County, industry and municipal groups tell House committee Michigan needs new road funding now

County, industry and municipal leaders told the Michigan House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the record that local roads and bridges face persistent and growing funding shortfalls and that lawmakers should act to stabilize and increase road funding.

The presentations came from Denise Donahue, chief executive officer of the County Road Association of Michigan; Lance Biannini, vice president of government affairs at the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association; and John LaMackie of the Michigan Municipal League. The committee met with a quorum present and accepted two routine motions (minutes adopted and a motion to excuse absent members) without recorded opposition.

Why it matters: presenters said local governments maintain the majority of Michigan’s road network but receive a minority share of transportation revenues. They argued that rising replacement costs, new regulatory requirements that convert culverts into bridges, and declining per-gallon fuel revenues driven by improved mileage and electrification are worsening the gap between needs and available funds.

Denise Donahue, County Road Association of Michigan

Denise Donahue told the committee that county road agencies manage roughly 90,000 centerline miles — “that’s 75% of the overall miles within the state of Michigan” — and more than 5,800 local bridges, about 52% of the state total. She described several county-level programs and needs: an electronic permitting platform called Oxcart used by 78 of 83 counties; a seasonal weight-restrictions mobile app with about 11,000 subscribers; a wetland mitigation program funded by a recurring $2 million deposit to a program capped at $8 million that buys or builds wetland credits counties can draw on; and a local road research program being seeded with federal and state matches and a project management platform called Road Conductor being developed at Michigan Tech.

Donahue and CRA staff emphasized two drivers of rising local costs: regulatory…