Tuesday, June 30, 2009

On the (Gravel) Road Again

The gravel road makes a comeback in Michigan for all the wrong reasons:
"More than 20 of the 83 counties in Michigan, home to the nation’s highest unemployment rate for much of the past four years, have turned rural roads back to gravel with no immediate plans to repave, according to the County Road Association of Michigan. About 50 miles have been reverted in the last three years," reports Tim Martin of the Chicago Tribune. "About a quarter of the state’s county road agencies largely left out of the federal stimulus package, which focuses on highways and other major thoroughfares, say they can’t afford some costly repaving projects and have crushed up deteriorating roads."


at 12:46 PM

1 comments:

  1. I remember the big fuss back in 2000 about Reamer Road in Oregon Township (Lapeer County). The county did the same thing, and the residents raised a fuss (and threatened to sue, if I remember correctly), claiming that losing a paved road would lower their property values. The residents won, eventually, and it got repaved. I wonder if this same kind of backlash is happening in the counties that this has happened in.

    Oddly enough, most of the counties doing this are in northern and western Michigan. From what I understand, none of the counties in southeastern Michigan have done this yet.
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