Think Regional/Act Local

Can you believe it? It seems like the year has just flown by and this week is Thanksgiving already. We all have things to be thankful for and the holidays are a wonderful time to get together with friends and family to celebrate life. But celebrating can mean drinking and driving – a deadly pairing. With more people expected to travel on our region’s highways during the holiday season I want to remind you to enjoy the holidays, but know the facts -- alcohol is a significant factor in holiday deaths. Impaired driving is the most frequently committed violent crime, randomly killing someone in the U.S. every 48 minutes.

In Southeast Michigan, alcohol was involved in 29 percent of all traffic deaths in 2010, killing 96 people. That is too many people lost in car crashes. Don’t drink and drive and watch out for those people who do! Be safe and be smart. Be sure you show up at mom’s for Thanksgiving dinner – and you had best be on time – safe and sound!

Enjoy!

Well, it has been a couple of weeks since Governor Snyder delivered his infrastructure message and I thought it would be good to sort of review what, if anything, is happening. As expected, no action has yet to be taken – what he discussed involved some very significant changes and will take some time to address. However, there has been lots of stirring on several of the initiatives he discussed including:

• Public transit – Governor Snyder supported development of a Regional Transit Authority for Southeast Michigan. Meetings and discussions are occurring on developing proposed legislation that would form an authority. Hopefully, these discussions will result in legislation being drafted and introduced in the near future. The future of public transit in Southeast Michigan may depend on the outcome of these discussions – and no, I am not trying to be dramatic and overstate the issue.
• County road commissions – The governor noted in his message that Michigan has 617 independent road agencies, including 81 county road commissions. He asked the legislature to revise the law to allow any county to absorb its county road commission. Well, this has caused quite a stir. Legislation has been introduced to do exactly what the governor asked for. I have heard some mixed reaction to this. Some county board of commissioners are likely to move forward on this issue once legislation has been passed, but many may not. Why? Well there are several reasons, but a big one is that they may be unwilling to take on responsibilities that are not commensurate with adequate funding. Why take responsibility for an underfunded road program when they can just refer complaints to the road commission?
• Transportation funding – The governor emphatically said that Michigan must make additional investments in our roads and bridges and outlined a series of reforms and examples of how additional revenues could be collected to improve our crumbling road and transit infrastructure. Well, this has resulted in lots of discussion among members of the legislature and articles written in the press, but no legislation yet. There is a feeling among some that we only have until the end of the calendar year if we are to get anything done before another election year cycle begins and nothing of any consequence gets done in the legislature. So far, lots of talk – no action

One last thing – the governor is big on dash boards. So, how is he doing so far after two weeks?

	Public Transit
	County Road Commissions
	Funding

Not bad after two weeks!

On Monday of this past week, the Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee proposed a two-year transportation bill to be funded at current funding levels adjusting for inflation. The bill, called the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (or, MAP-21), consolidates programs, increases state flexibility in the use of federal dollars, creates a new freight-focus national program, expands the TIFIA loan program, streamlines the project review, and approval process, guarantees states will receive back 95 percent of what they pay in transportation taxes, and includes no project earmarks.

To maintain current funding levels, the bill requires $12 billion in new revenue above what the Highway Trust Fund can sustain over the two-year period. There is no proposal yet for where the $12 billion is coming from.

The bill identifies five core programs:

National Highway Performance Program: This program combines the current Interstate Maintenance, National Highway System, and Highway Bridge programs.

Transportation Mobility Program: This program replaces the current Surface Transportation Program, but provides broader flexibility and project eligibility criteria.

National Freight Network Program: The program consolidates existing programs and provides funds to the states by formula for projects that improve regional and national freight movements.

Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ): MAP-21 adds particulate matter as one of the pollutants addressed and requires a performance plan in large metropolitan areas to improve accountability.

Highway Safety Improvement Program: This existing program will see an increase in funds and a requirement that states develop and implement a safety plan.

Other key programs include:

Performance Management: The bill establishes an outcome-driven approach that tracks performance and will hold states and MPOs accountable for improving conditions and performance of transportation assets.

Project Delivery Streamlining: The bill includes reforms to reduce project delivery times and costs.

None of these provisions are a surprise. They have been discussed for a couple of years now. The devil is always in the details, but this sounds pretty good and could help a lot – depending on how the funding situation is eventually sorted out.

Stay tuned – all is still not well in Washington. The House is working on a six-year bill to be introduced before the

end of the calendar year setting up the potential for an epic battle of Super-Bowl proportion in early 2012. Can’t wait to see how this one ends.