Bi-partisan panel discusses Michigan road funding issues
A panel of state legislators and Kirk Steudle, director of the Michigan Department of Transportation, sounded off about the state’s streets funding woes during a luncheon in Wyoming on March 11.
One of the questions was: What have you heard from constituents about the state of roads? See below for the response from Rep. Brandon Dillon, D-Grand Rapids. To read the entire Mlive story, click here.
Rep. Brandon Dillon, D-Grand Rapids
“It’s a good question, because actually, after I’m done with here, I have to go over to Tuffy to pick up my wife’s car, which had a muffler replaced in 2010 and now one of the pieces dropped off, I suspect that’s from knocking into potholes. That’s $103 that I’m going to have to pay.
“It’s actually because she travels to work, she works at Creston High School, and she has to go down Knapp Street, and if anybody’s driven down Knapp Street from Fuller to Plainfield, that has not been fixed properly in probably 12 years.
“So I would agree with the director that we probably need to have some additional options for local municipalities to be able to help fix their roads, but we also need to not just let the state off the hook, frankly, and make sure that the state is providing adequate funding, because that gets back to the entire issue of road funding statewide. I don’t think it would be useful just to focus on cities.”
