Great news!
Shortly after 3pm today, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed the four state park funding bills — collectively known as the Recreation Passport — into law.
The Department of Natural Resources is now working on Question & Answer sheets that explain the effects of this new fundamental change in how our Michigan state parks as well as state forest recreation, are funded.
The Michigan Senate passed the State Park funding bills today and sent them on their way to their final stop — the governor’s desk.
This morning Detroit News published an article on these bills prior to their passage:
“We have not had any general fund support for our parks for almost six years now, and in the meantime the infrastructure continues to deteriorate,” [Senator Patty] Birkholz said. “We’ve barely been able to keep up (with basic maintenance).
“This gives us a way to streamline how we operate our state parks, so that now we can have parks people that were in booths out working in the parks to improve them.”
The Governor is expected to sign the bill package.
The last three bills — SB 389, SB 1057, and HB 4677 — in a four-bill package for state park funding have passed the House today with an 81 to 27 vote. They are headed to the Senate where they may be voted on as soon as tomorrow.
Please contact your State Senator and ask that they support these bills.
HB 5752 passed the Senate last week, was ordered enrolled and was presented to the Governor.
More information on this state park funding legislation, also known as the Recreation Passport, visit the OurMichiganParks.org web site.
Senate Bills 389 and 1057 and House Bill 4677 will come up for a final vote in the State House of Representatives tomorrow, Wednesday, March 24th! The first bill in the package, House Bill 5752 passsed last week.
If you care about Michigan’s state parks, forest recreation areas and trails and their contribution to Michigan’s tourism economy, today and tomorrow morning is the time to call your state representative and ask them to support this legislation.
The passport will drop state park annual fees by 60% and allow a convenient, individual option that people will be able to partake of when they register their vehicle every year. By having more people participate, it is expected that enough revenue will come in to maintain and improve our state park infrastructure and award small grants to local community recreation projects.
Thanks to the champions of this legislation: Senator Patricia Birkholz, Senator Raymond Basham, Representative Rebekah Warren, and Rep. Arlan Meekhof.
Let?s give this package one last push! Call your State Representative today! You can go to www.michiganlegislature.org for contact information for your particular legislator.
For more information on state park funding, please visit the OurMichiganParks.org web site.
First the good news. MDOT recently made the following Transportation Enhancement (TE) awards that should improve bicycling in Metro Detroit.
From MDOT’s press release:
The city of Utica will construct a nonmotorized bridge over the Clinton River to provide accessibility and connectivity to the city of Utica’s portion of the bike trail that will connect the Huron Clinton Metroparks at Metro Beach and Stoney Creek. The project is part of the Macomb County Bike/Hike Master Plan and will allow bicyclists to connect to the Macomb Orchard Trail as well as the Clinton River Trail in Oakland County. The project cost is $452,525, including $303,192 in federal TE funds and $149,333 in matching funds from the city.
SMART, in coordination with its community partners, will purchase and install bike racks at several locations in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. The intent is to provide communities with secure bike racks at locations away from bus routes for the convenience of SMART riders who also ride bikes. The project cost is $20,016, including $16,013 in federal TE funds and $4,003 in matching funds from SMART.
Clawson is also getting bike racks installed along 14 Mile Road. Unfortunately they only seem willing to make mild improvements to walkability and even milder ones for bike-ability. Their conceptual plans for their Main Street road diet included bike lanes. Their final plans and implementation did not.
MDOT recently released their five-year spending plan. With reduced revenue from people driving less, Michigan cannot provide the full 20% match for federal transportation funding.
This does affect the Transportation Enhancements program. Normally MDOT would provide $12 million in match for TE projects on their roads. That may be reduced to $1 million per year, which means MDOT will undertake fewer TE projects like paved shoulders, bike lanes, and streetscaping on MDOT state trunklines.
However, it also means that local governments will received more TE funding since they provide the match and not MDOT.
It’s also worth highlight this language within MDOT’s plan. This provides useful quote for cycling advocates in Michigan.
Pedestrian and bicycle transportation are on the rise due to increased fuel costs. Injury and fatality statistics are humbling reminders of the importance to design and build safe facilities for multiple modes of transportation and of the importance of education and enforcement.
It may be surprising to some that in Michigan, one pedestrian is injured every three hours and 59 minutes and one bicyclist is injured every five hours and 13 minutes.
In addition, in 2006, 17.9 percent of the 1,002 traffic fatalities in Michigan were bicyclists or pedestrians, whereas nationally, 11.6 percent of the 42,642 traffic fatalities were bicyclists or pedestrians. A reduced [Transportation Enhancements] program would severely jeopardize MDOT’s ability to provide safer pedestrian and bicycle facilities.
This does raise one question.
If 17.9% of road fatalities are non-motorized users, why did the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning only allocate 0.36% for non-motorized safety under the State and Community Highway Safety Grant Program in 2009?