Michigan cuts 243 road projects.

[kraig]

January 28, 2010http://detnews.com/article/20100128/METRO05/1280459Michigan cuts 243 road projects

KAREN BOUFFARD
Detroit News Lansing Bureau Lansing -- Michigan drivers will have to navigate bumpier roads in the next five years after the Michigan State Transportation Commission this morning slashed 243 road and bridge projects from the Michigan Department of Transportation's 2010-14 road program.
The commission was forced to cut the projects due to continued declines in state gas tax revenues and the state's inability to match federal dollars beginning in 2011.
The cuts were based on a one-year forecast that predicts road revenues of $1.16 billion in 2011, if the federal money is secured, down from $1.8 billion this year. Road revenue could be less than $639 million if Michigan can't come up with the match for available federal transportation dollars, according to MDOT spokesman Bill Shreck.
"Right now, without new revenue, it will be the smaller program," Shreck said.
The Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association immediately called for more investment in roads, which have suffered as gas taxes, which replenish the state Transportation Fund, have plummeted during the poor economy.
"The forecasts that have been laid out in the approved MDOT five-year program is the tragedy we've been talking about here in Michigan that should force elected officials to wake up to the needs of our transportation infrastructure," said Mike Nystrom, the group's vice president of government and public relations.
Construction projects on Interstates 96, 94, 75 and other Metro Detroit commuter routes are among hundreds to be cut or delayed by the state.
The 243 canceled projects include work on 128 bridges and 105 roads, and scuttling plans for eight new roads and two expansion projects.
Rep. Pam Byrnes, D-Chelsea, chair of the House Transportation Committee, and Rep. Richard Ball, R-Laingsburg, this week introduced a bipartisan package of bills that would restructure Michigan's motor fuel taxes to increase revenue.
The plan would increase the user fees on gas from 19 cents to 23 cents, and on diesel from 15 cents to 21 cents immediately. Taxes would be increased by an equal amount in 2013, taking both fuels to 27 cents per gallon. When fully implemented, the increases would raise as much as $480 million annually for roads, allowing Michigan to get its maximum amount of federal dollars.
Metro Detroit projects placed on hold include reconstruction of I-96 from Middle Belt to Telegraph and Newburgh to Middle Belt; reconstruction of Fort from Sibley to Goddard; widening of Telegraph from Vreeland to West Road; and resurfacing of major portions of I-94 in Macomb County. It would also mean not replacing 27 bridges.
kbouffard@detnews.com">kbouffard@detnews.com [[517) 371-3660
© Copyright 2010 The Detroit News. All rights reserved.

[Detroitnerd]

You see? Roads pay for themselves! That's why we don't need any money-sucking projects like heavy rail, light rail or anything else like that! Everything's fine! The roads are taking care of themselves! It is, essentially, 1963 forever!

[[THE ABOVE MAY HAVE BEEN AS MUCH AS 90 PERCENT SATIRE)

[DetroitPlanner]

You see? Roads pay for themselves! That's why we don't need any money-sucking projects like heavy rail, light rail or anything else like that! Everything's fine! The roads are taking care of themselves! It is, essentially, 1963 forever!

[[THE ABOVE MAY HAVE BEEN AS MUCH AS 90 PERCENT SATIRE)

Just remember, that most of the funding for transit and non-motorized is going to be impacted to the same degree that funding for roads is being impacted. The overwhemling majority of funding for all of this are the Highway Trust Funds. This is a canary in the coal mine.

[Detroitnerd]

Just remember, that most of the funding for transit and non-motorized is going to be impacted to the same degree that funding for roads is being impacted. The overwhemling majority of funding for all of this are the Highway Trust Funds. This is a canary in the coal mine.

So, you're saying that if I want mass transit, I should be unhappy that the myth of "roads paying for themselves" is just that? Ppffftt.

Now, if it means we don't get saddled with BRT, so much the better...

[DetroitPlanner]

So, you're saying that if I want mass transit, I should be unhappy that the myth of "roads paying for themselves" is just that? Ppffftt.

Now, if it means we don't get saddled with BRT, so much the better...

