Governor Rick Snyder says the need for increased funding for roads was underpinned this week by massive flooding in and around Detroit.
The Michigan Public Radio Network’s Jake Neher reports.
The governor says officials are studying ways the flooding – at least on that scale – could have been prevented. He says he imagines improvements to the roads, water pumps, and embankments could have kept the flooding from being so bad.
“It sort of reinforces the need for our infrastructure,” he says.
Snyder has spent much of his first term as governor urging lawmakers to boost state infrastructure spending by more than $1 billion a year. But that would probably require the state to raise taxes or fees to pay for it. So far, the Legislature has failed to come up with a plan that a majority of members can support.