Talking Michigan Transportation
The Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features conversations with transportation experts inside and outside MDOT and will touch on anything and everything related to mobility, including rail, transit and the development of connected and automated vehicles.
Talking Michigan Transportation
Determining which roads to fix
This week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features explanations about how Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) officials prioritize road projects.
MDOT Chief Operations Officer Gregg Brunner talks about the factors that go into selection and how planners and engineers strictly adhere to asset management principles.
With National Work Zone Awareness Week approaching, Brunner also talks about how the safety of workers factors into maintaining mobility during road construction.
Also discussed: the bills adopted in the Michigan House of Representatives and later voted out of the Senate Transportation Committee that would allow Michigan to join several other states in employing innovative technology to detect vehicles speeding in work zones.
On a previous episode, Juan Pava, the Safety Programs Unit chief in the Bureau of Safety Programs and Engineering at the Illinois Department of Transportation, talked about how enforcement has been effective there in offering better protection for workers.
Hello, welcome to Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson. Today I'm going to be talking about something that's important and on a lot of people's minds as we get into the construction season. It's spring and that means a lot of road projects are starting across the state as Governor Whitmer's Rebuilding Michigan program continues to rebuild or repair some of the busiest freeways. Gregg Brunner, who is the Chief Operations Officer at MDOT, will be here to explain how projects are chosen. I know a lot of people wonder what the priorities are and what factors go into this each season. So, Gregg will break that down and we'll also talk a little bit about work zone safety, with National Work Zone Awareness Week coming up, and a little bit about the automated enforcement legislation that is still making its way through the Michigan legislature. So, I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Jeff Cranson:So again I'm with Gregg Brunner, who is the Chief Operations Officer for the Michigan Department of Transportation, and I wanted to talk to him about something that I think people always wonder about this time of year as we get into the spring and get into, you know, the construction season in earnest, and that's how projects are chosen. MDOT has a very robust and really nationally recognized asset management system. That alone sounds difficult to grasp. Those are not words we use every day, but it's really what factors into how the projects are chosen. So, Gregg, what factors into how the projects are chosen? So, Gregg, thanks for taking time to talk about this and I guess, give me your you know your Aunt Shirley pitch about choosing projects.
Gregg Brunner:Thanks again for having me, Jeff and I guess my Aunt Shirley pitch is in terms of picking projects is out there. We have limited funding in terms of fixing our roadways so we try to stay as aggressive as we can using an asset management approach. And I know, while most people may think using a worst-first approach just going out and fixing the roads that are worst would be the best, that actually kind of digs the hole a little deeper in terms of pavement condition where we're at. So again, by using a mix of fixes out there, whether they just be smaller maintenance fixes, some rehabilitation or reconstruction, by trying to balance those, we're able to address more miles of roadway to keep things in a better overall condition.
Jeff Cranson:Yeah, I think that worst first is probably what most people think is intuitive. Do you know I mean you had conversations with your counterparts and you've studied this in various peer reviews and things do you feel like most states have gone away from that approach now?
Gregg Brunner:Yes, I think it's taken some time, but a lot of states are moving in that direction. They see the benefits. When you start looking at the overall construction costs we're seeing lately, they get pretty astronomical. When you start looking at the overall construction costs we're seeing lately, they get pretty astronomical. When you start talking about just to reconstruct a lane mile of roadway, we're looking at almost $4 million a lane mile. So you can only imagine with a limited budget that only goes so far when we're trying to take care of the entire state of Michigan. So again, it's something that we've been doing quite a while with an aggressive asset management approach, but it's actually been recognized nationally as a best practice.
Jeff Cranson:Yeah, absolutely. Now, when you talk about the $4 million per mile and I don't know if that's an average between urban and rural, but it's such an astronomical number for one mile I think that's part of the problem we have, or the challenge we have in the funding discussion and helping the public and lawmakers to understand the need for funding. These numbers get so astronomical they just don't mean anything anymore.
