Think Regional/Act Local

September 30, 2009

We begin the annual rite of firearms deer hunting season in our state in mid November, but we have really been killing deer all year long – with our cars.  This past year, over 61,000 deer were killed in Michigan in collisions with motor vehicles.  While this is down a bit from previous years, the percentage of car-deer crashes to total crashes in our state has remained remarkably consistent over the past years.  Now, many of you may be chuckling over this topic, but I can assure you that it is a significant issue even if you have not had a personal experience with a deer while driving your car.

Last year, there were 316,057 crashes in Michigan – 61,010 involved a deer.  That is 19% - almost 1 of every 5 crashes in the state involved a motor vehicle and a deer!  In some individual communities almost 40% - 4 out of every 10 crashes involve a deer! Twelve people were killed in these crashes – 8 were riding motorcycles.  And yes – there is a cost to these crashes.  The average insurance claim was about $2,100 in damage, usually to the front end.  These 61,000 crashes cost us almost $130 million in claims alone.  And of course this does not include the loss of life and pain felt by those involved.  Still think this is trivial?

Michigan needs to start taking this seriously.  It is all fine and good to educate the public and tell them to be careful.  But transportation professionals need to put their heads together and find a way to reduce these crashes, save precious lives and dollars and make our roads that much safer. For more information on this subject, go to www.semcog.org/DeerCrashes.aspx

September 23, 2009 

How many of you know what a rescission is – be honest now! Well, in this case it means that the federal government, specifically the Federal Highway Administration, is going to cut federal highway dollars from our needed highway programs. This was a planned cut. It was planned back when the current SAFETEA-LU transportation funding legislation was passed. We all knew this was going to happen and no one has done anything about it over the past four years. Earlier this year, President Obama and Congress handed out almost $900 million in transportation stimulus dollars to Michigan – dollars aimed at jump starting the economy – and there is evidence that the investment is having a positive effect. Now, in a few days, the same government that gave us the stimulus dollars will be taking away over $260 million from Michigan for badly needed projects. Make sense to you? Me neither.

Congress must repeal this cut by September 30 or risk slowing down the economy it has tried so desperately to revive. Call your representative and your senator and tell them to stop this cut.

September 17, 2009 

The SEMCOG General Assembly will soon be asked to approve Direction2035 – our region’s new long-range transportation plan. This plan will serve to direct the expenditure of scarce federal transportation funds through 2035. This is always an interesting process to go through – allocating not enough dollars to an ever expanding list of competing needs – and will be particularly difficult over the next several years until our economy begins to rebound. Consider your own budgeting process at home – there are always more things to do than dollars available to do them. How do you decide to allocate your limited resources? You wish that you could do everything on your list, but you can’t. Sometimes there are also disagreements between people living in the house as to what needs to be done first among several good projects.

Well, we experience all of the above while working with the many local units of governments, the Michigan Department of Transportation, transit agencies, and county road commissions. In addition, we have the public weighing in with their opinions and wants also. In the end, we came to an agreement on how to spend these dollars in a way that addresses the most critical needs in Southeast Michigan and maximizes benefits. We invite you to view the plan at www.semcog.org/Long-RangeTransportationPlan.aspx and send us your comments. Much more needs to be done – but investing the dollars we have in this way will make a significant improvement in our existing highway and transit systems.

September 11, 2009

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is considering cutting Detroit Department of Transportation (or, DDOT) service as part of a plan to balance the city’s budget. SMART is considering raising fares - which they haven't done in many years - in order to raise revenue so they do not have to cut service. The Michigan Department of Transportation (or, MDOT) and county road commissions have already cut back on capital projects and road operations to stay within their current budgets. Citizens and interest groups are upset. They do not want to see services cut or fares increased – especially in these hard economic times. Well, something has to be done because existing funds are not enough to maintain even the current inadequate state of our transit and road systems.

Rather than direct your anger at Mayor Bing, MDOT, or local road agencies, you should consider asking the state legislature why they have not raised revenues in the past 12 years for roads and in the past 22 years for public transit. Let me know what they tell you and then work with your local elected leaders to do the very difficult job that they now have to do – choose between very difficult options that no one will be satisfied with.