State's Highway Funding Plan Could Be Better, Group Says
Michigan's state highway funding formula fails to take into account highway use in distributing dollars to counties, according to a new study by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, Livonia-based private, nonprofit public affairs research organization.
The formula, which has substantively changed only slightly since its adoption in 1951, focuses on mileage. As a result, highway funding is skewed toward lesser traveled rural roads at the expense of heavily traveled urban routes, the report says.
The report notes that, while mileage was once the only reasonable way of allocating highway dollars, it is now possible to use vehicle miles traveled as one part of the formula. Doing so could more equitably and efficiently allocate Michigan highway revenues, which are growing very slowly.
The study provides three scenarios demonstrating the kinds of shifts in funding that could be produced by injecting measures of road use into the formula, both with and without additional funding.
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