Gregg Brunner:Yeah, it gets hard to believe when you start throwing around numbers that big.
Jeff Cranson:I know I wish my bank account was up there, but it's not quite there, so yeah, Well, I think the most important thing you pointed out is that we need to view this all through the budget lens and the lack of adequate funding which has been the case in Michigan for decades, and we know that the program is, you know, the MDOT program is facing a cliff in a couple years. The Rebuilding Michigan plan the bonding, was really helpful in terms of repairing, rebuilding some of the most heavily traveled freeways in the southern part of the state, rebuilding some of the most heavily traveled freeways in the southern part of the state, which is where the vast majority of the traffic is. But you know, we know, that the day of reckoning is coming. I know you don't have a crystal ball to know what's going to happen in terms of funding, but how do you think, or how already is looking ahead, factoring into project selection, and you know what makes it onto the list.
Gregg Brunner:So what we do, just to kind of look into the crystal ball or how we've done it and how we continue to do things we actually set up kind of monitoring what we anticipate good and fair pavement condition to be overall.
Gregg Brunner:In Michigan we have a 90 percent goal to have good or fair payment condition to be Overall. In Michigan we have a 90% goal to have good or fair payment condition on MDOT roads. So what we do is kind of look at where we're at today, which is up close to probably the 80% mark, and what we do is forecast out then, based on average deterioration of the roadways kind of where we're going to be with the current available funding using our asset management approach and multiple scenarios in terms of how we can optimize that. But overall, looking how we're going to be going forward and unfortunately, where we're at right now with continued funding at the same level, that percentage drops quite a bit in the out years as that overall funding drops, not only due to kind of the limited dollar. I know we've seen inflation in everything we do but again that overall number dropping impacts the payment condition kind of going forward as well, so just for a second, I guess to veer to another topic, because you brought up inflation.
Jeff Cranson:What are we seeing now? Is it a baited sum in construction, or do you feel like it's still on the rise?
Gregg Brunner:It's starting to level off somewhat. But in talking to the Federal Highway Administration kind of the number they've been using since about 2020, when the pandemic started to where we're at now we've seen probably about a 30% increase in overall construction costs for highway projects, and again, 30% is quite a bit when you start talking about those costs increase. But I think, as America, we're kind of seeing that everywhere we go, whether it's going to the store to get a gallon of milk or gas or whatever else, those costs seem to have escalated since then. So again, it's something we're looking at kind of across the board, not just in the road industry, do you break that down a little bit?
Jeff Cranson:Is that specific materials labor everything?
Gregg Brunner:It's a little bit of everything. When you start talking about the materials themselves, yes, labor and trucking costs have gone up, and then some of it's based on supply as well. So again, that's kind of the total is what they've seen on average across the board.
Jeff Cranson:Do you think somewhere along the line in those supply chains I mean, we've heard discussions about, you know, grocers, retail food outlets and others taking advantage of that vague sense that people have of inflation to do some price gouging of their own? Have you heard any discussion about that in industry, whether that's, you know, something that's believed to be going on?
Gregg Brunner:Not necessarily. We use a low bid approach in terms of our construction projects. So, again, the intent there is to keep things competitive where you're not going to know what your competitors are bidding. So, again, using that approach, we're aiming to get the best price possible while getting the quality product we expect, based on our current specifications.
Jeff Cranson:So talk about the classifications of our highway system, because that's really important. You know, when you look at what the Bureau of Planning does in concert with a couple of the units that are under you, which is development and construction, obviously, how does that factor in?
Gregg Brunner:Which is development and construction, obviously. How does that factor in? Sure, so what we do with our MDOT trunkline system is we break that down kind of into four different tiers and I'll list them off real quick and then go into a little bit more detail on what each one is. So first would be our interstate system, then we have our non-interstate freeway system, then we have our non-freeway national highway system, then just our overall non-national highway system. So I know those.
