Detroit Today: Michigan is still in search of long-term road funding
While Michigan’s roads have improved slightly since 2018, a report by civil engineers in the state still ranks the infrastructure poorly.
A deep pothole in Detroit.
Michiganders often complain about the pavement on area roads — and not for no reason. Civil engineers recently gave the state a ‘D’ letter grade for the poor condition of its roadways.
Michigan’s infrastructure has seen some improvements due to investments from the federal government and the $3.5 billion that Governor Gretchen Whitmer has borrowed to pay for repair. However, the state still does not have a long-term plan to pay for its roads and has been experimenting with different possibilities.
Listen: How Michigan’s roads are being paid for.
Guest
Jonathan Oosting is an award-winning political reporter covering the State Capitol for Bridge Michigan. He says Michigan still does not have a way to pay for roads in the decades to come.
“Without a long-term plan to ‘fix the damn roads,’ we’re basically where we’ve been for a long time now,” says Oosting.
“(Civil engineers) say while roads have improved slightly, the trajectory is that those road improvements are going to start tailing off by 2026 and start going downhill again.”
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