“Community Columnist” Michael Schrader

(About the need for good roads)

Written 23 August 2015

A couple of weeks ago, I exited the freeway at the East Grand exit by the Hamtramck Assembly Plant. Normally, I follow the freeway to Woodward, but the Woodward exit was closed for construction, which necessitated getting off at East Grand and working my way through the city streets to get over to Woodward. When I exited the freeway, I hit a bump; then I heard a loud scraping sound of metal on pavement, and noticed that my car was much louder. I quickly stopped my car, and looked under it; I had dropped my exhaust system. I then drug my tailpipe through the streets of Detroit to my final destination, where I was able to obtain duct tape and a hanger and reattached my exhaust for the return trip home.

The state of our streets and highways is a disgrace. One should not have to worry when driving down paved streets that he or she will lose parts of a vehicle. One should not have to worry about dying from losing control after hitting a pothole or from hydroplaning due to ponding on the road. Safe and efficient transportation should be of paramount importance to government, as good transportation is essential to economic vitality. Sadly, it is not, much to the detriment of those unnecessarily maimed or killed due to our shoddy transportation network.

The failure is at all levels of government. Local governments seem to be more enamored with pretty civic buildings than with providing a good transportation network. Of course, people will not go to these nice “monuments to vanity” without a good and proper street and sidewalk system to get there. The local governments are willing to spend $10000 per year operating a traffic signal where motorists are forced to stop and wait for nobody, and then cite lack of funds to build something as simple as a proper sidewalk so pedestrians don’t have to walk in the street and risk being struck by a vehicle. Often, it seems, the priorities of local government officials seem a bit “out-of-whack”.

The state also must accept some blame for our poor infrastructure. Driving through Detroit the other night in a rainstorm, and seeing the signs alerting me and other motorists of flooding on the highways, it got me pondering of whose bright idea it was to build depressed freeways through flat and swampy area. There was a reason that at the time of the War of 1812 there were no passible roads from Ohio to Detroit. Yet somehow, some engineer back seventy years ago decided that somehow the topography of the land had changed so much that highways could be built depressed. Compounding the problem, we continue to design and build highways the exact same way, because, as we all know, if you keep doing the same thing the same way enough times eventually you will get a different outcome, as we all found out in 2014 when most of the highways in Detroit were flooded. To top it off, the policy makers in Lansing are unwilling to provide enough funding to maintain the highway network that we have, because to do so would require raising taxes, which is pure evil. Much better to have innocent people die.

If you talk to the policy makers at the state, they will say it is the federal government’s fault, as the feds pay most of the construction costs for the major highways. Fair enough. It has been over four years now since the last comprehensive long term transportation bill expired; since then have only been short term stop-gap measures. Since it typically takes a decade or more to design and build a major highway, without knowing the long term funding will be in place, states are rightfully hesitant to start a major upgrade project for fear that funds will run out before it is completed. Congress is more concerned with investigating e-mails than passing a serious transportation bill, as the electorate doesn’t really care about transportation.

As voters, it is time to act. We need to tell our elected officials that good roads are of paramount importance.

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