Adrian Township’s Board of Trustees have decided to pulverize a section of a local road because it can’t afford the repairs, reports the Adrian Telegram.

The Board voted last week to spend just over $14,000 to reduce a half mile of Old Plank Road, which is currently paved, into a gravel road — at least within the township. To fix the road and maintain it as a paved road would cost the township $160,000. Neighboring township Rome will share in the costs to pulverize the section of road, because half of the section is within its jurisdiction.

What the Telegram story does not point out is that the move to gravel roads has been happening across the state as the state’s budget woes have continued spiral downward. With each successive year, the state has had less and less money to pay out in revenue sharing, cutting the amount of money local governments get from the state. In turn, the local governments have had to make cost cutting decisions such as reducing paved roads to gravel roads because the cost to maintain them is too high.

The issue also points to the weakness in Michigan’s transportation funding which has allowed the state’s infrastructure to crumble. In the most recent budget passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor, lawmakers jerry-rigged the budget numbers and moved cash from other line items to the Michigan Department of Transportation in order to leverage millions of dollars in federal transportation dollars.