Much has been made of the federal stimulus package signed into law recently by President Obama. No doubt there are elements of this package that will provide jobs for some among us and help some of those who are suffering.
However, one of the key elements of this package since it was first proposed has been the potential to improve our transportation infrastructure. Unfortunately, though, as the bill made its way through Congress, the amount of money dedicated to roads continued to shrink.
While I hate to be the one to throw a cold bucket of reality on the celebratory mood with which many are greeting the package, I must point out that the amount that will be available for roads in Oakland County as a result of the package will not come close to solving our road problems. Don’t get me wrong: Any additional money for our beleaguered road system is appreciated and badly needed. But any talk of this eliminating the need for additional long-term road funding for our state is hogwash.
Oakland County is expected to receive just under $27 million in road funding through the stimulus package. This money will be available for use by the Road Commission and the county’s 40 cities and villages.
That’s just slightly more than our usual annual allocation of federal road funding ? hardly the system-changing uber funding injection some had predicted.
Additionally, the money comes with a number of strings attached. Not the least of these strings is that the dollars will be distributed the same way as normal federal road dollars ? through the Oakland County Federal Aid Task Force.
That means the cities, villages and the road commission will compete for the funds on a project-by-project basis. It also means the dollars can only be used for major construction projects.
However, another one of the strings is that the projects must be ‘shovel ready? within one year of the date received. That time limit eliminates the possibility of many projects, such as road widenings, which typically require several years of preparation due to such elements as project design, right of way acquisition (buying the property necessary to widen the road), etc.
Nor can the money be used for routine maintenance work. That means we can’t use it to cover the anticipated overrun in our winter road maintenance budget resulting from the unusually harsh winter this year or to cover the rapidly growing cost of pothole patching resulting from the fact that so many of our roads are rapidly deteriorating. We also cannot use it to replace any of the 51 positions that we currently have open, including the 25 snowplow drivers.
On the positive side, yes, we’ll be able to perform a number of major resurfacing projects with the money ? jobs that are desperately needed. However, the money will only make a small dent in the list of these projects that are needed.
In fact, back in January, before anyone knew for certain how much money might actually be available in stimulus funds, the staff at the Road Commission put together a list of projects that we anticipated submitting for the funds. With little trouble we were able to compile a list of ‘shovel ready? county road projects worth nearly $300 million. Clearly most of those projects will have to remain on the waiting list.
It’s not that we’re ungrateful for the additional dollars ? we desperately need them and we appreciate the fact that they are coming. However, I want to make sure that the residents we serve fully understand that once those dollars are spent, there still will be no shortage of road problems in Oakland County.
The reality is that Michigan has under-funded its roads compared to other states for more than 40 years. The only solution to this long-standing problem is to begin to adequately fund our critical transportation infrastructure. These stimulus bucks, while nice, come no where near doing that.