This year, the Oakland County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a series of resolutions, allowing them to successfully roll out their new Local Road Improvement Pilot Program. The program provided $846,770 in county funds to 29 local municipalities to assist with paying for road repair projects totaling over $8 million in 2016. Four municipalities participating in the program requested that their funding be rolled over to next year, meaning that an additional $120,931 in county funds has been set aside to be used towards local road repair projects in those communities in 2017.
“The state and federal governments have long neglected their responsibility to fund local road infrastructure, which has left many roads in our communities in a state of disrepair,” stated Oakland County Board Chairman Michael J. Gingell. “While Oakland County government has no statutory responsibility to provide funding for local roads, County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and the Board of Commissioners worked together in a bipartisan effort to be a part of an interim solution addressing the most pressing repair and maintenance needs until funding from the additional state road tax begins flowing to these communities. Better roads are safer for everyone and an important component of driving economic development in the region.”
“My five-year-old would tell me, ‘Daddy this road needs to be fixed,’ every time when we would go grocery shopping,” said Commissioner Dave Woodward (D-Royal Oak), and chair of the Democratic Caucus. “I’m proud we led the county to create this new program to help cities and villages fix and repair roads. This countywide program leveraged $8 million in road projects in virtually every city across the county.”
The Local Road Improvement Pilot program provides financial assistance to Oakland County cities and villages for repairs and improvements on roadways under their jurisdiction. Local municipalities must match funding from Oakland County. The Board of Commissioners allocated up to $1 million in matching funds to launch the program earlier this year and communities received a share of these funds based upon a formula consisting of road miles, population and crash data. The program supplements the long-standing Tri-Party Road Improvement Program, which provides a 1/3 share in matching funds for repairs on local roadways under the control of the Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC).
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