Michigan Panel Authorizes $3.5B In Road Bonding

2015potholes2-13
2015potholes2-13

A state panel has authorized borrowing $3.5 billion to roughly double spending on state road and bridge construction over five years, hours after Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced the plan in her State of the State speech. The State Transportation Commission unanimously approved the Rebuilding Michigan program on Thursday after hearing details from the state Department of Transportation. Spending will rise from nearly $3.9 billion to $7.3 billion over the five-year period. It will allow for 73 new projects in high-traffic areas and enable the state to covert other planned projects to reconstruction, rather than resurfacing.

Republican reaction to the plan, which circumvents the Legislature to fund road repairs, has been tepid at best. State House Transportation Committee Chairman Jack O’Malley says the money from the bonds is all for state roads, saying “75% of the roads in Michigan are local roads,” adding those are roads in town that people use on their daily commute. He says the bonding doesn’t touch those at all. House Speaker Lee Chatfield says while everyone agrees the roads need to be fixed, people want to see the taxes they spend at the gas pump go into roads. “Until we address that,” said Chatfield, “we are always going to have a road funding problem, and this governor refuses to admit that.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.