Metro Detroit roads are bad, but the cost to fix them is the real shocker

Every driver knows how bad the roads are in southeastern Michigan, especially those motorists sitting in tire shops getting a new tire or wheel from dive-bombing into a pothole.

But how bad, really, are the roads?

Pretty bad, according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, which at last count, listed 41% of pavement on federal aid-eligible roads in the seven-county area as being in poor condition. Another 40% were listed in fair condition.

That means only 19% of the road pavement in southeastern Michigan is considered in good condition.

But the real shocker may be the cost to fix the roads.

Bill Anderson, local government finance and operations specialist at SEMCOG, said that $400 million a year is currently spent on concrete for about 8,000 miles of federal aid-eligible roads in southeastern Michigan.

"In order to get the roads to 80% in good or fair condition in the next 25 years, SEMCOG's current projection is that we need to increase that to $1.6 billion per year," Anderson said.

More: 5 reasons Michigan has lousy roads

Federal aid-eligible roads are most major roads — not side roads, subdivision roads, some connector roads and bridges. The $400 million currently spent on road maintenance comes from federal, state and local dollars, he said.

He said that cost estimate does not take into account the other 17,000 miles of lesser-traveled roads in the region encompassing Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.

In the tri-county metro Detroit area, worst off is Oakland County, where SEMCOG said 48% of these roads (in lane miles) were rated in poor shape in 2016-17. Macomb County isn't far behind with 43% of its roads rated as poor. In Wayne County, 35% of the roads were listed in poor condition in 2016-17.

"The number of miles of roads falling into disrepair is at a faster pace than repairing the ones we have," Anderson said.

It's a matter of neglect, he said.

"It isn't we didn't spend the money last year, this is, we didn't spend the money over the last couple of decades," Anderson said.

SEMCOG said the roads listed in poor condition are the most problematic with deterioration so severe that simple maintenance won't fix them — they need to be replaced.

Even more problematic is coming up with the money to fix the roads, officials say.

There is not enough state and federal money coming in to fix roads and some officials, including a few in Macomb County, are considering asking voters for millage increases to help pay for needed repairs.

Clinton Township is expected to discuss the possibility of a 1.9-mill ballot proposal to generate about $5.5 million annually for five years for road work in that community, township Supervisor Bob Cannon said.

"I don't see any other way to get out of this mess," Cannon said. "I don't see Lansing coming to our aid. I don't see Washington coming to our aid."

Where will the money come from?

The outlook, statewide, for better roads isn't promising either despite pledges of additional state and federal funding, according to Michigan's Roads & Bridges 2016 Annual Report by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council.

Statewide, 48% of paved, federal aid-eligible roads in Michigan are in poor condition this year, with that percentage expected to jump to 64% by 2028, according to a pavement condition forecast graphic in the report. The projections are using all the expected funding from both state and federal transportation sources.

At the same time, 52% of road pavement statewide that's in good or fair shape now is expected to be at 36% by 2028, according to the graphic.

Last week, the state’s roads received a grade of D- from the Michigan Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in its 2018 Report Card for Michigan’s Infrastructure, which includes grades in 13 different categories.

“Infrastructure is the backbone of our state’s economy and this report should open our eyes to the drastic need for change,” said Mike Nystrom, executive vice president of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association. “We should be increasing the money available to the Michigan Infrastructure Fund, if not at the very minimum maintaining the current funding level. Lawmakers can no longer pretend our infrastructure is not crumbling around us, and doesn’t require long-term legislative solutions or investment.”

The Legislature recently approved $175 million extra this year for roads. In 2015, state leaders approved $600 million in higher gas taxes and vehicle registration fees and promised to shift an additional $600 million from the state budget for roads.

Still, Anderson said, roads "will continue to deteriorate at a faster rate than we can fix them."

Sealing cracks on roads and resealing with a couple of inches of asphalt can add years to the life of roads, he said. But after plowing, salting and pothole patching, there isn't much left for repair and replacement. He said maintaining a good road "seems more like a luxury than a necessity."

"The fact is there is not enough money to do the kinds of projects we need to do," Anderson said. "When you haven't been putting the money in over the last 20 years, you have to put in twice as much money over the next 20 years to catch up".

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A few local officials have broached the possibility of asking voters for millages to generate money for the plethora of needed repairs to their local- or county-maintained roads, but others say they don't see it happening.

Craig Bryson, spokesman for the Road Commission for Oakland County, said while officials could justify a countywide road millage, in theory it might be a “hard sell” for cities in the county that have millages for roadwork in their communities.

