DRIC Is Done Now

Now I don't know about you but I do not see the State of Michigan spending the $1.5 to $3 billion forecast by DRIC to build the infrastructure for a new border crossing, depending on location, when they have other demands on their scarce roads funds. Nor do I see it happening in the potential "have-not" Province of Ontario.

Take a look at the story below. Do you understand now why the Legislators in Lansing want to look closely at what MDOT and DRIC are doing! The amount spent by these consultants would have helped pave a road somewhere!

If it is clear that there is no money for the crossing, then expect there to be a competition between the Michigan Governor and Legislature to kill DRIC. I would expect Stephen Harper, as our new PM, to be in the thick of things as well to help kill this Liberal money waster.

With DRIC dead, then what happens to the Detroit/Windsor border? Don't worry, I have the answer. That will be the subject of another BLOG in the next day or two.

Road demands outstrip available cash
Sunday, February 12, 2006. By Peter Luke Lansing Bureau

LANSING -- Should Gov. Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers agree to design and construct a limited-access U.S. 131 freeway from Kalamazoo to the Indiana Toll Road, that would be good news for the length and breadth of West Michigan.

Local officials and lawmakers from the region argue that a 20-mile stretch of freeway first proposed three decades ago is vital for economic growth from Petoskey south to the state line.

Michigan Department of Transportation officials in October announced they were killing the project because traffic counts didn't justify the massive investment. After local outcry, department officials appear ready to change their minds, with Granholm's concurrence, lawmakers say.

"(Granholm) has seen the errors of MDOT's ways," Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming, said last week. But, he added: "I want to see a commitment of X-amount of dollars to the next phase. Then I will know it's real."

Granholm administration officials say the governor has only asked MDOT to take another look at the project.

Promising the road will be built and finding the money to build it are indeed two different things. Twenty miles of new freeway, M-6 in Kent County, carried a price tag of $650 million once it was completed in 2004. That represents about half of what the state annually spends on road repair for the entire state.

If anything, the U.S. 131 road project highlights the central reality of Michigan's road budget: The state's highway repair budget is top-heavy with asphalt overlays. Reconstructing or expanding the highway network would take hundreds of millions more -- money the state does not have and lawmakers are unwilling to raise.

It's not apparent where they're going to get the money for that freeway to Indiana.

"The Legislature and the (Granholm) administration are going to have to admit to the fact that there are dire transportation needs at both the state and local levels," said Michael Nystrom, a road builder lobbyist and spokesman for a coalition advocating more highway funding.

"Michigan is going to continue to lose jobs, the businesses we currently have and new business opportunities, if we don't have the infrastructure to support employers getting their work force to work or their products to market," Nystrom said...

Sen. James Barcia, D-Bay City, ranking Democrat on the budget committee that oversees road funding, said Michigan's roads continue to suffer from what he calls years of neglect. He also represents a lot of anxious constituents in the auto industry...

"I think the public appreciates good roads, but given the state of the economy, the timing may not be the best to put a motor fuel tax increase up for a vote," Barcia said.

Problem is, only 1 percent of sales tax revenue goes to MDOT. Nearly 74 percent is earmarked for local public schools; the rest for local revenue sharing. Steering more sales tax paid on fuel to road repair and construction would face considerable opposition from powerful school funding advocates...

While the state will receive a modest increase in road funding this year, Michigan motorists still send more federal gas tax revenue to Washington than the state receives in return.

Michigan is making up for revenue shortfalls by borrowing about $860 million over the next three construction seasons. MDOT's five-year construction plan calls for spending $1.8 billion in 2006. Unless the state decides to borrow more in later years, that road budget will fall to less than $1.2 billion in 2010, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency. According to the agency, MDOT's borrowing costs by 2010 will near $200 million, the same amount generated by the 4-cent gas tax increase back in 1997.

"When you buy something on a credit card, you have to pay it back eventually," said Bob Risser, executive director of the Michigan Concrete Paving Association.

But stagnant road revenue hasn't prevented a new political fight: How to divvy it up.

MDOT's latest five-year road and bridge construction plan was approved Jan. 27 over the objections of 15 West Michigan lawmakers who contend that Kent, Muskegon and Ottawa counties were being short changed. Rep. Jerry Kooiman, R-Grand Rapids, complains that MDOT's Grand planning region is the third most populous, but will receive the fifth most funding over the next five years.

Kooiman said Michigan's scarce transportation resources should be spent "in a way that promotes economic development and expansion throughout the state." Exhibit A, say West Michigan lawmakers, is the U.S. 131 project that would connect Traverse City, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo to the I-80/90 trans-American corridor.

"Not to simplify things too much, but we are a peninsula," Kooiman said.

Since she took office, Granholm has focused on preserving roads but now appears ready to bow to demands to build them as well.

Nystrom said there isn't enough money to adequately do either.

The bulk of MDOT's new five-year road plan is in road resurfacing, projects that add new layers of asphalt that temporarily improve driving conditions but ignore crumbling, half-century-old road beds, critics say.