Gregg Brunner:Probably to someone that doesn't deal with them those sound a little bit different. So to narrow them down just a bit, our interstate system would be what you think of when you see our I-routes out there, such as I-75, I-96, those types of routes. Non-interstate freeways then would be the other freeways we have. For the most part those are our US freeways, like US- 23, US-131, those types. Then it gets a little more difficult to break them down when you get into our non-NHS. But for the most part those would be our M routes, such as M57, M52, M22, those routes around the state.
Gregg Brunner:So that's kind of how they're broken down at a high level. But using that approach, then we kind of apply those goals to each of those different tiers so that we're keeping all of them in that upper threshold. We're not just focusing on one area in particular. We're keeping all of them in that upper threshold. We're not just focusing on one area in particular. It may be a lot cheaper to get, you know, our lowest volume freeways up to a good condition and neglect the others, which we don't want to do. We want to kind of keep them balanced going forward to meet our overall goal.
Jeff Cranson:Yeah, and obviously when you talk about an overall goal, you're talking statewide, from north of US- 10, the vast stretches of the upper lower peninsula, the northern lower peninsula and then stretches of the upper peninsula. You've got roads that just don't see a lot of traffic so you could see where somebody that lives up there might have a whole different view of the condition of the roads versus somebody who lives, you know, anywhere between Grand Rapids and Detroit or South.
Gregg Brunner:When we're setting up these goals, we actually break them down by regions of the state and come up with a little more targeted goals for that area. So one region may be, in order to meet goals, may get more reconstruction dollars or a higher percentage of reconstruction, whereas another area of the state may have a little bit higher preventative maintenance goal, just to kind of not only to keep things as consistent as we can across the state in terms of funding and overall condition.
Jeff Cranson:We will continue the conversation right after a quick break.
Gregg Brunner:Know before you go Head on over to .
Jeff Cranson:When you talk about pavement condition and you know you can definitely explain how MDOT tracks pavement condition but also how do you think of it look I mean you probably have a pretty good feel by now just out your windshield and by the quality of the ride. You know how do you think about that when you're driving.
Gregg Brunner:When I'm driving. I'm a dorky engineer so I look at a lot of things when I'm driving down the road. But again we do measurements mechanical measurements where we're testing kind of the ride quality, looking for the number of cracks, the number of ruts that are in asphalt pavement kind of where it dips down within the wheel path, or faults in concrete pavement, which would mean two separate panels of concrete kind of create a bump, for lack of a better word. So that's kind of as a driver out there, that's kind of how I look at things. How smooth the ride is when you're driving down the road it's pretty much the easiest way to tell and again that's just based on the overall ride quality that's out there. So again, doing anything to keep the roadways smooth as we can, to keep it moving forward, it's kind of my gut condition basis. I'm driving down the road on a daily basis.
Jeff Cranson:So I know these things are always discussed and again, I don't know what the goals are in other states, but have you given any thought to the debate about whether or not the goal really needs to be 90 percent, whether that's realistic?
Gregg Brunner:Well, I think it's always good to have goals that are out there and again, it gives us something to strive for. I know ever since, back in the 90s, that's kind of been what our goal was and that was kind of our North Star in terms of getting pavement good, that was what our focus was. But as we've evolved as a transportation agency beyond just strictly focused on roads and bridges, right now we're looking more at mobility overall and how to get people where they want to go, whether it's on good roads or utilizing non-motorized methods or anything else. So right now we're really looking at a balance overall. I still think the 90% goal is good to have, but again we're trying to take that into account with all the other transportation needs of our roadway users to benefit everybody out there and, bottom line, just helping people to get where they want to go.
Jeff Cranson:Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I still think, as much emphasis as we've put on that in our in our efforts to communicate with you know, local agencies and with the public, that you know there's still a widespread myth or perception that a bunch of people sit around in a room and decide what roads to fix and don't really care who it inconveniences. So talk about that and the hard work that goes into planning for maintenance of traffic and mobility and how you factor that in so that people can work safely and efficiently. But also, you know some places you don't have a lot of redundancy so you don't have much choice but to have them work where the traffic is.
