On Michigan Ave in EL, they are finishing up the water main work and have repaved the street there. I was a bit disappointed that they have not upgraded the streetscape, no nice new curbing or sidewalks at the corner just the basics that was there before. The new pavement is nice, however!
This is great news. I rarely use the in-town freeways because of their condition and configuration which makes these roads dangerous. Plus I don't really need to go 75 mph for the three minutes to get across town, but I can see from my windows that a lot of people use this route and I am happy that the Governor seems to have figured a way to do these projects. I wonder if she could find some money to repave Moorse River Drive, which would make her ride home much more pleasant.
Another sight I have out of my windows is South Washington Avenue. Under the "no good deed goes unpunished" heading I used the Connect Lansing app to report a street light out. I was happy to see the BWL show up a few days later to repair the streetlight. However, they replaced the yellow/amber light with a bright blue/white LED light. This light is much more intense than the one they replaced and hits my eyes like a car with brights on inside of my kitchen. It seems to be a bit unusual around here but I really do sit and look out my windows at night and I really enjoyed my Avenue view lined with the double-headed street lamps. It was a nice harmonious look that I'm sure was part of the plans for rebuilding the street which they did only a few years ago. The BWL writes back to tell that they are phasing out the yellow/amber lights with these LED lights which are of course more "efficient and require less maintenance". I did write the Mayor about this issue but I am afraid this in another instance of the BWL just doing what it wants to without checking with anyone to see if we may not like the bright white lights, and try to understand that that the yellow lights were part of a nice looking streetscape that we paid millions to rebuild. It's a small quality of life issue, I can't have my blinds open at night anymore. I guess this is another Capital vs Capitol issue and I will just have to "get over it" as they say! But it looks really crappy.
Plus I don't really need to go 75 mph for the three minutes to get across town.
Repairing high-cost roads when that funding could go to lower-cost roads that provide the same route would be a better alternative.
I'm actually pretty happy they are planning to do a rebuild of 496 west of the Grand River. The current configuration is very dangerous, I am hoping that they will take this opportunity to make it safer for those merging in and out of the freeway.
I'm beginning to think it might be best for localities to fund their own roads, why send the the money to state just for them to take a piece for administrative costs and hand the remainder back? The same goes for the Feds on a number of issues. Besides, with the upcoming wave of electric cars revenue from gas tax is going to fall dramatically and nobody has proposed a good solution to that as far as I've heard.
There was recently an idea tossed around for neighborhoods to vote to finance extra street and sidewalk repairs in Lansing, if they could really provide good quality infrastructure at the cost they proposed I would of happily voted for it. I hope to see that proposal resurface.
Which is part of the point. Either way if we want better roads we're going to have to pay for it. Why do you or I care what people in the U.P. or Grand Rapids or Detroit or rural counties want to do with their roads? We have the ability to pass our own funding for at least some of our own roads right now, I'm much more willing to pay that extra local property millage than I am to support an expanded gas tax. I'm tired of seeing my money get sent up to a higher level of government to see it tied up in bureaucracy and red tape, or see priorities shift like has happened with mass transit. Why? Why do we all buy into a system where we pay extra taxes to the State or Feds and then beg and compete for funding or have to apply for bonds over and over? Why not just keep the money for local projects local to begin with? The State and Federal levels of government have many responsibilities that can't really be handled at a lower level, I'm content to let them focus their efforts there. Raising taxes is a much easier sell at the local level, maybe shifting more responsibilities to lower levels of government could give the Feds a realistic opportunity to reign in their deficit finally.
A couple of ideas I have had about this are these, perhaps Lansing could start building and maintaining ourselves by creating a street construction department equipped with all the machines necessary to rebuild our roads. Set up one of those pavement grinders/repavers and run it every day. Rebuild the street with permeable pavement that does not create potholes and allows runoff to go into the ground not the sewer. Set up a toll booth on every road leading into Michigan charge a small toll like a dollar for entering Pure Michigan! Offer the toll payer a raffle ticket for Michigan made services and products as a thank you for paying the toll. Add that toll to every airline/train/bus ticket from out of state that arrives here. Perhaps the state could figure out a way to charge electric vehicles a road user's fee collected when the vehicle gets its plates, or via a fee paid at the plug. Nobody rides for free!
I've often wondered why we haven't seen more of those all in one paving milling machines, I have to assume there's a good reason they're not more popular. As far as a use tax on EVs, that sounds like a good idea at first but it'd be hard to do fairly (like by milage) and it could serve to disincentivize EV adoption which would be counter productive. Given the relatively low amount of through traffic in Michigan I'm not sure toll roads are a good answer in many places either, maybe on 94 and a few other places.
I was thinking of a small toll on the roads that cross the borders from OH, IN, WI, and OT, and on plane train and bus tickets not the Interstates within Michigan. Not really a use tax for Michiganders more like an arrival tax for visitors. It cost a dollar to visit Michigan! Maybe we could a pave the roads with pot, $1road tax for each sale! I pretty sure Lansing will be getting a good amount of tax money from pots sales as they are taxed now which could be directed towards infrastructure. We will have a chance to help our Governor solve these issues in November. with progressives in charge, we could finally see these issues taken away from the anti-government conservatives who use this as a political hammer, who think the roads can somehow fix themselves without funding them. They think people who live in cities deserve to drive on crappy roads because we don't look like them or support them. They stand in the way of progress on the roads so as not to give the Governor a "victory" without caring one bit about fixing the roads. "sorry this week has really been one for the history books, very upsetting thus the little rant!"
Comments
Another sight I have out of my windows is South Washington Avenue. Under the "no good deed goes unpunished" heading I used the Connect Lansing app to report a street light out. I was happy to see the BWL show up a few days later to repair the streetlight. However, they replaced the yellow/amber light with a bright blue/white LED light. This light is much more intense than the one they replaced and hits my eyes like a car with brights on inside of my kitchen. It seems to be a bit unusual around here but I really do sit and look out my windows at night and I really enjoyed my Avenue view lined with the double-headed street lamps. It was a nice harmonious look that I'm sure was part of the plans for rebuilding the street which they did only a few years ago. The BWL writes back to tell that they are phasing out the yellow/amber lights with these LED lights which are of course more "efficient and require less maintenance". I did write the Mayor about this issue but I am afraid this in another instance of the BWL just doing what it wants to without checking with anyone to see if we may not like the bright white lights, and try to understand that that the yellow lights were part of a nice looking streetscape that we paid millions to rebuild. It's a small quality of life issue, I can't have my blinds open at night anymore. I guess this is another Capital vs Capitol issue and I will just have to "get over it" as they say! But it looks really crappy.
Repairing high-cost roads when that funding could go to lower-cost roads that provide the same route would be a better alternative.
There was recently an idea tossed around for neighborhoods to vote to finance extra street and sidewalk repairs in Lansing, if they could really provide good quality infrastructure at the cost they proposed I would of happily voted for it. I hope to see that proposal resurface.