No I am saying that the cuts that are associated with road projects are also associated with the dollars available of alternative modes.

[Detroitnerd]

No I am saying that the cuts that are associated with road projects are also associated with the dollars available of alternative modes.

Until we can change the state constitution, anyway ...

[Quonset Hut]

No I am saying that the cuts that are associated with road projects are also associated with the dollars available of alternative modes.

If I read it right aren't these cuts because we don't have the dollars to match the Federal Highway Trust Funds available? So it would follow that Michigan doesn't have the funds to do the match for non-highway construction transportation projects either?

Somehow this discussion got sidetracked to the highway, bad - train, good squabble. Plus a visit down heartbreak lane for those who yearn for the sound of ancient streetcars screeching around turns. So did I read the issue wrong, or is it those who got into the same old shite arguement where no one is listening anyway?

[Hermod]

You see? Roads pay for themselves! That's why we don't need any money-sucking projects like heavy rail, light rail or anything else like that! Everything's fine! The roads are taking care of themselves! It is, essentially, 1963 forever!

[[THE ABOVE MAY HAVE BEEN AS MUCH AS 90 PERCENT SATIRE)

What part of "fuel taxes paid by drivers of cars and trucks pay for highways" is so difficult to comprehend?

Freight rail pays for itself [[where it doesn't, it gets abandoned).

Passenger rail is a sinkhole for money that only in rare instances will pay for itself "out of the fare box".

[Detroitnerd]

What part of "fuel taxes paid by drivers of cars and trucks pay for highways" is so difficult to comprehend?

Nothing! It's great! The system is working! Just look at the surpluses we're running!

[Hermod]

Nothing! It's great! The system is working! Just look at the surpluses we're running!

The fact that "need" and "wants" exceed resources is not a matter of the system not working. If we "need" more money for roads, highways, and bridges, raise the per gallon fuel tax on the drivers that use roads, highways, and bridges. The system is there, the overall users of the system pay the overall cost of the system. The more you use the roads, the more you pay in fuel taxes.

The highway system is one of the few gummint things paid for by what amounts to "user fees".

[Detroitnerd]

The fact that "need" and "wants" exceed resources is not a matter of the system not working. If we "need" more money for roads, highways, and bridges, raise the per gallon fuel tax on the drivers that use roads, highways, and bridges. The system is there, the overall users of the system pay the overall cost of the system. The more you use the roads, the more you pay in fuel taxes.

The highway system is one of the few gummint things paid for by what amounts to "user fees".

Or you can call them "taxes" -- which is what they are, right? And then you can "raise" the "taxes" to pay for the roads. The alternative is to let some roads become pockmarked and hard to drive, which, I suppose, doesn't mean the system doesn't work, it just produces roads of poor quality.

But, in fairness, there's another thing going on here as well. Not only is the tax not going up, but people are driving much less, and driving smaller cars, which means buying fewer gallons of gasoline. So it's sort of a double-whammy.

[Todd_Scott]

The system is there, the overall users of the system pay the overall cost of the system. The more you use the roads, the more you pay in fuel taxes.

The highway system is one of the few gummint things paid for by what amounts to "user fees".

Road users do not pay the overall cost of the system. According to one recent study, user fees [[primarily fuel taxes and licensing) paid just 51% of the cost of roads in 2007.
http://www.subsidyscope.com/transpor...hways/funding/

[ghettopalmetto]

What part of "fuel taxes paid by drivers of cars and trucks pay for highways" is so difficult to comprehend?

I can't see your math.

[Detroitnerd]

Freight rail pays for itself [[where it doesn't, it gets abandoned).

Passenger rail is a sinkhole for money that only in rare instances will pay for itself "out of the fare box".

Perhaps this comment about passenger rail being unprofitable is supposed to end all further discussion of passenger rail. But it begs a much more important question: How did this happen?

For the answer to that question, we probably have to go back a century. In 1910, roads were actual "sinkholes" much of the year. To travel by road, even in an up-to-date motorcar, was a serious hardship in wet or snowy weather. People did not drive long distance, whether by car or horsepower.

