Bill Weisenstein is sick of dodging potholes in his classic Chevy pickup, so the retired Southfield resident is taking it upon himself to fulfill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s promise to “fix the damn roads.”

“I have a lot of time on my hands, and I just like to make things better if I can,” Weisenstein told WDIV. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

Frustrated with swerving around potholes that litter the roads near his Downriver home, Weisenstein decided to repair them himself using temporary asphalt patch, a shovel and tamp as he scampers between oncoming vehicles.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

Weisenstein told the news station he tried to reach out to the Michigan Department of Transportation and county officials about the roads in the past, but it was no use.

“I told my buddy, I said ‘you know what … I’m going to fix this myself,’” Weisenstein said. “I got a lot of thumbs up. I got a lot of horn beeping, and it was the good kind, it wasn’t hey get the heck out of my way.

“It was like, ya, cool man!” he said.

Despite Whitmer’s claim she’s “fixing the damn roads,” a report from TRIP, a national transportation research nonprofit, found “roads and bridges that are deteriorated, congested or lack some desirable safety features cost Michigan motorists a total of $17 billion statewide annually … due to higher vehicle operating costs, traffic crashes and congestion-related delays.”

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

The TRIP report, titled “Keeping Michigan Mobile: Providing a Moder, Sustainable Transportation System in the Great Lakes State” showed in Detroit, where 70% of roads are in poor or mediocre condition, the problem is costing each motorist an estimated $3,005 a year.

In Grand Rapids, the added annual expenses from bad roads totals $2,297, while it’s $2,150 in Flint, $1,872 in Kalamazoo, $1,861 in Lansing, $1,844 in Saginaw, $1,787 in Traverse City, $1,776 in Muskegon, and $1,594 in Ann Arbor.

“Infrastructure is the backbone of Michigan’s economy,” said Ed Noyola, chief deputy and legislative director of the County Road Association of Michigan. “The problem is not going away and we cannot continue to allow Michigan’s critical roads and bridges to fall into poor condition.”

But that’s exactly what’s happening, according to Michigan’s 2023 Road & Bridges Annual Report issued earlier this year by the Transportation Asset Management Council.

The report shows Michigan improved 16.2% of roads eligible for federal aid between 2021 and 2023, while 21.2% of those roads declined. It was the same situation with non-federal aid roads, of which “47% were found to be in poor condition … (or) 2% more than from 2021 to 2022.”

The bottom line: “Roads are deteriorating faster than the agencies can repair them.”

“At the end of the day, this is a quality-of-life issue – do we want a Michigan that has unsafe, crumbling infrastructure, or do we want a safe, reliable infrastructure network that will carry us forward for generations to come,” said Rob Coppersmith, executive vice president of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association. “Michigan’s leaders must enact a long-term, equitable, and sustainable infrastructure investment plan that ensures we have a safe, reliable transportation network that will save Michigan drivers billions of dollars annually.”

Instead, Whitmer borrowed $3.5 billion for road repairs in 2019 that’s expected to run out this year with no obvious plan to plug what’s now a $3.9 billion funding gap for needed road and bridge repairs.

That gap is tied in part to increasing fuel efficiency and electric vehicles eroding revenues from the state’s motor fuels tax that provides the bulk of transportation funding.

Democrats in Lansing have proposed to track and tax Michigan drivers by the mile to close the gap, though that idea has yet to gain traction.

While it remains unclear when or if it ever will, the roads continue to crumble.

The road and bridges report found 33% of Michigan’s paved federal aid roads are in poor condition, 41% are in fair condition are in good condition. By 2035, researchers predict 52% will be in poor condition, 28% in fair condition, and just 20% in good condition.