I attended a town hall meeting here in Washtenaw County last night about transportation hosted by State Representative Pam Byrnes.  The event included comments from a panel including US Rep. Mark Schauer, MDOT Director of Governmental Affairs Ron DeCook, and Terri Blackmore of the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study.  I am not a transportation expert by any means but better public transportation is one of the hot topics these days when discussing how to keep young talent in Michigan so I'm interested in what our policymakers are doing to promote it.  

All of the panelists spoke about how important supporting improved public transit was important what it all comes down to is Michigan's transportation funding.  There is a significant risk of losing federal transportation funding in the next couple of years because we aren't reaching the state and local matching levels to keep it.  Ron DeCook presented some of the elements of the Michigan Transportation Funding Task Force recommendations that are intended to increase over the next 5-7 years the level of transportation funding come close to meeting the anticipated funding needs for transportation.  The primary ways that they are looking at increasing that funding are through incremental increases to the state gas tax, vehicle registration fees, and the aviation fuel tax.  I was amazed to learn that the aviation fuel tax hasn't increased since 1929 when it was first implemented.  One of the other things that I hadn't considered about funding is that the more we encourage people to buy smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles and ride public transit, the less gas tax revenue the state will bring in.  I don't think that means we should continue to encourage gas consumption as we have in the past but it means that we're going to have to get more creative about how we fund some of our transportation needs.

It's never easy to get people excited about tax or fee increases but I think that we'd all agree that well-maintained roads, safe bike and walking paths, and efficient and convenient public transportation are all important elements of a desireable place to live.  I'd certainly pay a little more for my registration or gas to not have to pay $200-300 to get a tire fixed after I blew it out on a pothole or to be able to ride on a bikepath to more of the places that I need to go.  I'd love to be able to take a high speed rail line to Chicago for the weekend and not have to worry about getting stuck behind a freight line that has priority over the passenger line.  There are all sorts of benefits for our cities and state if we do invest in these transportation improvements but I think it will be a hard sell when people don't have jobs and are losing their homes.  The other thing is that people just don't know.  I learned about the event from the A2 Chamber of Commerce so I'm sure that a number of chamber members received the same email.  However, there were maybe only 40 people at the meeting and at least 50% were government employees or elected officials.  I think 50% is probably quite conservative too.  As citizens we need to be informed and get involved, especially if we want our state economy to bounce back.  Now is not the time to sit back and feel sorry for ourselves and our state.  Get involved!