Attempts by our city council and mayoral candidates to address the problem of our road conditions will be hampered by the complexity of road funding, which is broken in Michigan and troubled nationwide. The State Senate takes it up again next week. This is not (only) a local problem and the sums needed to do a completely satisfactory job are too large for our limited local taxing ability. (We already levy a road tax on ourselves in Ann Arbor.) The current method of funding most road work (the gas tax, highway trust fund)has been inadequate for the job for the greater part of the last decade. As reported by the Chronicle, Washtenaw County has also been struggling to find a new funding mechanism for roads. (I’ve been trying to keep up with all this in my blog.)

I guess that what our elected council members and candidates could offer would be a look at the operations side of our local transportation planning and to ask how these projects are executed. There are some fine points that could be debated locally.

I believe that part of our problem is the pressure to become more of a regional center. We are bringing a lot of people in cars into the city every day. They really are causing wear and tear on the roads. Newport is an example of a heavily used exit road.

I am much improved, thank you all for your good wishes. Must be the arnica. I fell in front of the Newport entrance to Bird Hill (in the area to be re-surfaced) but as Lynn noted, the lower portion of Newport is much worse than my accident site. The re-built Newport stretch Sabra mentioned does have curbs, but not an inch of shoulder, let alone bike lanes. Apparently the coming resurfacing will increase the paved width of that stretch of Newport.

I hope other mayoral candidates will also discuss re-surfacing, in one public forum or another. It’s not as glamerous as art, but it is where the rubber hits the road.

I was surprised to see so many bikers without helmets in many European cities, but if they are separated from cars by a different path or a barrier, then the only thing to worry about is potholes (to bring this full circle to the original post).

The June edition of the Ann Arbor Observer has a letter from a woman who lives on Miller (recently resurfaced with painted-on bike lanes). She complains that cars park on the bike lanes and in winter it was covered up by snow. And of course, there are the trash containers. So even when we do address bicycle travel in new road construction, there is a lot to be desired. I admire the intrepid Ann Arbor bicyclists who suffer through all these obstacles.

…One of the great benefits of bike riding ought to be the ability to cut across long blocks, etc. where cars can’t go…

Berkeley, a city Ann Arbor often aspires to, has such a thing [link]. The streets usually parallel a major street but have a barrier preventing cars from using them as a through street every 4-5 blocks – like the Forest/Hill intersection.

The construction schedule for Newport is not yet final. A public hearing on the special assessment district for new sidewalks was held and closed on Monday, May 19. We should all hear about when construction will start fairly quickly now. But given the delays on construction this spring, my only goal is that the sidewalk be complete before school opens in the fall.