Report: Michigan is trailing other states on road upkeep and needs new funding method

As Michigan leaders hammer out a new plan to fund road repairs for Michigan’s decades-long neglected infrastructure, the Citizens Research Council of Michigan argued in a report that, along with additional funding, the distribution system for those funds is in dire need for reform.

Michiganders across the state regard the roads they take each day as the worst roads in the country, the report laments, and they’re not too far off as the council found Michigan ranks 30th in the nation for road funding and 40th for the condition of its roads.

But as Michigan House Republicans have cleared a $3.1 billion road funding plan through the chamber, the report found that the state’s sub-par roads are not primarily the result of underfunding. Instead, ensuring those funds are used effectively would yield a positive result in fixing the state’s infrastructure.

“Increasing road funding at this time is likely appropriate for various reasons,” the report said. “However, it would be prudent to evaluate policy options to improve the performance of Michigan’s road program – the ability to utilize given funding to achieve quality system conditions.”

Repealing Michigan’s “obsolete” road funding distribution system under Public Act 51 ought to be a prerequisite to a road repair plan, the report says, not plans focused on increasing funding.

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The state’s current formula for determining funding distribution is “practically impossible to understand or audit” the reports says, and the measures for population and road usage are not conducive to determining the rate of repair needed to maintain local infrastructure.

“Public Act 51 is now 74 years old, past retirement age. In fact, the law was originally envisioned as a 15-year construction program and was scheduled to sunset, but the sunset provision was repealed in 2000 after multiple extensions,” the report says. “It would be imprudent to try to address Michigan’s road infrastructure problems by sending additional funding through PA 51. Additional carve-outs and reallocations would likely just make the law more complicated, not more effective. The inability of Michigan policymakers to replace Act 51 is a decades-long failure.”

Changing the Public Act 51 funding formula is not going to be part of the road repair plan, Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) said during a news conference Wednesday. Reforms to get more funds into local roads will come down the pipeline, but as the Legislature reflects on years of little movement on roads solutions, Hall said the state needs a plan the partisanly split legislature can agree on.

“It’s great that the Citizens Research Council has the academic work that they’ve done, but we’ve got to get real votes. That’s how you put plans together. That’s what we’re doing,” Hall said.