GRAND RAPIDS, Mich (WOOD) - Jim Palmieri's 1996 Town Car is in a place many West Michigan drivers find their cars these days - on a repair shop hoist.
It's hoisted because it was a victim of a monster pothole along Kalamazoo near 44th Street. "I was on the cell phone to my son in Missouri," he told 24 Hour News 8, "and I said, ‘My teeth have just been rattled by this hit.'"
Matt McClure of McGraw Tire showed the damage wrought from this pothole. "It ripped this piece right out of the idler arm," he said. "When you turn your wheels, it keeps the other one in line with it. By breaking it, you actually lose control of what that wheel does."
The repair is in the neighborhood of $450. That's about what the TRIP report found for this area -- $443 on average to keep a car on the road in West Michigan, compared to $413 for the rest of the country.
The TRIP report suggests the constant patching of potholes is only a band-aid for a much larger and much more expensive problem.
The annual study, funded by insurance companies, engineers, equipment manufacturers and a host of other road related organizations, notes West Michigan drivers are paying the price for crumbling roads.
The study rates 25 percent of roadways in the Grand Rapids area as poor, 31 percent mediocre, 15 percent fair and 28 percent good.
The study notes different levels of government spend close to $12 billion on roads and highways, though the Department of Transportation estimates spending should be $18.5 billion just to maintain what we have.
During a recent City Commission meeting, the head of Street and Sanitation suggested commissioners get a better perspective on patching potholes. So Second Ward Commissioner David LaGrand put on a safety vest, grabbed a shovel and headed out with a city pothole crew.
Perspective is one thing. Finding money to pay the road repair bill is another.
"If we can get more revenues from the state locally, that would be good," LaGrand told 24 Hour News 8. "If we can get involved in more public-private partnerships on things, and be efficient about everything we're doing, I hope that's part of where we're going to get more money from."
About the only people coming out ahead are the repair shops.
"We've been seeing a lot of all different front end pieces," McClure said. "Not just that particular one, but all sorts of different ones bent and broke."
Asked if he's ever seen pothole problems affecting cars like this, McClure was matter-of-fact. "Not as bad as it's been this winter."
Source: WOOD-TV
