As lawmakers complete a Fiscal Year 2026 budget agreement, one component involves removing the sales tax on fuel and adding a commensurate amount to the fuel tax and putting it toward transportation.

This week’s Talking Michigan Transportation podcast revisits a 2024 conversation with a veteran Michigan pollster about his survey then showing an overwhelming number of voters want the taxes they pay at the pump to fix roads and bridges.

Michigan is among states with a sales tax on motor fuels. That tax, 6 percent, does not go to roads and bridges. By law, the proceeds support the school aid fund, revenue sharing for local municipalities and a minor portion helps fund local transit services.

Bernie Porn, president of the polling firm EPIC-MRA, explained that all survey respondents were asked, “Do you think that all of the taxes that you pay at the gas pump should or should not go toward funding improvements to Michigan’s roads and bridges?”

On this week’s Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, news that a federal grant will allow for the study of wildlife crossings to protect motorists and animals alike.

Amanda Novak, a resource specialist at the Michigan Department of Transportation who helped lead the effort to secure the grant, returns to explain the benefits.

The grant award comes at a good time as State Farm released an annual report this week that shows Michigan ranked fourth among states for vehicle collisions with animals.

As reported previously, these crashes pose tremendous risk and costs to drivers. For example, white-tailed deer alone account for more than 55,000 collisions and a $130 million cost to drivers per year.

Novak talks about what she’s learned from other government agencies, which have studied the problem and implemented mitigation efforts.

A previous episode of the podcast featured a conversation with a connectivity specialist with the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) Conservation Initiative about creative and successful solutions implemented on the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park.

Podcast photo: An animal-crossing sign for tortoises. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith on Noun Project.

On this week’s Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a conversation about the Michigan State Police (MSP) deploying added enforcement in freeway work zones.

MC Lt. Jason Zylstra of MSP’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division (CVED) explains why they launched special enforcement in segments with major work like the heavily traveled I-96 in Ionia County.

MSP observes that 97 percent of at-fault crashes involving large trucks and buses are caused by driver behavior.

Zylstra also discusses:

• The need for trucks to maintain a proper distance to other vehicles.
• The dangers of trucks blocking lanes in zipper-merge zones and why law enforcement issues citations for that behavior.
• Special inspections for tires, equipment and other components of commercial vehicles.

As unscrupulous actors continue to impersonate government agencies and target unknowing people with texts about unpaid tolls, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel this week reissued a consumer alert.

With that in mind, this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast is a reprise of a conversation in June with J. Michael Skiba, also known as “Dr. Fraud,” a national expert on scams, like those proliferating in Michigan and other states, where text messages tell people they have unpaid road tolls.

Skiba is department chair at Colorado State University Global, where he oversees the Criminal Justice Department, including specializations in fraud, financial crime and cybercrime. He discusses the psychology that prompts so many victims of online fraud to engage with scammers on smishing attempts.

If you’ve been targeted, the FCC offers many tips.

In April, the Michigan Department of Transportation released a video of Director Bradley C. Wieferich urging people not to respond to the texts.

On this week’s Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a conversation recapping a Sept. 4 panel discussion in Lansing featuring a thoughtful discussion among experts from various fields on the need for sustainable transportation infrastructure funding and why it’s such a challenge.

John Peracchio, who helped organize the event and moderated the discussion, says he was pleased with the comments of the panelists but hoped for a more robust question-and-answer session that followed.

Some key themes:

• Chad Livengood, politics editor and columnist at the Detroit News, talked about reporting when he was at Crain’s Detroit on subdivisions being built in outer-ring suburbs with no sustainable source of funding for their roads.
• Lance Binoniemi of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association reiterated the job losses that would result from a lack of increased investment in road and bridge building.
• Baruch Feigenbaum of The Reason Foundation explained the long-term benefits of switching to a road user charge (RUC) system for funding roads, as some other states have piloted. He has previously talked about the topic on the podcast.
• Jane McCurry of Clean Fuels Michigan provided perspective on how fees on alternative-fuel vehicles contribute to the road funding mix.

On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a conversation with a trunkline pavement strategy specialist about how the work in his area helps inform investment decisions.

Tim Lemon, who works in the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) Bureau of Transportation Planning, talks about how pavement condition is measured and how the data is used.

He explains that remaining service life (RSL) is MDOT’s primary pavement condition performance measure, which indicates the number of years before the pavement is anticipated to reach poor condition. It informs decisions about priorities and which roads and bridges to address.

He also explains that while state trunklines (I, M and US routes) don’t account for the majority of road miles in the state, they carry 53 percent of total traffic and more than 75 percent of commercial traffic in Michigan.

On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a focus on jobs tied to road and bridge building.

Gov. Whitmer sent a letter Aug. 7 to the directors of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO), calling on them to compile and publicly release data on the impact of the state’s road funding cliff and federal funding rollbacks and policies on Michigan’s economy and employment.

First, Heath Salisbury, financial secretary and training director for Operating Engineers 324, talks about what investments in infrastructure mean to people in the skilled trades and the thousands of jobs involved.

Salisbury offers his perspective as a veteran of the industry, working in the trenches, then later in training workers and developing a work force capable of building in a modern environment where technology is evolving rapidly.

Later, Karen Faussett, who manages MDOT’s statewide and urban travel analysis section, talks about how her team tracks the economic benefits of investment in transportation infrastructure.

On this week’s Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, analysis and takeaways on two major announcements related to the future of electric vehicles (EVs) and charging infrastructure.

Joann Muller, who writes the Axios Future of Mobility newsletter, discusses her coverage of an announcement from Ford Motor Co. on Monday, Aug. 11, billed ahead of time as the next "Model T moment."

As she wrote in her coverage, "The headline is that Ford will introduce a new family of EVs priced under $40,000 and will use a new manufacturing process to try to make them profitably."

In 2024, MDOT awarded a state Transportation Economic Development Fund (TEDF) grant to the Calhoun County Road Department (CCRD) for road improvements related to Ford Motor Co.'s BlueOval Battery Park that will improve safety, reduce congestion and support 1,700 new jobs and $2.5 billion of private investment in Emmett and Marshall townships.

Later, Muller discusses an announcement from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), also this week, about new guidance for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which surprised many who feared a withdrawal of funding.

USDOT is reopening the spigot for federally funded EV chargers after freezing the program (created in the previous administration) for six months.

"If Congress is requiring the federal government to support charging stations, let's cut the waste and do it right," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement Tuesday, Aug. 12.