Because there was no other alternative to railroads and streetcars, the public was concerned about the "traction trusts" and the "octopus" -- and these became some of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, suspect to many.

The biggest projects in the United States in the 1910s were road-building projects. Very similar in the 1920s. By the end of the 1920s, most of the roads in the United States were so improved that people could drive longer distances.

Because of these subsidies for road-building, the railroads and streetcars couldn't compete. By the 1920s, the Detroit United Railway, which boasted one of the largest electrified light rail networks in the country, sold its city operations to Detroit. [[It's a good thing, too, as city-owned streetcar lines couldn't be bought by National City Lines!)

After the advent of reliable passenger air travel, the federal government also started subsidizing air travel, further hurting rail transportation.

By the 1960s, the country's national passenger rail lines were totally unprofitable. Carefully regulated by federal government, hurt by the subsidies to other modes of travel, they were begging to be relieved of the responsibility of moving passengers, which had been so profitable before the subsidies started flowing to competing modes.

After 1970, when Amtrak took over those unprofitable responsibilities for the big railroads, subsidies for rail continued to fall. By 2000, government subsidies to rail had fallen by one-half, while they had risen 100 percent for roads, and 150 percent for air.

So now it's very easy and convenient to say that "passenger rail is a sinkhole for money," but it ignores that our government has carefully guaranteed that fact with subsidies for air and road, and by deliberately underfunding rail transportation so it cannot enjoy economies of scale.

But with volatile fuel prices, more people ARE riding rail than they were a few years ago. And, going into a century of uncertain energy supplies, we'd do well to consider the benefits of a mode that uses less real estate, and can move more people more economically.

[Hermod]

Because there was no other alternative to railroads and streetcars, the public was concerned about the "traction trusts" and the "octopus" -- and these became some of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, suspect to many.

Beginning with the horse car lines and Mayor Hazen Pingree and continuing through the electric lines and Mayor James Couzens, the city government and newspapers did just about everything they could to destroy the companies running the city street car lines. Finally the city became so intransigent, DUR made a forced sale of the city lines to Detroit at a fraction of their real worth.

The city was supposed to allow trackage rights for the DUR suburban lines to reach downtown, but the city began to charge outrageous fees for the trackage rights and did not schedule traffic around the DUR express requirements..

As noted in the Gary Terminal thread, DUR built transfer stations near the edge of the builtup area for passengers to transfer to DUR buses to ride downtown. This arrangement was very unpopular and quickly led to the total demise of the DUR interurban system.

Yes, the auto did play a major role in the decline of local and interurban passenger transit nationwide [[read George Hilton's "The Interurban Railway in America") .

Way out of print now, but CERA [[Central Electric Railfans Association) wrote a splendid softcover book on the Detroit city and suburban electric rail lines with track routes and diagrams, maps of car barns, descriptions of cars, and a narrative history.

If the DUR lines had been built on private right-of-way, they might have survived into the fifties, but they were built either in the center of the roadway or by the side. When the roadway was improved, the DUR often did not have the funds to relocate the track and had to abandon the line.

[Detroitnerd]

Beginning with the horse car lines and Mayor Hazen Pingree and continuing through the electric lines and Mayor James Couzens, the city government and newspapers did just about everything they could to destroy the companies running the city street car lines. Finally the city became so intransigent, DUR made a forced sale of the city lines to Detroit at a fraction of their real worth.

The city was supposed to allow trackage rights for the DUR suburban lines to reach downtown, but the city began to charge outrageous fees for the trackage rights and did not schedule traffic around the DUR express requirements..

As noted in the Gary Terminal thread, DUR built transfer stations near the edge of the builtup area for passengers to transfer to DUR buses to ride downtown. This arrangement was very unpopular and quickly led to the total demise of the DUR interurban system.

Yes, the auto did play a major role in the decline of local and interurban passenger transit nationwide [[read George Hilton's "The Interurban Railway in America") .

Way out of print now, but CERA [[Central Electric Railfans Association) wrote a splendid softcover book on the Detroit city and suburban electric rail lines with track routes and diagrams, maps of car barns, descriptions of cars, and a narrative history.

