OT: Who's responsible for cleaning Michigan highways, interstates & exit ramps?
I travel all over the state for work and it bothers me to see how filthy most of our highway system is. When all that Amazon hoopla was going on I couldn't help but think if they scouted the area it would unfortunately take them all of 10 minutes of driving around Metro Detroit to be disgusted. That said, some small sections of I-75, I-94, I-96, US-23 appear to be very well maintained – a few exit ramps are spotless and have extraordinary landscaping (e.g., Auburn Hills). The state's marketing is lakes, nature, outdoors, fresh air ... copious amounts of litter, debris, fast food waste, soda bottles, hubcaps and blown out shredded tires is so incongruent of the brand. I don't get why this isn't a top priority. I've reached out to MDOT (they have a $4 billion annual budget) and they blame others, I've reached out to local gov and they blame MDOT – either way, it's obvious neither really cares.
We all are.
I think Kid Rock and Eminem share the burden.
It’s a problem. I regularly see people just throw trash of their windows. I think it’s a local gov issue. Some areas are cleaner than others.
Brings me to another point on top of tackling cleanup: Why isn't there any law enforcement to tamp down the behavior? Local jurisdictions could make a mint ticketing litterers. Just have an LEO scout the exit ramp and have five cruisers waiting for the signal. Whether it's a cigarette butt, coffee cup or bag of fast food ticket them $100 each. As it stands, there's zero enforcement, thus no consequence. This should be a state-wide, multi-pronged effort to beautify Michigan. Pure Michigan ... the cleanest state in America.
People wouldn’t pay it in most cases.
They sure as hell would pay it if it were tied to their license and plate renewal. When I worked for EDS in Chicago our parking enforcement rate of collection went from 3% to 75% by the end of the first year and up to 90% by year three. Just knowing that littering is enforced will make some people think twice. There is a way.
This is a society issue, not a law enforcement issue and also a perfect example of something fixed only through integrity, upbringing and community, not badges or fear.
100% correct.
Back in the day I was shocked at how clean the Autobahn was. No trash to be seen. Not sure if it's that way anymore. Here in California it is disgusting. People have no pride.
The highways and local roadways tend to be spotless in Montana. I think that the people that live here take pride in keeping Montana the most beautiful state in the USA. If people weren't slobs and lazy assholes, the roads would be much cleaner!
I agree. As local gov issue I meant as in actually cleaning the trash.
It takes a village.
No politics!
I don't know really I'm just saying what someone else might say.
From time to time, I would see teens in safety orange along the freeway shoulders and medians picking up trash. I figured it was some sort of punishment / community service hours for misdeeds. Haven't seen that in a while- must be all teens in the state are behaving....
I could never figure out why this isn't done on a much larger scale with inmates. I understand you must have someone watching them at all times but many counties throughout the country have local chain gangs cleaning up the roads.
It cost state taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars a year to pay for inmates, wouldn't it be a good idea for them to do that type of work so that we don't need to hire others to clean up?
Prisoners cleaning garbage would seem to make sense.
It's Michigan, a state with one of the worst infrastructures in the US. Dirt roads, pot holes... when you cross the line from Ohio into Michigan, you don't require the "pure Michigan" sign for notification. Strangely, polls show many Michiganders don't want to spend money to get the roads up to snuff; they haven't figured out the cost of messed up suspensions, blown tires and bent wheels.
Not to mention traffic fatalities.
I mean, you would think MDOT is ultimately responsible for the upkeep of their own right-of-way, but here in Wayne County, the county seems to do most of it, even employing people with a public service component to their court sentences to skewer trash along I-94. On the M-roads, I think many of those are in the state's ROW but maintained locally. The relationship when it comes to maintenance on area roads seems multi-layered, to say the least.
Privatization at work. Government has abdicated all responsibility to those organizations that choose to ""adopt" a stretch of highway. The fact that so much of the roadways is thus neglected gives you insight into just how many responsible, socially invested corporate citizens exist.
Also, criminals.
Corporations, the Immigrant for Democrats.
I always enjoy how partisans boil down multifaceted failures to a single member of society. It’s a reminder of why our country is the way it is.
Both parties have ignored infrastructure for decades. To the point that we need $2.5 Trillion in repairs and upgrades. We are failing to upkeep our country which in time will result in a catastrophic event occurring.
I'm not anti-corporations, I'm just saying that there is a collective failure of will. Governmental impotence, which you rightly ascribe to both parties, means the private sector has to fill the void. But there aren't enough good actors around to address the widespread decline of our infrastructure. Add in a healthy dose of environmental hostlity, and you get observations like the OP's.
I'm OK with the gap-filling "corporate citizenship" of the adopt-a-highway program, even if just for show.
It's the transfer of public responsibility for things like public education and prisons into corporate hands that makes me pull my hair out. Much like for-profit healthcare, the incentive is always to strip services to the bone and distribute the meat under the guise of "shareholder value."
"in time?" Were you asleep while Katrina ate up New Orleans? The events are already happening.
" insight into just how many responsible, socially invested corporate citizens exist "
So true... the miles and miles of stretches where it says something like "This mile maintained by the [Insert Name Here] family" absolutely reek of corporate irresponsibility...
