One idea that popped up early in the carless project planning was to interview Governor Rick Snyder about transportation policy, not just public transit but also roads and proposed New International Trade Crossing bridge.
Initially, the thought was I should find my way to Lansing without my car for the interview. “Deadline Does Detroit: Carless” will head to the capital later this week for other reasons, but Gov. Snyder made this sit down a little easier. I sat down with the governor at the Book Cadillac Hotel, a short walk from Deadline Detroit’s office, where he spoke against the anti-bridge Proposal 6 at a luncheon organized by the Canadian-United States Business Association.
Deadline Detroit: What's the status of the RTA legislation?
Rick Snyder: Secretary LaHood came in about a week ago and that was a good discussion with the Detroit caucus and some Congressional leaders and I’ve have had good discussions with the Senate Majority Leader [Randy Richardville]. So I’m hopeful that’s something the Senate may take up soon after the election.
DD: Is there timeline to have it on your desk?
RS: One thing I’ve learned is it’s best not for the governor to tell the legislature what do, but to encourage them to move promptly.
DD: Why is the RTA so critical?
RS: This is holding us back. We’re the only major metro area that doesn’t have a regional transit authority. When you think about it, we are a broader region. Many of the people who have a job or are looking for work have to cross a border in some fashion. By not having this available makes it much more difficult for people to find work or to maintain their workplace. It’s really important.
I think the federal government had some stats, we’re probably one of the top ten largest metro areas, and we rank in the hundreds in terms of serviceable availability—lower than one hundred. That’s not a good answer.
DD: Part of the RTA, it comes with the bus rapid transit…
RS: Yeah, bus rapid transit is just to take a tangible illustration of a first project that could be undertaken. That would have value in my view, so I view that as a starting point and then we can look at how that might expand and how that might integrate with other things already out there.
One thing you should be careful is you shouldn’t necessarily assume it would take on all the legacy issues because there’s a lot of baggage out there in terms of cost structures and liabilities.
DD: So the RTA would sort of create a new entity that would allow the system to shed some costs?
RS: Well, it’s own new entity in its own right. The question is would it absorb or accept some of the existing ones or would it make a decision to expand in its own fashion. That’s a regional decision, that’s the point of creating a regional transit authority. It’s not for the governor to tell them what to do. It’s four counties and a city figuring it out in partnership.
DD: Will the presidential election have any impact on transit plans and the federal dollars tied to these things?
RS: You always wonder what could happen when you have a new administration, but there could be challenges either way because of the federal budget deficit. There’s the issue of sequestration coming or having to cut some grand bargain regardless of who’s president, so I could see that environment change quite a bit regardless of who wins.
DD: If I can shift from transit to roads, is there any chance the legislature will move on raising the gas tax?
RS: Not before the end of the year, realistically. There’s a number of other important things on the list that I think will occupy most of the lame duck session. I think what we could have potentially are some hearings and some continuing the dialogue about what are the best ways to do that.
DD: Is that still a long-term goal for your administration, maybe not necessarily raising the gas tax but working on ways to improve road conditions.
RS: I think we need to have additional resources for infrastructure. I think we need to have additional dollars invested in infrastructure. We need to do that along with making sure we’re doing best practices for infrastructure. It’s not just about the spending side. It’s about showing better results with the resources we have. It’s something I could see reactivating or putting back on the table after the first of the year.
DD: The bridge…
RS: Let’s build it!
DD: Why should this matter to ordinary voters?
RS: It’s about jobs, long-term jobs. It’s about trade jobs. The current estimate is we have about 237,000 jobs related to trade with Canada. That’s about 5% of our workforce. That’s a lot of jobs and we have an opportunity to probably see that percentage grow. If you think about it, if you have an opportunity where you have an environment to expand job growth, why wouldn’t you do that?
Then you add the great benefit that Canada would pay for the project and they’d be repaid from tolls at no obligation from us, and then you add the federal road match piece to this and this is a wonderful project.
DD: How confident are you that Proposal 6 will be defeated?
RS: I certainly hope it gets defeated. We’re trending that way, but I don’t take it for granted because the amount of misleading ads from the “Yes on 6” people is really troubling. They’re really misleading—it doesn’t involve taxpayer dollars, there’s no Chinese steel, and they keep on coming up with more outrageous claims. I mean, I look at the ads and for certainty the only things I know is there’s a bridge and it’s in Michigan.
DD: Are you surprised at the amount of money spent in opposition to this? Is it fair to say the value to the Ambassador Bridge of shutting this down is significantly more than what they’re spending?
RS: I think it just reinforces how much money they’re making at our expense. You have one special interest making huge amounts of money at our expense. Shouldn’t we have some fair competition?
DD: Whether it’s roads or bridges or transit, do we need to do a better job valuing infrastructure as assets as opposed to expenses?
RS: Absolutely. It’s really a question of time frame. This is a problem we have when people look at government and people in government look at it—it’s cash in and cash out. The role of government isn’t to spend money, it’s too provide great customer service. When you talk about infrastructure, we need to reframe it as a 20-40 year question.
When we had our earlier discussion about additional dollars for infrastructure, I can make a compelling argument that it saves us money when you look at a 40-year time horizon. It is actually less expensive than the alternative. Once people understand and appreciate that, they get fully on board.
I like to give people the analogy, when you go out and buy a car—either new or used—did you ever go out and buy a vehicle and the first thing you said was you swore you would not change the oil?
DD: No, that would be insane.
RS: Did you ever say gall darnnit, I’m gonna save some money and not change the oil? And why is that? Because it would cost you a whole engine rebuild.
The principle is the same here, the dollars are just different. By putting additional dollars into maintenance and good upkeep, it costs you X amount of dollars over this 40-year timespan that if you don’t make that investment, essentially you’re going to have to rebuild entire roads that will cost you six-to-eight times as much as ongoing maintenance. It actually saves us money to invest these additional dollars in infrastructure now.
