Roads to Ruin: Without a ton of cash, Michigan's highways will careen into crisis

The I-75 and I-94 interchange with downtown as backdrop taken during rush hour aprox 5:15 pm. Photo by Wayne E. Smith The Detroit News 10/06/2005

Special series in the Detroit News, "Michigan's highway system: Roads to ruin." Similar to the point that I make about school systems, large campuses, and the school bus infrastructure required to get kids to schools -- buses that have to be purchased, maintained, and replaced; fuel purchased; and personnel issues; among others, these are the unintendended consequences of moving away from walkable schools.

How do you continue to fund roads when about 50% of the cost of maintaining and building roads comes not from excise taxes and the like, but from from local and state general fund revenues?

As Jane Jacobs says (roughly paraphrased) referring to traffic congestion, "'when people ask the question why aren't there more roads?' They are asking the wrong question, which should be 'why are there so many cars?'"

Sprawl has and will continue to have costs that in an increasingly vicious zero sum game economic climate at all levels--world, local, national, and with regard to governmental taxation policies--are unsustainable.

Headlights and taillights streak across I-94 near the Lodge onramp from the WSU parking structure, Thursday evening Sept. 29, 2005, in downtown Detroit. (The Detroit News / Steve Perez)

As evening falls, traffic zips past the famous World's Largest Tire, a Uniroyal fixture, on Interstate 94 near the Oakwood exit in Allen Park, Michigan on September 29, 2005. (Brandy Baker/The Detroit News)