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Welcome to Carmine Palombo’s transportation blog!
With more than 30 years of experience in various phases of transportation planning at SEMCOG, Carmine knows an awful lot about Southeast Michigan’s transportation system and, understandably, has a lot of opinions. And he’s ready to blog about them. Please join him.

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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.

Posted by SEMCOG at 9/11/2009 2:30 PM

I agree with you Carmine, but what about all the Detroiters who depend on the bus service to get them to their jobs or schools. There are still some Detroiters who have a job to go to despite the dismal economy, but their only option is to use the bus service to get them there. I can't understand how cutting back on the bus service can even be considered when there is so much local government waste that can be cleaned up first. Let's keep working on the "toxic" waste left to us by the DPS and see if we can save our bus service with some of that money.
Posted by: C.J. at 9/14/2009 11:51 AM

C.J.
I agree with your comments. It gets down to making decisions with the dollars we have. We can't afford to waste any of them. Hopefully, the purge has begun for real. But it is not just at the local level. Every time the state legislature cuts funding for transit, like they are proposing to do again as part of the budget balancing proposal - there is even more pressure on local officials to either find additional dollars or cut service or raise fares or both.
Posted by: carmine at 9/18/2009 10:34 AM

Carmine, couldn't at least part of the blame be directed at county boards of commission, who have the authority to ask voters to levy transportation millages? Out of the 83 counties only about 15 do so. Since this revenue would not be subject to various statewide distribution formulas, a county could direct all raised revenue to local roads.
Posted by: paul connors at 9/22/2009 1:28 PM

Paul
thanks for the comment. As you indicate, several counties and a number of cities already have special millages that are specifically for needed transportation improvements in their community. These actions rely on the use of property tax to raise these dollars. The property tax is already relied on by local government to fund many other activities. A partial answer is to allow more local options, so a county could “spread” the types of taxes for transportation projects. Additional funding options like the public private partnerships could also help. So, could more dollars be raised locally? Probably yes, if we had more tools, more options to just the property tax.

However this sort of funding, locally derived, has always been discussed as dollars to augment, not replace, the state gas tax as the primary way we fund transportation improvements in the state. Funding for basic transportation improvements should not done on a county-by-county process. In my opinion, the state legislature recognized the statewide nature of travel years ago by passing Act 51.

I think the state needs to address its fundamental position of being the steward of the state's transportation network as identified in Act 51. The Transportation Funding Task Force (TF2) appointed by the governor and the legislature accepted this role and the challenge and provided a number of alternatives for the legislature to consider in addressing both the current and the long term funding crisis. These recommendations were not aimed at counties and cities as much as they were aimed at the legislature to review and take appropriate action on. It is time to do just that.
Posted by: carmine at 9/23/2009 1:47 PM

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