Think Regional/Act Local

June 25, 2010

Michigan is a national leader in safe driving. The number of traffic crashes continues to decline. Much has been done over the past years to help account for this decrease, including increased enforcement of seat belt and drinking laws. Well, another law is about to go into effect that will hopefully continue this trend of making our roads safer. As you may already know, the legislature passed and Governor Granholm recently signed into law a ban on texting while driving in Michigan. Michigan now joins several other states with similar texting laws. This new law takes effect July 1.

The law is very specific. It prohibits a person from “reading, typing, or sending text messages using a wireless two-way communication device, including a wireless phone located in a person's hand or lap, while operating a moving motor vehicle on a street or highway in the state.” A violation is a civil infraction that results in a $100 fine for a first offense and a $200 fine for a subsequent offense.

A mobile communications device (we used to call these phones!) has become a valuable tool in helping us work and travel more efficiently. However, statistics indicate that using such devices while driving poses a serious risk. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving distracted drivers, and more than half a million were injured. People who use hand-held mobile communication devices while driving are four times more likely to be involved in injury-causing accidents.

Remember, starting on Thursday, July 1 texting while driving will be against state law. Reduce your temptation to text by placing your wireless device out of reach in a purse or briefcase until you safely reach your destination. We will all be a lot safer.

June 21, 2010In the next few months, you will have the opportunity to vote to renew the existing 0.59 mills to support the operation of the SMART bus system. This should be a no brainer. SMART provides transportation to over 12 million people annually. They run 283 fixed route buses and over 350 small or paratransit vehicles through some 1,200 square miles of Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties. So how much is 0.59 mill? Well, it means that it will cost each household with a SEV of $100,000 about $59 dollars a year. That is less than the transit millage rate in Ann Arbor. That is less than the transit millage rate in Grand Rapids.

Should be a no brainer – but even if it passes, it will result in fewer dollars going to SMART to provide transit service. How is this possible? Seen your SEV lately? Everyone is happy that their taxes have stayed the same/gone down. What people do not necessarily understand is that lower taxes mean fewer services and this is especially true with public transit. The day after the millage hopefully passes, SMART may have to make cuts to their existing service in order to live within their means. Talk about bittersweet!

So, regular bus service will be less frequent, but what does this say for the several major transit projects being planned – Ann Arbor to Detroit Commuter train service, light rail on Woodward, bus rapid transit on the Gratiot corridor? It says that they are not sustainable in the long term. It says that we do not have enough money to build and maintain these projects and have dollars to expand the existing bus system. It says transit is in deep trouble!

We will soon be at a crossroads as it relates to transit funding. There has been a lot more written about the consequences of less funding to make road improvements than on the transit side, but the consequences are no less devastating on the transit side. There will be less service over fewer hours of the day and maybe higher fares at some point. No one wants to hear that more money is needed, but without it, this is the reality we face.

So, vote to continue the millage, but understand that you haven’t solved the problem – just postponed the really hard decisions a bit longer and made it more expensive in the long run. Soon, we are going to need to confront the problem head on or find ourselves in a region with no public transit of any kind.

June 15, 2010

Well, there has been a lot of discussion about the merits of building a new bridge between the U.S. and Canada here in Southeast Michigan in the vicinity of Zug Island. The Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) has evoked a great deal of debate among businesses, residents, and legislators on both sides of the border. From what I can tell, the opinion seems to be heavily in favor of building the bridge in most circles save maybe the most important one – the Michigan Senate. The Big 4 – Bing, Ficano, Gielegham, and Patterson (in alphabetical order) – the car companies, the Detroit Regional Chamber, and a host of other companies and agencies support construction of the new bridge.

Why the debate? Well the discussion has centered around a couple of issues:

• Why do we need a new bridge? Traffic is down
  
• Why not let the private sector, the Ambassador Bridge Company, build the bridge?

