Gov. Rick Snyder says massive flooding this week in and around Detroit reinforces the need to boost state spending on roads. Snyder says Michigan’s crumbling infrastructure may have played a role in the floods, although it’s too early to tell for sure.
“I don’t want to be premature, but you would imagine it would have some consequences in terms of magnifying the effect on the freeway flooding,” Snyder told reporters as he surveyed damage at homes and schools in Royal Oak on Friday. “That wouldn’t have affected the homes, but in terms of the freeway challenges.”
“We’re still making an assessment of what pump issues we may have had, what other issues, what embankment issues – there’s a whole major subject review going on now with the situations we had. But I think it does continue to reinforce the item that we need to invest more resources in our infrastructure,” he said.
Snyder has spent much of his first term as governor urging lawmakers to boost state infrastructure spending by more than a billion dollars a year. But that would probably require the state to raise taxes or fees to pay for it.
Earlier this week, legislative leaders in the state Senate said they were going back to the drawing board to find a way to fix Michigan’s roads. That’s after the Senate failed the pass a number of road funding plans before its summer break began in June.
