Developing improvement plans along a corridor, without regard to jurisdiction, will eliminate the current piecemeal approach to road improvements. Consolidating investments along a corridor or within a geographic area will result in lower administrative costs and contractor prices. In addition to achieving economies of scale in consolidating construction work along a corridor, and the impact of competition in the system, this proposal simplifies the designation of roads in the state. Roads will be consistently numbered along their entire length, so that a motorist can follow a route from the state line across several jurisdictions. An added advantage is that these roads will be placed on a state map.
Consistent route numbering and mapping also helps simplify detour routing.
A. Responsibility for Michigan's roads will be more easily understood and efficiencies will benefit motorists. Decisions about capital improvements and maintenance on the high-volume system should be made based on programmatic concerns, on a corridor or route basis. Local government will remain responsible solely for local access roads, no longer torn between the pressures of maintaining the high-volume system and building the local access road system. Our primary goal at this time is to conduct the technical review of the system, update functional classifications and assign responsibility for all of our roads at the most appropriate level of government. The funding distribution formula is a very important issue, and we expect to address this issue in 1998, once the technical review of the system has been completed.