mr. gilmartin, i'd like for you to talk about where we are in michigan and as i mentioned, in the openingcomments where we are is not that you will different from every other state in the country and certainly in the midwest and particularly those of us who have a lot of change in seas and wear and tear -- in seasons and wear and tear on roads, that adds to the cost. paint a picture in terms of where we are in michigan. you mentioned some tax increases that have occurred throughout the day but what are you hearing from our local cities and townships in terms of the extent of the problem we face in our state upon? >> our transportation infrastructure is as bad as it ever has. we start kicking up those potholes. we're all kind of used to that but this year is a special kind of ugly on michigan roads. it has done gone from difficult to sometimes frightening, to drive downloads, the quote from wwj is real real. i've experienced that myself. guys pull over all the time. i've had to pull off to check my front end because of the impact of potholes that we've hit. a colleague of mine had a baseba

mr. gilmartin? >> i have not seen this particular bill but i can tell you my state league and the national league of cities does endorse a multi-tiered, multi-pronged revenue structure for dealing with infrastructure across the country. certainly it's in the spirit of what we are looking at doing. we have over 1100 structurally deficient bridges in the state of michigan. it's right up there in terms of things that we need to deal with right now to make sure we move forward. you talked about being a security issue. it's certainly a commerce issue. at its core, it's a flat safety issue which a lot of people are really starting to see as they drive over these bridges. in some cases in our state, plywood is the only thing that stands between you and concrete falling down on your car. that's not in some small tucked away burg. it's in our metropolitan areas. >> thank you very much for that. short line rail represents really an important part of our nation's economy and i think it is often overlooked. it