If the DUR lines had been built on private right-of-way, they might have survived into the fifties, but they were built either in the center of the roadway or by the side. When the roadway was improved, the DUR often did not have the funds to relocate the track and had to abandon the line.

Yes, the picture is more complicated than "ALL RAIL ALWAYS GOOD" in American history. [[Arguably, many of us on this board see the road-and-car lobbies as just as bad as their railroad antecedents.)

That said, to a growing number of people, rail, both light and heavy, is increasingly seen as "the right tool" for American cities and to connect them.

Another interesting point that's often overlooked: Some of the earliest champions of improved roads weren't the big bad car companies or early automobile enthusiasts; surprisingly, it was often cyclists!

[DanFromDetroit]

Perhaps this comment about passenger rail being unprofitable is supposed to end all further discussion of passenger rail. But it begs a much more important question: How did this happen?

For the answer to that question, we probably have to go back a century. In 1910, roads were actual "sinkholes" much of the year. To travel by road, even in an up-to-date motorcar, was a serious hardship in wet or snowy weather. People did not drive long distance, whether by car or horsepower.

Because there was no other alternative to railroads and streetcars, the public was concerned about the "traction trusts" and the "octopus" -- and these became some of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, suspect to many.

The biggest projects in the United States in the 1910s were road-building projects. Very similar in the 1920s. By the end of the 1920s, most of the roads in the United States were so improved that people could drive longer distances.

Because of these subsidies for road-building, the railroads and streetcars couldn't compete. By the 1920s, the Detroit United Railway, which boasted one of the largest electrified light rail networks in the country, sold its city operations to Detroit. [[It's a good thing, too, as city-owned streetcar lines couldn't be bought by National City Lines!)

After the advent of reliable passenger air travel, the federal government also started subsidizing air travel, further hurting rail transportation.

By the 1960s, the country's national passenger rail lines were totally unprofitable. Carefully regulated by federal government, hurt by the subsidies to other modes of travel, they were begging to be relieved of the responsibility of moving passengers, which had been so profitable before the subsidies started flowing to competing modes.

After 1970, when Amtrak took over those unprofitable responsibilities for the big railroads, subsidies for rail continued to fall. By 2000, government subsidies to rail had fallen by one-half, while they had risen 100 percent for roads, and 150 percent for air.

So now it's very easy and convenient to say that "passenger rail is a sinkhole for money," but it ignores that our government has carefully guaranteed that fact with subsidies for air and road, and by deliberately underfunding rail transportation so it cannot enjoy economies of scale.

But with volatile fuel prices, more people ARE riding rail than they were a few years ago. And, going into a century of uncertain energy supplies, we'd do well to consider the benefits of a mode that uses less real estate, and can move more people more economically.

Hey - I have to run to the store to get some milk and a pizza, I sure am glad they killed the road projects got that light rail going!

The light rail works in Europe and large concentrated population centers in the US because of the population distribution in relation to businesses. I currently live in in Europe and take the train to work every day. It works here because city planners have been relying on mass transit for 50+ years to lay out communities and business parks developed in the boom times around that plan. If it had been instituted around the same time in Metro Detroit you'd see a drastic change in the neighborhood layout and the distribution of business centers. Instead since we relied so heavily on the automobile we have unsustainable sprawl in the northern and western suburbs. For a rail system to work here you'd have to bulldoze whole cities and concentrate the rest around hubs of a rail system. To think that's a possibility is both foolish and unrealistic. They should take every dollar earmarked for what I like to call the "monorail" stabilize existing automotive infrastructure. If it's not done soon we'll have lightly used rail stations and no way to drive to the parking lots.

[Detroitnerd]

Hey - I have to run to the store to get some milk and a pizza, I sure am glad they killed the road projects got that light rail going!

