Public commenter urges truck fees as lawmakers and governor propose competing road‑funding plans

Jack Hoffman addressed the State Transportation Commission during public comment on April 24 to urge that any transportation‑funding package include regulatory fees on heavy commercial trucks proportional to pavement damage.

Hoffman summarized competing proposals: he said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed raising $1.7 billion in new revenue from regulatory fees on heavy trucks plus $1.3 billion from converting the sales tax on gasoline into a fuel tax, for a total of $3.0 billion; those revenues, he said, would be distributed 57% to state roads, 10% to state comprehensive transportation, 17% to counties and 17% to cities. Hoffman said the Michigan House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee introduced a separate package of bills (house bills 4180 through 4187 and 4230) that would raise about $3.1 billion through reallocations of other budget items and shift distribution to 44% counties, 34% cities, 18% state roads and 3% state comprehensive transportation.

Hoffman argued that available analyses show state trunk‑line unmet needs substantially exceed the amounts in the House package. “Any plan that does not tap funds new funds in the form of regulatory fees on heavy commercial trucks proportional to the damage caused by trucks to the system will not provide sufficient funds for state trunk line roads and comprehensive transportation,” Hoffman said.

Why this matters: the governor and the House have competing approaches to raising transportation revenue. Public comments, including Hoffman's, press the commission to consider funding sources that allocate costs to heavy users of the system and to account for urban‑rural distributional effects.

Hoffman said he had given meeting staff a copy of his remarks and offered to answer questions; none were recorded in the transcript.