FEDERAL JOBS ACT: Michigan counts on $11B

Oct. 22—TRAVERSE CITY — Michigan is expected to receive about $11 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, for projects aimed at expanding access to high-speed internet, rebuilding the state's roads and bridges, and improving water and sewer systems, public transportation and public parks.

To put the amount in context, the state's annual budget for fiscal year 2024 is about $81 billion.

One of the largest outlays of the federal infrastructure funding in the state, at $1.56 billion, is a plan to ensure residents' access to a high-speed internet connection.

"It is really crucial for kids, for people looking for a job, for a whole community to have this type of high-speed access at their anchor institutions," Zachary Kolodon, director of Michigan's infrastructure office, said of libraries, schools and nonprofit organizations. "People also need this at their homes."

Residents who live in the state's rural counties, especially north of US-10 and in the Upper Peninsula, have long had spotty or no access to high-speed internet — which was a particular hardship during the pandemic when schools, workplaces and healthcare abruptly shifted to online.

Much of the funding comes from the Broadband Equity Access Deployment, or BEAD, of which Michigan received the fourth largest share, records show.

Only Texas, California and Missouri received higher allocations for this purpose, according to federal data.

There are four state projects, three of which are in the U.P. and one near the Michigan-Ohio border.

In addition, three tribal governments — the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians ($25 million), the Bay Mills Indian Community ($500,000), Huron Band of the Potawatomi ($1.2 million) — received significant broadband funding.

"Bringing affordable and reliable broadband service to our region is central to connecting our membership to medical specialists, job opportunities and remote learning courses," Sault Tribe Vice Chairman Austin Lowes said in 2022 when the tribe's grant was announced.

"This rural development investment will connect tribal reservation lands from Sault Ste. Marie, south to Kincheloe, and to St. Ignace," Lowes said.

Kolodon said the Sault Tribe's broadband grant is the largest received for any tribal nation.

About $61.2 million in related broadband funds also have been awarded to the Peninsula Fiber Network — not the State of Michigan — via the Bridges and Bottomlands project, for something that sounds straight out of science fiction — the "middle mile" underwater-fiber install project.

"Middle mile" is an industry term for network infrastructure connecting the last mile (homes and businesses) to large network servers — and to the internet.

The "middle mile" project in Michigan aims to install fiber conduit under water on the lakebed, connecting Benton Harbor with Chicago; the Upper Peninsula with Beaver Island and Charlevoix; Detroit with Windsor, Canada; and lay land-based fiber connecting Grand Rapids, Gaylord and Flint, as well as across the Mackinac Bridge, the International Bridge and the Blue Water Bridge.

"It's a way to extend that highway of the internet," Kolodon said. "This project is one of the larger middle-mile projects in the country, running long, wide cables that carry a lot of data. It's really exciting."

These projects are in the planning stages and may take years to complete. At some point, Kolodon predicted, work boats and workers would be visible in the Straits and other waterways, particularly to motorists driving over one of the relevant bridges.

U.S. Transportation Administration data shows, as of this spring, there were 1,219 road bridges and 7,345 miles of highway in poor condition, and Michigan is expected to receive $7.3 billion toward road replacement and repair and $563 million for road bridge work.

About $3.1 billion of those funds have been, or will soon be, allocated, data shows, although start dates have not yet been provided.

Planned is $29 million to reconstruct pavement on I-75 from Levering Road to Cheboygan County; $4.5 million to improve M-72 in Kalkaska and Crawford counties; $273,679 to chip and seal a portion of M-32 in Atlanta; and $1.1 million to reconstruct and add drainage to portion of M-22 in Leelanau County.

Other general allocations for Michigan include about $1 billion toward public transportation — bus, rail, car and passenger ferry infrastructure as well as airport improvements.

In Traverse City, for example, Cherry Capital Airport received both an Airport Improvement Grant and funding from the Airport Terminal Program, to expand the terminal ramp to the east and west, and to replace three passenger jet bridges at gates 1, 3 and 4.

"We've seen, over the last two years, that there has been about $1 billion available and $14 billion in requests," said Airport CEO Kevin Klein. "Meaning almost 14 times the money they have available is being requested, so we're very happy to get those two projects."

Michigan's portion of the Infrastructure and Jobs Act also is expected to include $1.3 billion to improve water infrastructure, and $110 million for electric vehicle infrastructure, including charging stations.

"We've got to do two things at the same time," Kolodon said of fund priorities in Michigan. "On the one hand, we've got infrastructure assets, like our roads and our water systems, that have been underfunded for decades not just in Michigan, but nationally, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is designed to help us catch up."

"At the same time," Kolodon added, "we're also building for the communities of tomorrow."

That, Kolodon said, means building better electrical infrastructure with, for example, micro- or community grids and improving reliability.

Programs to protect the Great Lakes' water resources, in Michigan and in surrounding states, have long been funded via the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which was renewed in 2019 and received an additional $1 billion in Infrastructure and Jobs Act funding.

This Jobs Act funding is the single largest investment ever made in the Great Lakes, according to the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.

Some federally funded projects are fully designed but not yet started, others have been started but are not yet completed, and still others have yet to be applied for, allocated or funded.

Two online sites, the federal government's BIL map and Michigan's infrastructure investment tracker, are regularly updated and provide public information on money that's been allocated and money that's been spent and on what.

A video tutorial developed by USA Spending, a government open-source data site for information on federal spending, offers further details on how to track infrastructure spending over time.