Page:Making Michigan Move.pdf/32

 1950's suspected the interstate free­way system would plant the seeds for the turbulence of the 1970's. Michi­gan, at the end of World War II, had the remains of a good railroad system, municipal and intercity bus systems and many thousands of miles of highways.

Across the country, there was a general feeling that personal freedom and prosperity were somehow linked to the privately owned automobile. Combined with the creation and growth of a vast freeway system, it gave millions of motorists a mobility far greater than any they had known before. Autos sold faster than ever and travel mileage rose even faster. Fuel was cheap. The population of city suburbs grew year by year, but the central cities began to lose people and industry.

While new highways were being built and improved, other modes of trans­portation in Michigan were left to fend for themselves. Municipal and intercity bus services were declining, or vanishing, because of low rider­ship. Increasingly, the old, the young, the disabled, the chronically ill, the poor had no regular, reliable means of travel. It was the same for railroad passenger services. Rail freight systems also suffered financially, and some went into bankruptcy. Nearly 1,000 miles of freight lines in Michigan were threatened with abandonment.

Rescue efforts began early in the decade. In 1972, the Legislature raised the gasoline tax from seven to nine cents a gallon. One-half cent of the increase—yielding about $22 million a year—was diverted into general transportation programs, chiefly bus and rail. The State Supreme Court upheld the legisla­tion, saying it fell within the Legisla­ture's constitutional prerogative to "define by law" money spent for