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A fix to the road funding formula in Marion County is moving through the state legislature. The measure includes three townships in the total county population.
UniGov consolidated city and county government but excluded Pike, Decatur and Wayne townships from a state road funding formula based on fire response territories.
“So when UniGov was created we didn't accurately reflect the population of Marion County. It’s been a problem for a very long time. That problem needs to be solved,” the bill’s author, Republican Aaron Freeman said.
The new bill will add about 200,000 people to Marion County population and add about $8 million in road investments.
Freeman said numerous assessments have found Indianapolis infrastructure needs hundreds of millions of dollars of investment a year.
“The state of our roads is deplorable, inexcusable for how bad our infrastructure in our city is,” Freeman said.
Local leaders have long argued that the state funding formula needs to be completely reworked to account more than just centerline miles, which only measures the distance of a road from start to end and does not account for the number of road lanes.
The bill has passed the House and Senate chambers and the House Committee on Roads and Transportation but now heads to House Ways and Means Committee.
Contact WFYI city government and policy reporter Jill Sheridan at jsheridan@wfyi.org. Follow on Twitter: @JillASheridan.
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