HURON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – For years, Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made “fixing the damn roads” her calling card. But last week, reality offered a bumpy progress report – and it didn’t pass inspection.
A school bus carrying Huron Township students ended up in a ditch on Thursday, April 9, after the driver swerved to avoid potholes on a deteriorating stretch of Clark Road that ultimately gave way. Authorities say the driver wasn’t speeding or distracted – just navigating a roadway parents have long warned is unsafe.
“We’ve been saying this for years.”
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Parents say the road involved has been a problem for years, with long-standing complaints that haven’t gotten much traction. The result: a morning commute that turned into a roadside evacuation, with shaken kids, one student with a concussion, and minor injuries reported. And all of this happened after the township declared a public safety emergency over hazardous gravel roads.
Fifth-grader Lucas, told WXYZ Detroit, “I was like ‘oh crap, we’re about to crash.’ Everyone started screaming and I was like seeing random stars and stuff because I hit my head on a bar.”
Ashley Beard, the parent of a third grader on the bus said her son called her from the bus. Beard told WXYZ, “He called me like screaming, ‘mom, the bus is tipping, the bus is tipping over.’ And I’m like what? And all I could hear was kids screaming and crying in the background.”
When Lansing sets the budget, local roads pay the price.
Most Michiganders are not dialed into how road construction is funded. Although counties are responsible for fixing their roads, Michigan’s county road commissions don’t operate in a vacuum – they rely heavily on funding that flows from the state.
That means while local agencies decide which roads get fixed and when, the size of the pot they’re working with is shaped in Lansing. Governor Whitmer built much of her political brand on a promise to “fix the damn roads,” tying her administration directly to the broader funding picture. So while she’s not dispatching crews to patch potholes in individual townships, the level of state investment she helps get funded can make the difference between routine maintenance – or roads that keep drivers swerving to avoid damage.
Michigan roads: beaten by weather, starved by funding.
“Michigan is still ranked towards the bottom of the country when it comes to road and bridge investment per capita,” Michigan Department of Transportation spokesman John Richard told WOOD-TV8. “So it’s a struggle. Michigan is a really tough place to maintain roads
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especially nowadays when it doesn’t stay cold in the winter anymore. It gets above and below freezing like a roller coaster, which is not good for roads and bridges. So it gets more and more difficult with the lack of funding and of course the weather conditions.”
When that funding gap hits the real world, it’s not just a line item in Lansing – it’s a bus full of kids on a road parents have warned about for years. When funding falls short, even the best decisions from a school bus driver can’t outdrive bad roads – and for a governor who built a brand on “fixing the damn roads,” moments like this make it harder to argue the problem starts anywhere else.
