Editorial: Michigan at risk of losing rail funds

From Detroit Free Press

News from Washington in October that the state would get $150 million to develop a high-speed railway between Kalamazoo and Dearborn brought a welcome push to Michigan’s efforts to build a 21st-Century transportation system. But the federal government can’t help those states that won’t help themselves. Michigan now faces the very real prospect of losing the grant because the Legislature failed to set aside the required 20% local match.

It’s an ominous portent for the road ahead — if Michigan doesn’t find a better way to fund state transportation needs. Yes, that effort must include improving efficiency and working to get a fair share of dollars from Washington. But unless Michigan wants to watch hundreds of millions of dollars of federal grants fly to other states, it also means an overdue increase in the state gas tax.

Michigan’s inability to fix its transportation funding problems was undoubtedly one reason the state received only about half of the $308 million it requested to purchase and upgrade 135 miles of track. Even the $150 million the federal government committed would have enabled Michigan to prepare roughly 60 miles of track for high-speed service. That would have cut commute times in the 280-mile corridor between Detroit and Chicago by about 15 minutes, giving Amtrak and the state an improvement to promote.

The time is right. This year, nearly 480,000 passengers rode Amtrak Wolverine trains on the Detroit-Chicago corridor, up 8% from a year ago. Passengers on the Blue Water train — serving Port Huron, East Lansing and Chicago — rose more than 18% to nearly 158,000.

Besides the $150 million for high-speed rail service, Michigan was awarded $3.2 million to plan for 110-m.p.h. passenger service on the Amtrak route between Chicago and Detroit. Another $7.9 million was set for the West Detroit connections project, connecting the Chicago-Detroit high-speed line to the Detroit New Center station. The federal grants were scheduled to roll into Michigan early next year, said Tim Hoeffner of the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Now, unless the next Legislature acts quickly, or the Department of Transportation finds another way to secure the local match of about $35 million, more than $160 million will hit the road to other states. Gov.-elect Rick Snyder must make sure that doesn’t happen.

More broadly, Snyder must show far more leadership than his predecessor in finding a way to pay for a transportation system that will help put Michigan’s economy in overdrive.