“How do you make sure it’s fair?” he said, meaning spreading the wealth from villages with a few hundred people to townships and larger cities.

Macomb County commissioners at the end of January bantered a bit about the possibility of a countywide millage for roads to go on the ballot. One mill, Commissioner Rob Mijac said, would generate about $25 million annually.

Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel said the buck needs to stop with the Legislature, saying what's coming in funding or even what could be generated locally through millages isn't enough.

Hackel called the $1.2 billion roads funding package previously approved by state lawmakers "inadequate" and he doesn't believe there will be new money coming. He said Macomb County alone needs $1.2 billion for the 780 lane miles of roads in need of desperate repairs that the county has to maintain.

"It's sad that the local units of government will have to pick up for what the state refuses to do," Hackel said. "It's a state responsibility."

He said if anyone increases taxes, however, "they need to be perfectly clear on what the money will be used for, the true impact, so there's no misrepresentation, so people do not ask questions."

Mijac of Sterling Heights brought up the idea of a countywide road millage to his colleagues with mixed opinions.

Commissioner Joe Romano of Sterling Heights thought people "would embrace this millage," while Commissioner Andrey Duzjy of Warren said he couldn't support it because his constituents already pay a local millage for roads in Warren.

"You wanna put on a millage, you'll get a fight out of Warren," he said.

Warren voters in 2016 approved up to 2.1 mills for five years, raising more than $6.8 million in the first year to repair and replace local streets. Sterling Heights voters also passed a millage to fund public safety and local roads. That city plans to spend more than $77 million during the next five years on road improvement projects.

But local funding is for roads the local community has to maintain. A countywide millage would be for county-maintained roads.

Mijac said he plans to explore the issue further “because the roads are so bad and we’re not getting any help from Lansing. We’re stuck here at the local level. What can we do? What solutions could we come up with to resolve some of it, if not all."

Some counties in Michigan have countywide road millages, such as St. Clair County —Macomb County’s northern, more rural neighbor.

Voters approved a quarter-mill for roads in 2012, a millage that was renewed in 2016 through 2019, said Greg Owens, St. Clair County Road Commission's director of internal services.

He said the money generated from the millage, about $1.4 million annually, is used to match federal funds for projects, freeing up money for other road and bridge needs. Owens said the county is second in the state behind Wayne County in the number of bridges.

"It's been good," Owens said of the millage, saying there has been only brief talk of whether to ask voters for more. "We don't want to come across as greedy. For right now, it's suiting its purpose."

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said there needs to be a "very frank, solutions-oriented effort at the state level to address road funding rather than pass the buck to the locals.

“Roads are funded at the state and federal level, and as any motorist in Michigan can see, that system has failed us miserably,” Evans said. “Our Legislature has put Band-Aids on the problem for years."

“But the bottom line is a millage wouldn’t even come close to addressing the problem, years of insufficient action by the Legislature has allow the price tag to balloon. We need to fix this at the state and federal levels,” he said.

Eric Lupher, president of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, headquartered in Livonia, said the $1.2 billion the state previously approved for road projects was “a good number at one point” but "we continue to neglect our roads."

Lupher said historically the state has been the major source of revenue for all roads. It collects taxes and fees, keeps some and sends some to the locals for use.

“If the state lives up to its end ... raises money and shares it, no big deal,” Lupher said. “But it hasn’t been doing that and it hasn’t been doing that for a long time … There doesn’t seem to be an appetite in Lansing to come up with more money to take care of roads.”

That leaves local and county officials with few options — if the state won't come through, they will have to ask for property tax increases. That's a problem, he said, because people already feel like they are paying too much in property taxes.

Thirty-seven states allow local governments the option of levying sales taxes to raise money. He said Michigan has a local option income tax but that is only available to cities, not large townships, such as Clinton Township, which has more than 100,000 people.

The only way to change that is by changing the state’s constitution through a statewide ballot question — an effort that would take some time.

Last month, President Donald Trump talked about an infrastructure program that he believes could attract about $1.5 trillion in new investments in roads, bridges and other projects by using $200 billion over 10 years to leverage state, local and private funding.

Communities typically rely on federal money to help fund a significant proportion of major road projects.

Lupher said if Trump's idea were to come to fruition, it would “put a whole lot more pressure on Lansing to do something.”

Here is a look at over a decade of change to our region's roads:

For an interactive map and data, go to http://maps.semcog.org/PavementCondition/.

Contact Christina Hall: chall99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.