102nd Legislature, Week 46: The SOAR Reform Package, Safe Speed Limits Pass the Senate

First and foremost, if you happen to be reading this: As a former constituent (the old District 13, Rochester Hills), thank you for your work on this, Senator McMorrow!

If you’ve never heard of the SOAR Fund, neither had I before I began following legislative efforts last year. The explanation below comes from this summary document of SB 559 :

The SOAR Fund was created in December 2021 to make Michigan more attractive for economic development and investment projects. Though the Fund has struck several major deals, some have expressed concern concerning the SOAR Fund programs’ implementation, transparency, and effectiveness. Accordingly, it has been suggested that the SOAR program be modified to increase its transparency and its focus on residents’ prosperity.

— Legislative Analyst Abby Schneider

McMorrow made similar remarks at TRU’s State of Transit event in January 2024 :

We cannot incentivize our way out of our shortcomings. When Amazon was looking at cities around the country for Amazon HQ2, the State of Michigan put up $4 billion in incentives to lure Amazon to locate their second headquarters here. And we lost. Not only did we lose, we weren’t even in the top 20, and they said it’s because you don’t have talent, and you don’t have transit. [The State of Virginia] invested more than a billion dollars directly in education from K-12 up through a new campus for Virginia Tech. And they expanded transit in northern Virginia. And that was the selling point — the incentive was kind of a last push, but it was the investment in the people and the talent and the place that was the selling point for this company. So we are getting lapped right now by states around the country who are adopting this new approach. So I drew up my committee of trying to show transit investment is economic development and we have to get out of this mindset that it is just giving money to companies and hoping for the best.

Improving our communities in the name of attracting more employers and diversifying our manufacturing-centric economy is a good thing, and I was thrilled to hear what I believe was the first mention of transit on the floor of either chamber outside of short remarks made by Senator Klinefelt last May on the appropriations bill ( at least, per a search for “transit” in the Senate and House Journals ). That said, it’s also important to remember that Michigan must do better at attracting people as Senator McMorrow suggested in her remarks. The Michigan 360 Program is only one piece of a complete solution.

Do we want people to move here just because it’s where they found a job, or do we want people to choose to move here because of the life Michigan offers and search for a career with that in mind? If we want to grow and maintain our population, it’s important to strengthen Michigan as a place to live, not just a place to work. As transit agencies nationwide shift away from work-based schedules to frequent, all-day service , we need to expand transit to a level that allows car-free living, not just car-free commuting.

This package was first introduced alongside Governor Whitmer’s $20M You Can in Michigan marketing campaign in October 2023. As for my thoughts on that: The best marketing is organic. Give people what they’re asking for – reliable transit, reliable public power, and career diversity beyond manufacturing and automotive – and you won’t have to launch a national attract campaign. Tall order? Yes, but nobody said fixing decades of neglected infrastructure and public services would be easy. We’re in it for the long haul.