LANSING - By comparison with what lies ahead, the year 2007 is looking pretty good for highway funding - and for the rating of the condition of our state's roads and bridges.

Michigan Department of Transportation Director Kirk Steudle told the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council delegates that just as the state has achieved a 92 percent "good" rating for the condition of the entire state highway system in 2007, the state's budget and other factors will put a brake on future highway spending hikes.

He said Michigan will spend $1.62 billion on highway work in 2007, but that amount will decline to $1.2 billion in each of the years 2009, 2010, and 2011. Those declining expenditures mean that the "good" rating is projected to apply to only 68 percent of the state's highways by 2014.

That percentage brings the state back to the dark years of the mid-1990s - when only 64 percent of state roads were classified in "good" condition - and when the public demanded that more money be spend to fix the state's potholes.

State spending on roads, Steudle said, is one-third from federal money and two-thirds generated from the state. And 53 percent of state road improvement expenditures are generated from fuel taxes - an area that's being explored for another tax increase, which would directly help the building trades.

Steudle said the trend toward higher mileage cars will hurt the state's gas tax income, since the trend is for less gasoline to be consumed. And, given the state's financial condition, more money for roads isn't likely to be allocated from the general fund budget.

"We're going to need a greater revenue stream to keep it going," Steudle said.

Michigan's gasoline tax is currently 19 cents per gallon. It was last raised in 1997. Thirty-three states had higher gas tax rates as of late 2006.

Todd Tennis, a lobbyist for Capitol Services, which serves the IBEW and other unions, said there is going to be opposition to any tax increase in Michigan - but the building trades would be one of the primary beneficiaries. "You guys do so much public construction," he said, "you can already see that you're going to be doing less and less work because revenues are going down."