in tiny apartments in a cramped mega-city.

What we are pointing out is that the Metro Detroit population has been stagnant for over 40 years, but we have dramatically increased our amount of infrastructure and liabilities without any growth to pay for it.

Were we living in sardine cans in 1970 when the metro Detroit population was 4,307,403?

Of course not...

Now that we have dramatically increased the amount of roads, schools, streetlights, water and sewer lines, etc., while our population has fallen to 4,294,983, it is no surprise that our infrastructure is crumbling, and we are struggling to find a way to maintain it.

This has nothing to do with being anti-sprawl or pro-sprawl, it's just simple math.

Fewer people + more infrastructure = Higher taxes and/or crumbling infrastructure.

If my math or logic is incorrect, please point out my errors.

**Wesley Mouch** · October-20-14, 05:00 PM

Originally Posted by erikd

Nobody is saying that people need to live in tiny apartments in a cramped mega-city.

What we are pointing out is that the Metro Detroit population has been stagnant for over 40 years, but we have dramatically increased our amount of infrastructure and liabilities without any growth to pay for it.

Were we living in sardine cans in 1970 when the metro Detroit population was 4,307,403?

Of course not...

Now that we have dramatically increased the amount of roads, schools, streetlights, water and sewer lines, etc., while our population has fallen to 4,294,983, it is no surprise that our infrastructure is crumbling, and we are struggling to find a way to maintain it.

This has nothing to do with being anti-sprawl or pro-sprawl, it's just simple math.

Fewer people + more infrastructure = Higher taxes and/or crumbling infrastructure.

If my math or logic is incorrect, please point out my errors.

Nothing wrong with your math at the broadest level -- but its overly simplistic.

One major factor you've ignored is the age of the infrastructure. By building new suburbs, we've added new infrastructure that has a lot of useful life. Detroit's infrastructure has been undermaintained. Thus, the most efficient thing to do is let Detroit rot, and maintain what we have in the suburbs.

We do have serious problems with infrastructure -- but I don't see that we're much worse than any other metro overall. We all stink.

Another major factor you've ignored is debt. You can have better infrastructure if you take on debt rather than increase taxes. Thus, you can pay for your current infrastructure needs as long as your income supports your 'mortgage'.

I think we can responsibly maintain the current used infrastructure as well as any other metro with our current tax base. Whether we can rebuild Detroit's infrastructure that deteriorated because Detroit squandered it is a different question. If you're a suburban or outstate voter, you probably have a different view than the residents of Detroit whose tax money and jobs were destroyed by irresponsible management.

**ghettopalmetto** · October-20-14, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Nothing wrong with your math at the broadest level -- but its overly simplistic.

One major factor you've ignored is the age of the infrastructure. By building new suburbs, we've added new infrastructure that has a lot of useful life. Detroit's infrastructure has been undermaintained. Thus, the most efficient thing to do is let Detroit rot, and maintain what we have in the suburbs.

We do have serious problems with infrastructure -- but I don't see that we're much worse than any other metro overall. We all stink.

Another major factor you've ignored is debt. You can have better infrastructure if you take on debt rather than increase taxes. Thus, you can pay for your current infrastructure needs as long as your income supports your 'mortgage'.

I think we can responsibly maintain the current used infrastructure as well as any other metro with our current tax base. Whether we can rebuild Detroit's infrastructure that deteriorated because Detroit squandered it is a different question. If you're a suburban or outstate voter, you probably have a different view than the residents of Detroit whose tax money and jobs were destroyed by irresponsible management.

This just makes my head explode. It's categorically insane.

Why maintain the infrastructure in your cozy Wonder Bread suburb? I mean, you let it go to hell, just like Detroit did before you. Eff you, let's pave Lapeer County instead. At least new roads in Lapeer County will have "plenty of useful life".

**Gpwrangler** · November-13-14, 09:14 PM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

This just makes my head explode. It's categorically insane.

Why maintain the infrastructure in your cozy Wonder Bread suburb? I mean, you let it go to hell, just like Detroit did before you. Eff you, let's pave Lapeer County instead. At least new roads in Lapeer County will have "plenty of useful life".

Try putting in a bike lane up there and see what happens.

**Don K** · November-14-14, 12:01 AM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Thus, the most efficient thing to do is let Detroit rot, and maintain what we have in the suburbs.

Except the roads in the burbs aren't being maintained. Take a ride on Maple Rd W of
Franklin sometime. You have the new pavement at the roundabouts in West Bloomfield, but apart from that the road is a horror. Or really any of the N-S roads in Bloomfield/W Bloomfield. And the aforementioned Greenfield north of 8 mile is on the Southfield/Oak Park border, not in Detroit. These roads are all the responsibility of RCOC. Now granted RCOC put a new layer of asphalt on Walnut Lake from Franklin past Farmington this year, so that's my route to get to W Bloomfield/Commerce now [[less traffic and better road than Maple).