Providence, RI, July 16, 2025 – Wednesday night the Citizens Research Council of Michigan was recognized by the Governmental Research Association (GRA) with The Most Distinguished Research Award. The award, announced at the annual GRA meeting in Rhode Island, was in recognition of our 2025 report, A Data-Driven Assessment of Michigan’s Road Program. This is the third year in a row that GRA has recognized the valuable research conducted by the Citizens Research Council and the impact it has on policy in Michigan.
GRA is a national professional organization made up of individuals, researchers and organizations engaged in public policy research and analysis in major cities and several states across the country.
The awards committee “was impressed by the thoughtful, innovative analysis of this challenging topic”, said Stephen Stuart, vice president and research director of the Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans and chair of the review committee. “We appreciated how the development of the two indexes, and their use together to analyze the road program, overcame data challenges and opened up a new way to evaluate state road programs. … It was an outstanding effort in a strong field of 11 entries this year.”
The report, primarily authored by Eric Paul Dennis, provides an objective fact-based analysis to help inform ongoing public discussions regarding Michigan’s road funding. It provides an assessment of key data describing Michigan’s statewide road program, including road and bridge funding and system conditions. Michigan’s road program performance – the efficacy in utilizing given funding levels to maintain the public road network – is found to have declined between 2004 and 2024 and is now less effective than many other states.
The analysis suggests that ongoing road funding discussions should include an evaluation of options to improve Michigan’s road program performance. Primary among policy implications are recommendations to review the efficacy of Michigan’s approach to pavement management and to prioritize a legislative repeal and replacement of Public Act 51 of 1951, the law that determines road funding distribution and allocation.
“We are thrilled and honored to once again be recognized for our educational work by the preeminent national organization of our peers,” said Eric Lupher, president of the Citizens Research Council. “This work was both professional and personal for everyone involved.”
“The Research Council’s analysis has for decades shown how the cures for Michigan’s road woes run deeper than directing more resources dedicated to them. Michigan’s road program includes a complex network of government agencies, decision makers, road users, and climate and geological conditions. The laws that dictate the distribution and use of road funding dollars is rooted in antiquated ideas for measuring needs that fail to reflect the use of roads or the variances in the cost of maintaining them in different regions of the state.”
