LANSING – Less than 20 percent of Michigan roads eligible for federal funding are in good condition and about a third are poor, the Transportation Asset Management Council said in its annual report submitted to the Transportation Commission at its meeting Thursday.

The report showed 33 percent of the federal aid system – state and local roads eligible for federal matching funds – rated poor. Only 19 percent were rated good and 48 percent were fair.

“That’s not a big surprise when you look at the trends from 2004,” Carmine Palombo, chair of the council, said. “When you continue to project based on the dollars we have available … we see this trend continuing.”

And he said local roads – those not eligible for federal funds – were in worse shape, with 52 percent in poor condition.

Roads associated with the National Highway System – essentially the expressways in the state – faired a bit better, with 24 percent good, 60 percent fair and 16 percent poor. Palombo said the Federal Highway Administration had just begun requiring tracking of the condition of those roadways separately, so there was no historical data on their condition.

But he expected the state would be paying more attention to those highways in the coming years, as the federal agency was developing new minimum condition standards for that portion of the network.

The council is also working to determine whether highway maintenance is actually working. With funding from the council, Michigan Technological University is studying maintenance projects done 10 years ago to determine whether they have lasted the decade as expected and, if not, to determine why they might have failed, Palombo said.

He also unveiled the new website the council launched to display the various information it has collected over the past 10 years.

“We’re trying to make all the data usable,” he said.

The site currently shows condition trends on pavement and bridges and the traffic carried by various parts of the system, with plans to track maintenance projects, safety trends and finance.

The dashboards allow views of the state as a whole, as well as various communities, and allow some comparisons between the different jurisdictions.

FREIGHT PLAN: Michigan’s long-term transportation plan is already in line with most of the new federal freight plan, Director Kirk Steudle told the commission in a presentation on the state’s freight plan set to go out for public comment soon.

While the state has been working to develop itself as an intermodal freight hub, Steudle said Michigan also cannot operate on its own. “It can’t be how 50 states in 50 capitals think it should be done. There does need to be a national push for a national plan on how we do this,” he said.

Both the state and the nation also need to be preparing for substantial increases in freight, Steudle said. Over the next 20 years, current projections are for a 58 percent increase in rail, 55 percent on highways and 38 percent marine.

“That’s what we need to be thinking about: How do we prepare for that kind of increase,” he said. And he said the state will not have control over what areas need to expand because the private sector will determine the most effective way to move goods.

Steudle acknowledged there could be some changes to the marine projections if Great Lakes water levels remain low. The current projections do not account for those changes, he noted.

Commissioner Chuck Moser, who operates a ferry service and is involved in the marine freight industry, said his own operations have been affected mostly by having to change shore facilities to match to the lower ride of his boats, but cargo ships have had to reduce loads.

“Right now the dry bulk cargo, because of the lower draft level, you’re forced aggregate-wise to leave 15 percent of your cargo on the docks,” he said.

Steudle said the department is looking for comment on the plan but is asking those who do to truly take a critical look.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGERS: Commission members appeared glad to hear that the department is limiting its use of Construction Manager/General Contractor contracts.

The program, said Greg Johnson, chief operating officer for the department, allows the department to bring the contractor into the project sooner, but at the cost of a competitive bid process.

The department is using a process where the contractor is hired after only a rough plan has been developed and is involved in most of the design process. Selection is based on the creativity of the solutions proposed for the project, Johnson said.

One current project using the system is reconstruction of M-11/28th Street in Grand Rapids, Johnson said. The key issue in that project was minimizing disruption to businesses along the route and ensuring the substantial number of motorists who use the route every day knew where lane restrictions and closures would be.

“Having that contractor involved early on has proved to be a great communications tool,” he said, noting that under the traditional bid process, the department might have begun communications on the project before hiring a contractor, who then might have found a better, or at least different, way to stage the project, causing confusion among businesses and motorists.

The process also is working on projects where the department does not have expertise, like replacing the bearings on the Zilwaukee Bridge (the contractor had a better way to jack the bridge than MDOT engineers had devised using fewer jacks) and the Detroit Riverwalk and Playscape.

“They were building things we had no idea about: dancing fountains and play structures,” Johnson said of the latter.

But the lack of a competitive bid process raised concerns with some commissioners.

“The concern of this commission is the subjectivity that you can never get out of the process and, of course, competitive bidding provides the best price,” commission Chair Jerrold Jung said. “What I’m excited to see is MDOT sees CMCG as a transitionary process.”

“We don’t see this as an ever-expanding process, but a tool that we pull out at the right time,” Johnson said.

And he said the department is not locked into a contractor’s proposal. If, once a plan is developed and the department completes an independent cost analysis, MDOT and the contractor cannot come to an agreement on price, the contractor is paid for initial consulting services and the project as designed is put out for bid, he said.

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