[darstar]

Originally Posted by michigan83

Funny... I grew up on a dirt road and spent the whole time wishing they would pave it.

Thats because your most likely ( lakefront) was not split with the highway running thru your front yard. This was a small inland lake community. We all felt we were being violated, especially those with very young grand kids who always made a bee line for the beach, it was an accident waiting to happen . In the 6 years I lived there we had two deaths for this very reason.

[YAZ]

Originally Posted by darstar

Thats because your most likely ( lakefront) was not split with the highway running thru your front yard. This was a small inland lake community. We all felt we were being violated, especially those with very young grand kids who always made a bee line for the beach, it was an accident waiting to happen . In the 6 years I lived there we had two deaths for this very reason.

Ugh.

There are parts of Walled Lake like that in SE MI. I was always freaked out driving in that area....worried that some kid was gonna dart out in front of me.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by YAZ

I enjoyed living off of a dirt road while in Michigan. Very little traffic, and slow when it did exist.

Then they paved our road.

Can you guess what happened?

Cleaner cars?

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by ram2

The roads never got fixed after Engler raised the state gas tax.

No. They chickened out and did not raise it enough and did not include the 6% sales tax on gas in what want to road repair. As a result, they only garnered enough revenue to keep up with band aid repair after dealing with increasing costs. They were able to do a few repairs, but not much.

It is interesting to see opposers issues, but what do they need to see before they will accept the roads need to be fixed and it will cost over a billion a year to do it? Conversion to dirt roads? closed roads? Collapsing bridges? People are dying and cars are being wrecked now. How bad does it need to get before enough people will accept the roads must be repaired? What will it take for people to realize the longer we wait, the more it costs.

It is time for someone to act. That is what leaders are elected and paid to do. It they keep messing around, the proposed increase will not be enough, then everyone will be complaining again "they raised taxes and did not fix the roads" That will be because the complaining delayed things and the road condition continued to deteriorate while costs continued to escalate. They recognized this problem at least three years ago, do something already!

[YAZ]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

No. They chickened out and did not raise it enough and did not include the 6% sales tax on gas in what want to road repair. As a result, they only garnered enough revenue to keep up with band aid repair after dealing with increasing costs. They were able to do a few repairs, but not much.

It is interesting to see opposers issues, but what do they need to see before they will accept the roads need to be fixed and it will cost over a billion a year to do it? Conversion to dirt roads? closed roads? Collapsing bridges? People are dying and cars are being wrecked now. How bad does it need to get before enough people will accept the roads must be repaired? What will it take for people to realize the longer we wait, the more it costs.

It is time for someone to act. That is what leaders are elected and paid to do. It they keep messing around, the proposed increase will not be enough, then everyone will be complaining again "they raised taxes and did not fix the roads" That will be because the complaining delayed things and the road condition continued to deteriorate while costs continued to escalate. They recognized this problem at least three years ago, do something already!

Might be easier to fix Detroit.

[darstar]

Originally Posted by YAZ

Might be easier to fix Detroit.

It's a real no brainer,starting to fix every thing in our infrastructure , will give jobs to a lot of people. Just what are they waiting for?

[ram2]

Originally Posted by magellan

How far back are going in this debate? Did President Roosevelt fix the roads?

Back in the 1960s and early 70s, Michigan was known for having good roads. And that was when state and federal gas taxes were lower and the average motor vehicle was heavier than today.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by ram2

Back in the 1960s and early 70s, Michigan was known for having good roads. And that was when state and federal gas taxes were lower and the average motor vehicle was heavier than today.

That was 50 years ago. Let's fast forward to today and fix the problem.

[ram2]

Originally Posted by magellan

That was 50 years ago. Let's fast forward to today and fix the problem.

Let's find out why the problem happened.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by ram2

Let's find out why the problem happened.

No, it's too late for that. We're not talking about institutional racism or anything complicated. It's roads. Find the money to fix them and do it so it's sustainable.