Cities Oppose I-75 Road Cost-Sharing Law

Oakland County, MI — Bloomfield Township, one of Michigan’s most affluent communities, won’t pay a cent for the $1 billion plan to rebuild and widen Interstate 75 through Oakland County

About 20 minutes away in Troy, taxpayers will fork over $9.6 million between now and 2024 to support the project.
Sound fair?

Not at all, says Sen Marty Knollenberg, a Troy Republican.

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“Right now with our matching formula, it’s not simple, it’s not fair because only a handful of communities have to pay, and it’s not efficient,” Knollenberg told The Detroit News. “… It’s less money into the local roads.”

The reason some communities pay and others don’t is found buried in a 1951 law that requires cities and villages with at least 25,000 residents to chip in local funding to support Michigan Department of Transportation road projects. Bloomfield Township isn’t either, and neither is Oakland County, which is responsible for major roads.

“We think fairness is a big deal here,” LaMacchia told The Detroit News. “It’s one of those things where you look at a finite group of communities helping pay a portion of somebody else’s cost, and you immediately ask why and who else is doing it.”
Knollenberg’s legislation to repeal what he called an “additional MDOT tax” for the 45 communities required to pay under the formula won approval in both the Senate and the House and is awaiting Gov. Rick Snyder’s signature.

Snyder hasn’t taken a position, but MDOT officials oppose it, saying it will leave a $22 million shortfall in funding for state trunk line projects planned over the next five years.

Officials in Troy and neighboring Royal Oak have adopted city resolutions that oppose the I-75 widening project, not only because of the costs, but also because it makes it too easy for motorists to bypass local communities.

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, whose county would pay nothing for the widening project, has called it “Oakland County’s Main Street” and has hailed the project as an engine for economic development and key quality-of-life driver.

“Companies along I-75, like Fiat Chrysler, that support I-75’s modernization, will see their employees in a safer commute; it will give companies along I-75 the ability to move goods more quickly through that corridor; and certainly improve the quality of life by easing some of the worst traffic congestion in our area,” Patterson said last winter during his annual state-of-the-county address.

» Read more about this on The Detroit News.