County needs
to do their job

1/17/2008

The Road Commission for Oakland County is responsible for the maintenance and plowing of several roads in the area, as well as the traffic lights in town. Over the past few years, the city has taken over, with pay, some of their responsibilities. This has worked out well as the city has done a much better job than the county with snow removal.

During a recent storm, Haggerty Road between 8 and 9 Mile Roads was still partially snow-covered two days after the snow stopped falling, with no south-bound lanes open at all. This stretch is still the county's responsibility.

The county claims it drifted over. Odd that other roads and driveways didn't seem to have this issue. Regardless, the south-bound lanes were not open during the early morning rush hour, far after the snow had stopped falling. Cars had to drive down the center turn lane to get through, and that's just inexcusable on such a major road.

This week, and a couple of other times already this season, M-5 was shut down by law enforcement because the road was so dangerously icy that multiple car crashes resulted. The county was no where to be seen until after the wrecks.

The county was also responsible for the road work on Haggerty Road between 8 and 9 Mile, which resulted in road widening (and which was paid for by the city due to lack of county funds) last fall. The work was done, but the old 'road narrows' signs were left in place and the county still hasn't cleaned up the side of the road.

Folks, the barrels from that project are still rolling into traffic and there is still a porta-john proudly standing on the side of the road, weeks after the crews have left the scene. The county says they still need to move a fire hydrant, but does that require nearly a mile's worth of barrels and a porta-john to stand on the side of the road all winter?

The road bosses claim we have one of the most technologically advanced traffic control systems in the nation, but most residents know it's hard to make it through more than one green light before being stopped cold by a red light at the next signal. Even if the lights were timed randomly, one should be able to make about half of them. Good luck.

We the People continue to be very displeased with the basic services provided by the county. It seems that they spend so much time on new projects such as traffic cameras, roundabouts, and intelligent transportation systems that basic services such as snow plowing and traffic light timing are lower priorities - too low.

To be sure, there are a lot of hard working people at the Road Commission for Oakland County. All of the issues we observe seem to have far more to do with management than staff. It's management who should be held responsible.

Folks, if the county can't do the basics they should not be allowed to play with the more advanced systems. It's time to reign them in, keep their funding down, and force them to do the basics right. Until then, we say give them no additional funding. They have not proven they will use the money wisely.
 

p.s. - Kudos once again to Novi High School for promoting Unity in the Community. Last year's first-ever event was well attended and very well done. This year's event takes place Monday. Don't miss it.