By Erin Knott

I recently joined a group of unemployed residents, members of the clergy, folks from Michigan Citizen Action, and a videographer on a tour of Kalamazoo. We wanted to draw attention to the work that needs doing in our community, from our neglected parks to neighborhoods riddled with abandoned homes, to roads and bridges in desperate need of repair.

Take the tour for yourself here:

We saw city parks that currently don’t meet ADA standards. Even though a master plan has been drafted to rehabilitate the park seen in the video, so that it will be accessible to everyone, there are no funds to complete the project so it’s been tabled for now.

Michigan is ranked 13th in the nation for the worst bridge infrastructure in the United States. In fact, 1,437 bridges in the state have been declared by engineers to be “structurally deficient” or worse. In Kalamazoo County, 20 of our 147 bridges have been deemed structurally deficient. (Source: http://t4america.org/docs/bridgereport/states/bridgereport-mi.pdf)

Patterson Bridge, for example, was built in 1956 and has been “functionally obsolete” since 1992. According to uglybridges.com, its “deck geometry appraisal” is “basically intolerable requiring high priority of replacement”. (Source: http://uglybridges.com/1251533)

Our roads need rebuilding too. Humphrey and Beacon Streets have been plagued with frequent flooding since the County Juvenile Home & Family Division Circuit Court was rebuilt. During construction of that facility, Humphrey Street was re-graded and now even minor rains cause homes in the area to flood.

One of the saddest sights to see are the neighborhoods decimated by the high rate of foreclosures in our town. Roughly 1,800 homes in Kalamazoo County are in the process of being foreclosed. Some streets, like Edison, have two or three homes that have been foreclosed. Others neighborhoods have blocks and blocks of nothing but foreclosed homes. (Source: www.realtytrac.com)

It’s a shame we can’t find the funds for these infrastructure projects. Not only would we eliminate severe safety hazards for the citizens of Kalamazoo, but we’d also give thousands of jobless Michigan residents a chance to get back to work. That’s why we’re going to keep after our elected representatives in Congress to create jobs and get our economy rolling again.

Watch the WWMT News Channel 3 story on the Kalamazoo tour