Committee advances Neighborhood Roads Fund bill, drops township matching requirement

House Bill 42‑30, a measure to create a dedicated Neighborhood Roads Fund for repairing and maintaining neighborhood streets, advanced out of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee after members adopted a substitute and reported the bill with recommendation.

Representative Altman, sponsor of the bill, told the committee the measure is intended to provide “a structured, reliable funding source to improve the roads that matter the most to our communities.” He said the bill would create the Neighborhood Roads Fund and remove the requirement that townships match county road agencies on projects using those funds.

The bill’s substitute also allocates $100,000,000 per year for local bridges and directs distribution of those bridge dollars through the Local Bridge Advisory Board, which the bill describes as composed of local road-agency members. “With thousands of bridges across the state in disrepair, far exceeding our local…