Michigan House Speaker-elect Rep. Matt Hall recently proposed a plan to shift $2.7 billion to fulfill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s promise to “fix the damn roads” because “things aren’t getting fixed and … our local communities haven’t been a priority.”

“This administration’s focus on roads the past couple of years has been just on state highways,” Hall told MLive.

While Whitmer refused repeated requests from the news site to discuss her long-term plan to address the state’s $3.9 billion annual roads maintenance shortfall, she responded to Hall’s plan on Wednesday with funding “to fix the damn roads in rural counties.”

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According to a news release, Whitmer stated: “These grants will help communities across the state fix local roads faster so people can get to work or drop their kids off at school and businesses can move goods and supplies around more efficiently all year round.”

The grand total from Whitmer for nine specific roads projects: a paltry $2.9 million.

“Since I took office, Michigan has fixed nearly 23,000 lane miles of road and 1,400 bridges while supporting tens of thousands of good paying jobs,” the governor said. “Today’s projects will build on that total as we continue working together to fix the damn roads. Let’s keep rolling up our sleeves and moving dirt to make a real difference in people’s lives.”

The repairs, while certainly an improvement over nothing, belie Michigan’s roads reality: “roads are deteriorating faster than the agencies can repair them,” according to the state’s 2023 Roads & Bridges Annual Report.

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

The Michigan Asset Management Council that complied the report predicts that by 2035 52% of roads will be in poor condition, 28% in fair condition, and 20% in good condition.

In late November, Hall introduced legislation to boost annual road funding by about $2.7 billion by adjusting how fuel is taxed and allocating a portion of corporate income tax revenue to road repairs.

Republicans will take over the House in January because Michiganders “are sick and tired of inaction and empty words,” he said, and they’ll immediately “get to work and actually get things done, starting with a real roads plan.”

Stacey LaRouche, Whitmer’s press secretary, told The News the “we agree on the need for a long-term funding solution, and Gov. Whitmer will work with anyone who is serious about getting things done.”

The road funding shortfall is tied in part to declining fuel tax revenues as a result of increased fuel efficiency and electric vehicles promoted by Whitmer and the Biden-Harris administrations.

Whitmer initially proposed to raise the state’s motor fuels tax by 45 cents to the highest rate in the nation to “fix the damn roads,” but lawmakers rejected the tax hike. Instead, the governor borrowed $3.5 billion to patch over the revenue losses, and that funding runs out this year.

“If we don’t want our roads to get even worse, we either need to raise taxes or actually make road funding a priority in the budget. We all saw how Gov. Whitmer’s 45-cent tax plan went over,” Hall said. “With state revenues up tens of billions of dollars since then, it is even more obvious that politicians should be able to find this funding without going back to the people to ask for more.”

Most of the $3.5 billion Whitmer borrowed for roads went to critical freeways overdue for reconstruction in mostly downstate counties like Oakland, Genesee, Wayne, Calhoun, Ingham, and Livingston.

County road commissions, meanwhile, continue to struggle with limited funding, falling well short of a collective goal of improving about 15% of roads each year, Denise Donohue, CEO of the Michigan County Roads Association, told MLive.

The association has a goal of 60% of county roads in good or fair condition, and only 44% met that threshold in 2023, she said.

And instead of funding to improve 13,500 of 90,000 lane miles, or 15%, counties improved just 6,080 miles last year, though that number has increased over the last eight years, Donohue said.

“In short, counties have stopped gaining on the problem,” she said. “We are now merely treading water, and our county road professionals are fighting a losing battle by trying to do the job at current funding levels.”

“County road agencies cannot stretch existing dollars any further,” Donohue said. “We need more transportation funds in this legislative session.”

Whitmer’s $2.9 million is a start, though leveraging those funds will require locals to come up with hundreds of thousands in matching funds.

Michigan motorists, meanwhile, continue to pay the price for Whitmer’s unfulfilled campaign promises.

“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,” according to a study by TRIP, a national transportation research nonprofit.

The problem is so bad, some residents are even taking matters into their own hands.

After repeatedly, unsuccessfully reaching out to the Michigan Department of Transportation about potholes in Southfield, local Bill Weisenstein told WDIV he decided to dodge traffic to fill the holes himself.

“I told my buddy, I said ‘you know what … I’m going to fix this myself,” Weisenstein said.

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