Page:Making Michigan Move.pdf/33

 highway purposes.

Three-fourths of the new money went for highways, roads and streets and lawmakers ordered the state's share to be spent on completing a backbone system of freeways and upgrading specific other major high­ways.

In the spring of 1973, Gov. William G. Milliken issued an executive order reorganizing the state highway de­partment giving it jurisdiction over all state transportation programs. He directed the highway commission and the department to develop and de­liver a unified, coordinated program for total transportation for the people of Michigan.

Symbolic of this sweeping change, Milliken signed legislation Aug. 23, 1973, adding "and Transportation" to the department's traditional designa­tion of highways only.

For the first time, Michigan's agency for highways expanded its respon­sibility to aeronautics, railroads, buses, water transportation and port development and non-motorized transportation such as bike paths and equestrian trails.

For the department, it was the end of one era and the beginning of another. It took time and a strenuous shifting of gears, but the single-minded goal of building and maintaining the best possible state highway system gave way to the larger goal: developing an integrated, total transportation sys­tem for Michigan.

Woodford, appointed director of the "highways" department at the end of 1972, now was handed the chal­lenging task of transition, shifting departmental gears and taking some 4,500 personnel with him.

A few months later, the need for a comprehensive transportation system became even more apparent. An oil embargo by Arab nations quickly reduced supplies of gasoline and sent prices into an upward spiral. Rider­ship on public transportation systems began to climb, bolstered by state programs to expand existing systems