The light rail works in Europe and large concentrated population centers in the US because of the population distribution in relation to businesses. I currently live in in Europe and take the train to work every day. It works here because city planners have been relying on mass transit for 50+ years to lay out communities and business parks developed in the boom times around that plan. If it had been instituted around the same time in Metro Detroit you'd see a drastic change in the neighborhood layout and the distribution of business centers. Instead since we relied so heavily on the automobile we have unsustainable sprawl in the northern and western suburbs. For a rail system to work here you'd have to bulldoze whole cities and concentrate the rest around hubs of a rail system. To think that's a possibility is both foolish and unrealistic. They should take every dollar earmarked for what I like to call the "monorail" stabilize existing automotive infrastructure. If it's not done soon we'll have lightly used rail stations and no way to drive to the parking lots.

Perhaps you missed it, but we HAVE been bulldozing whole areas. Unfortunately, unlike Europe, they're the areas with the densest street network, where we used to have our light rail.

To say that we can't do it because it was never done and try "more of the same" sounds more foolish to me.

[Grundyke]

Long live the gyro-copter!

[DetroitPlanner]

Detroit Nerd, I found this source for you to read at your lesure on Act 51. You really shouldn't be so critical of things you don't know about, it makes you sound like a... well a Detroit Nerd.

You're the only one saying the roads pay for themselves.

[mjs]

I hear you on the truck weights and salt. You don't even have to look as far as Ohio to see better techniques. The Northern UP primarily uses sand because of environmental restrictions making it difficult to plow salty snow into lake Superior and look at how much better their road conditions are with so much less construction.

MDOT rightfully says that the repeated freezing and unfreezing and damage from repeated plowing greatly augments the truck damage. Expanding ice puts enormous pressure on anything its under or in. So, the solution is simple. Quit unfreezing what will only freeze once again. Lets leave a light layer of snow and cover it with sand. While it will require longer breaking distances than plowed roads graveled in salt, it will be less than salted roads that become covered in refrozen water or black ice. The loss of traction is more consistent so drivers will adjust just as they always have done in the UP and just like the UP, the rains will clear it off to the side in the spring.

Hopefully, this is our chance to demand common sense. I'll be writing my State Reps in the next few days telling them I support a higher gas tax only if the legislation also includes lower truck weights and preferably with less destructive salt.

[Detroitnerd]

Detroit Nerd, I found this source for you to read at your lesure on Act 51. You really shouldn't be so critical of things you don't know about, it makes you sound like a... well a Detroit Nerd.

You're the only one saying the roads pay for themselves.

Awwww, that's very thoughtful of you DP. But don't worry your poor, little head over what I think. I know roads don't pay for themselves. If you had paid a wee bit more attention, you'd have noticed that somebody else in this thread has argued that "roads pay for themselves." And, in an inversion of Goebbels, I'm trying to disprove the lie by repeating it.

Sorry to bunch those panties, DP.

[Detroitnerd]

Just got the bulletin from the County Road Association. Not pretty.

Returning to the Stone Age
County Road Agencies in Michigan Suffer from Lack of Funding

Lansing, Mich-- The County Road Association of Michigan [[CRAM) today announced the results of their annual survey to determine the state of Michigan’s crumbling county road and bridge network. Over the past three years, the number of county road agencies returning paved roads to gravel has more than tripled.
Thirty eight counties have now returned more than 100 miles of paved roads to gravel; approximately 35 miles in 2009 alone. Results indicate that by 2010, half of Michigan’s county road agencies will be faced with the decision of moving backward to maintain their infrastructure.

[Hermod]

Just got the bulletin from the County Road Association. Not pretty.

Returning to the Stone Age
County Road Agencies in Michigan Suffer from Lack of Funding

Lansing, Mich-- The County Road Association of Michigan [[CRAM) today announced the results of their annual survey to determine the state of Michigan’s crumbling county road and bridge network. Over the past three years, the number of county road agencies returning paved roads to gravel has more than tripled.
Thirty eight counties have now returned more than 100 miles of paved roads to gravel; approximately 35 miles in 2009 alone. Results indicate that by 2010, half of Michigan’s county road agencies will be faced with the decision of moving backward to maintain their infrastructure.

Sometime in the late 1950s, Macomb County "depaved" 26 Mile Rd from Gratiot to Van Dyke.