The Governor announced her Fiscal Year 2011 budget last Thursday and the House and Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittees met on Tuesday to review MDOT’s portion of that budget. Due to the continued decline in state gas tax and vehicle registration revenue, MDOT will be forced to leave nearly a half a billion dollars of Michigan’s federal gas tax dollars on the table in DC because they don’t have enough matching money to draw down our full allotment. This is the first time in memory that Michigan, let alone any state, will not draw down their state’s share of federal gas tax revenues.
As a result of this half billion dollar funding reduction, MDOT has announced the delay of nearly 250 road projects in their recently adopted 5-year plan. This link details the projects within each MDOT region of the state that have been shelved.
Rep. Pam Byrnes, chair of the House Transportation committee, announced yesterday a series of three public hearings around the state on this 5-year plan, the project delays, and the impact on local communities of MDOT’s inability to match all available federal dollars. The first hearing scheduled for Monday morning (2/22/10) at Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s Texas Twp campus has been canceled due to the winter storm, I have been told that this hearing will be rescheduled. In addition to this hearing, the House committee is also scheduled to meet in Traverse City on March 8, 2010 and in Ypsilanti on March 22nd. It is very important that the legislators and media understand the importance of protecting transportation funding. If one of these hearings is in your area or if you will be negatively impacted by one of the project delays, I encourage you to attend one of these hearings. Please give me a call or send me an email if you have any questions. Thank you for your help! Chris Hackbarth is the transportation policy advocate for the Michigan Municipal League. He can be reached at 517-908-0303 or by email at chackbarth@mml.org.
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