I can't help but cringe when I see stories of Japan's fans cleaning up the stadium during the World Cup, when we couldn't give two shits about littering. I picked up a discarded fast food bag the other day that was literally 5 feet from a trash bin. It's incredible to me that people can live like animals like this.
I've always wondered why every single community service sentence passed down from courts isn't spent on cleaning up our roadways. Not to get too much into politics, but roadside clean up could be government-funded employment that could take the place of unemployment/welfare assistance in many cases.
There are many other worthwhile community service jobs. I think it makes sense for sentences to mandate those that fit the crime whenever possible.
If convicts are going to work on our roads, how about having them fix potholes? We shouldn't need a large work force to pick up after careless slobs. That's an issue that ideally should be addressed by prevention.
I am resposible. I modle this attitude with action. So do my children and grandchildren.
If we didn’t live like rude, self-centered slobs, we wouldn’t have a cleanup problem. Movie theatres have to pay a cleanup staff to tidy up the theatre between shows. Not just to sweep up spilled popcorn, but to pick up soda cups, popcorn bags and candy wrappers left behind because it is too much trouble to drop them in the waste basket on the way out.
Grocery store parking lots are strewn with shopping carts because shoppers are too lazy to return them to nearby cart corrals.
Streets and highways are littered with trash because people don’t want their own waste messing up their vehicles so they throw it out the window and mess up the whole state for the rest of us. It makes me wonder why so many people think that we humans are so special. To say that some people live like animals is an insult to animals.
Logged-in to upvote. Spot on.
The worst part is that people grow accustomed to others picking up after them. It's like the parent that always picks up their kids' toys and dishes and then wonder why they always leave them out. If the movie theater didn't have staff to pick up after shows, people wouldn't assume that it's someone else's responsibility.
Of course, as a business the theaters are going to pamper their customers to make their experience as lax as possible. But the point remains, when we don't have to clean up our own messes, we have little trouble making them. In the case of highways, there's a lack of pride, yes. If only there were a way that citizens could 'adopt a highway' or something to clean things up and take the responsibility upon themselves...
There are never soda bottles/cans littered on the side of the road. That is one thing you never see. Those get picked up quickly
When I worked at Kroger (RIP Kessels) in high school we always had people scrounging around the bottle return to attempt to find bottles that others couldn't get to go through. Such a nasty place.
If it bothers you so much, you know, you could pick it up.
I'm sure he does. And he's responsible for himself as well, too. But, I hope you're kidding on the overall comment.
Ultimately it's a cultural issue, right? You'll still have to spend the money on cleanup, but I was growing up in Texas when the "Don't Mess With Texas" campaign started. Yes, it was an anti-litter public service campaign, not a political or social middle finger to the rest of the country. The Fabulous Thunderbirds ad was my personal favorite:
It's difficult to pin down whether the money spent on the campaign was worth it (very fair article here (LINK) at Watchdog that is an interesting and relatively quick read. There was some evidence that litter pickup costs dropped after the campaign and especially after the one-year restart when it was brought back in 2014, but of course, that's correlative at best.
But what I can tell you is that it really did make a cultural impact. People got mad at litterers. Friends put social pressure on friends not to do it. If some kid at school let some trash start blowing away, the rest of us would yell "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!" at them.
At the end of the day, social pressure is the only thing that ever changes attitudes towards anything.
Second place was this crazy-ass Matt McConaughey spot:
All true. But you forgot about the roadkill in your tirade. Michigan could change its name to The Roadkill State if they wanted to, based on the enormous amount of it you see on and next to the roads. I've driven in many other states, and I've never seen a state even close to as bad as Michigan in regard to not cleaning up dead animal carcasses. I've seen some in Michigan that are so decayed, they've obviously been there for months. Between that and the trash and the crumbling pavement, it sends the wrong message as you say to potential businesses that may be thinking about moving here.
The real bottom line reason for it is they just don't give a shit. They've developed low standards over the many years and just tolerate it.
So true!
The State of Michigan contracts with local counties to maintain roadways. That involves snow removal, grass cutting and pot hole repair. Major reconstruction is done by private contractors hired by MDOT. Many people roads are cleaned of debris by private entities who are then approved by MDOT and recognized by road signage. I do not know how often the public entities are required to clean up debris once committed to the project. Usually I see two or three times a year on some stretches of freeway. Most of these stretches of freeway are not in the City of Detroit which is sad. Anyway, Road Commissions and MDOT do not have resources for debris cleanup due to lack of Act 51 monies generated by the State coffers.
3 per year just isn't near enough.
A job for spartan grads who fail at burger-flipping and pizza delivery!
I'm out on the construction on i-75 in Monroe County right now, the side of the highway here is ridiculous. Garbage, pieces of tire, body parts. You name it, you'll see it.
When I drove the freeways during the week that the Super Bowl was in Detroit, they have never looked better. Didn’t see a sofa on the shoulder for at least 10 days. If we can spiff up for visitors, we should be able to keep them that way.
Harbaugh! It’s all his fault.
Isn’t this Larry Nasser’s job now?
If you don’t like it volunteer to help clean it up
We could actually probably fix this. I'd be willing to start walking 94 East from Meijer, but what do we do with our cars? I'd be willing to pitch in but it's not worth causing an accident either.
The ones with cleaning technician degrees from tOSU. Everyone else knows them a trustee's.