Well, it is time again to take stock of if and how we moved the needle on needed transportation improvements over the past year. Next week we will look forward, but this week, let’s look back to see what was accomplished.
The highlight of the year was getting transportation funding addressed for the next several years at both the state and federal level. Most of the early part of the year was spent educating people on the complicated Prop 1 proposal on state transportation funding. As you remember, the proposal went down in flames at the polls.
Much of the rest of the year was spent watching the legislature consider one proposal after another until they finally approved a bill to provide $600 million in new revenue and $600 million in budget cuts between now and 2021. It wasn’t pretty, is not enough, and the total doesn’t all get here until 2021, but at least agencies can now concentrate on developing plans and projects based on new and higher funding limits.
On the federal side, MAP-21 was extended several times during the year before Congress approved a new five-year federal transportation bill called the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. After 36 short-term extensions, the FAST Act gives transportation agencies some idea of future funding so they can plan and build with some degree of certainty.
Significant progress continued on many of the region’s significant transportation projects and plans including:
- Continued progress on the M-1 rail line.
- The naming of and continued planning and construction (on the Canadian side) of the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
- Continued development of the Regional Transit Plan and corridor work in the Michigan and Gratiot corridors by the Regional Transit Authority (RTA).
- Continued refinement of both the I-75 and I-94 improvement projects.
- Completion of the household travel survey.
- The opening of Mcity to test and evaluate various new auto-communication technologies.
- Delivery of new DDOT busses to go along with service improvements and better on-time performance.
- Completion of the Southeast Michigan Traffic Safety Plan.
- Many other reconstruction, biking, walking, and safety projects.
It has truly been a big year in transportation! We look forward to completion of these projects and the benefits they will provide us in the coming years. Next week, I will focus on some of the anticipated projects for 2016.
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