Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder today issued a directive to increase collaboration between the Michigan Department of Transportation, local governments, and utility companies when updating statewide water, sewer, and road infrastructure projects.
“Modernizing Michigan’s aging infrastructure requires significant investment, and we can minimize costs and disruption by enhancing collaboration on planning and projects,” Snyder says. “This directive aims to identify those opportunities where we can upgrade water and sewer infrastructure at the same time roads and bridges are being done.”
Under the directive, the director of the Michigan Department of Transportation is charged with improving the coordination of infrastructure installation, repair, or replacement in conjunction with road infrastructure reconstruction.
Snyder says the director will work with the director of the Department of Environmental Quality to identify locations where there are major critical infrastructure projects or projects where threats to water or wastewater services from inadequate facilities could occur.
He says the director will also work with the chair of the Public Service Commission and the executive director of the Michigan Agency for Energy to identify any entities that are known to be planning major critical infrastructure projects or projects.
The director will encourage local agencies and their design consultants to consider incorporating infrastructure installation, replacement, or improvement projects into their road construction projects, in partnership with the Michigan Utilities Coordinating Committee and the Transportation Asset Management Council. To identify opportunities for partnership, funding alternatives, and coordination of infrastructure investment in conjunction with road reconstruction, the director will work with the 21st Century Infrastructure Commission.
Snyder says information on methods for local agencies, design consultants, and contractors to coordinate road reconstruction projects will be available on a public website. He says the director will identify best practices for the coordination of roadwork and infrastructure installation, and research and test new methods to discover and locate underground infrastructure.
Executive Directive 2016-1 is available here.