Let’s take a look at these issues. First of all, traffic is down right now, but the 2010 numbers are higher than the 2009 numbers and still climbing. It is dangerous to make need assessments for a new structure that will be built to be there for 100 years based on only a few years of data. We have a rich inventory of traffic counts on the bridge and tunnels in this region going back several decades. It reads like the stock market – if you look at any 20-year period – traffic is up, but if you look at it in three-to-five-year increments, you can see considerable variability in the information. 

Conclusion – History tells us that traffic will rebound and increase over the expected life span of the bridge.

However, you just don’t build a bridge based on the volume of traffic that crosses over it – or at least you shouldn’t in my opinion. There are other considerations. Redundancy is one issue that I have heard very little discussion about. It is widely known that the Ambassador Bridge carries more goods than any other crossing between the US and Canada. In a typical year, over $100 billion in goods crosses between the US and Canada. No one wants to talk about terrorism or major incidents, but unfortunately, they are a fact of life that we must be prepare for today. Do you think it is worth an investment of about $3 billion to build an additional bridge to protect the kind of investment that supports over 220,000 jobs in Michigan? I do.

Another consideration is that the existing Ambassador Bridge is more than 80 years old and in need of rehabilitation in the coming years. This fact is identified in the environmental document completed by the Ambassador Bridge Company found on their Web site. This is why they have also recommended building an additional bridge next to the current Ambassador Bridge. Once constructed, the existing bridge would be taken out of service and used as a service road. This again comes from the environmental document written by the Ambassador Bridge Company. SEMCOG supports the construction of the parallel bridge, however, to date, the Ambassador Bridge Company has been unable to obtain a permit either in the U.S. or Canada to build the twin – and the clock is ticking.

The solution is obvious and simple to me – we need an additional bridge in the future to handle additional capacity that can be anticipated to occur over the useful life of the structure and to secure the investment and jobs that it brings Michigan and Southeast Michigan. It should be built as quickly as possible. For our legislature to not see this and act on it immediately is extremely shortsighted. In addition, the Ambassador Bridge Company should continue working to secure the needed approvals to replace the existing, aging Ambassador Bridge with a new one. We need them both and we need them now! Let’s stop arguing over it and start building them one at a time!

Dateline Mackinac: No, I am not writing from Mackinac, but it is the happening venue this week. All the politicians and business folks are up there trying to find a new recipe that will move Michigan out of our current economic situation and get us back on the path to prosperity. It is going to have to be something bold, something that is agreed on by both political parties and something that results in putting people to work.

The good news is that we are not the first areas to go through this situation. One of the sessions in Mackinac included a presentation from representatives of the City of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was in the same situation Detroit and the rest of the state is in, only Pittsburgh faced their economic downturn in the 1980s. Over the past 30 years, Pittsburgh has undergone a remarkable change – unemployment is down, housing values are up, and there are more people employed now than there ever were previously. How did they do this? They cite three main strategies:

1. They did not abandon their strengths.
2. They invested in education, health care, and infrastructure.
3. They invested in quality of life – things like the arts, culture, recreation, and the environment.

I hope that these strategies are not lost on all of the people running for governor, though I fear they might be. There are seven candidates running for governor and they all participated in a session at Mackinac. Apparently, there was not much they agreed on – not surprising – but one of those things they all agreed upon was the fact that they would not support an increased gas tax as a standalone solution to fund needed transportation infrastructure. They had other ideas for raising funds including revising Michigan’s tax structure.

Well this is all well and good, but how long does it take to revise the entire tax structure of the state? And here is some news – the condition of the transportation infrastructure will not wait for us or them to figure this out. It will continue to decline until there are additional revenues.

I hope at least one of them attended the presentation by the Pittsburgh officials and heard their keys to success. Let’s start now by learning what to focus on as a result of the misfortune Pittsburgh already experienced. The longer we wait, the more it will cost and the longer it will take to get back to prosperity. Aren’t these conferences supposed to be about learning?