Gregg Brunner:Sure, yeah, I'd love to say we just sit around and throw darts at a map and that's where we do construction projects. But there's a lot more to it than that. Again, we balance the overall road conditions along with our goals in terms of how long the proposed fix will last and different types of fixes to propose and when. But again, that's just on a location by location basis. And after we identify some key locations for projects, then we look at adjacent projects and projects within the vicinity and kind of how those impacts overall would go. You don't want somebody to drive out of one work zone, go one mile and then hit another one.
Gregg Brunner:Again, our goal in terms of our work zones out there is to maintain safety and mobility throughout them. So again, that's an important part that goes into these. Again, it's to address, make the correct fixes at the right time to our pavement, but also to focus on safety and mobility of the roadway. So once we do have those projects selected, then kind of the next exercise we run through is how are we going to maintain traffic through there to keep people moving? You know that could be anything from a lane closure to some of the things we're doing right now with movable concrete barrier or even a detour, depending on the circumstances that are out there. But there's a very detailed analysis that goes into each and every project that weighs quite a few options in order to maintain traffic, to help people get back to what I said previously help people get where they want to go.
Jeff Cranson:Have you been surprised? In your previous job at MDOT, before you ascended to the statewide Bureau of Field Services and then to COO, you worked in the Bay Region, the Saginaw Bay City, flint area, for a number of years. When you ask the public about a project, hey, we could close this completely and be done in four months, you know. Or we could try to maintain some traffic, and it'll take six months or more. It seems like the vast majority of the time the people will say you know, close it and get it done sooner. Has that been your experience?
Gregg Brunner:Many times yes, Again, that tends to be a benefit.
Gregg Brunner:We can do it. That way we can get things done a lot quicker and also it's a lot safer for our employees that are out there working at the time and also it's a lot safer for our employees that are out there working at the time. But again, it's not always a feasible option, depending on where certain detour routes are or other things that may be going on in the area, whether there's cities are having festivals or other types of things. So again, that's something that engagement with the locals is something we take a lot of pride in as we're developing those projects to make sure we are meeting with them to know their needs as construction's out there, because it's going to impact we understand it's going to impact folks in those areas, so we want to do all we can to help them sustain their what's going on within their area, while doing as little as we can to impact traffic throughout well, speaking of safety and the workers, we're coming up on National Work Zone Awareness Week again, and you'll be donning your orange suit, I assume.
Jeff Cranson:Yes, sir, talk about the demonstrations that you were able to witness, both over in the Grand Rapids area and on the east side of the state, of this technology that would allow for automated enforcement in work zones. Basically, the technology allows to catch people speeding in work zones, and a couple of the bills that we've talked about now for a couple of years made it out of the House, and they recently made it out of the Senate Transportation Committee, and we'll be going to the Senate floor sometime soon. But what did you see and what was your takeaway from that?
Gregg Brunner:Sure. So a couple years ago we had a vendor come in to do just a demonstration on automated work zone enforcement. And for those of you that haven't heard of that before, what that means is, instead of having a law enforcement officer sitting in our work zones kind of chasing people down and issuing citations for speeding through the work zones, it actually puts a van out there that does license plate reading, that monitors speedings and then can potentially send out citations through the mail for those folks speeding through work zones. Again, the goal is the goal of the system is not necessarily to issue citations, it's to get driver compliance through the work zones. Our goal is we want people to be safe, whether they're a driver in the work zone, our folks out there doing the testing, inspection or contractors out there working.
Gregg Brunner:So what we're able to do is bring one of those vendors out just to do a demo to show us how the project worked there were no citations issued or one of those vendors out just to do a demo to show us how the project worked.
Gregg Brunner:There were no citations issued or anything else. It was just kind of to see the monitored traffic throughout. We brought some legislators out there to have them observe as well, and some of them are amazed at what they saw in terms of the speeds of traffic just going through a work zone where we were all standing there, you know, 10, 15 feet away from them, separated by barrels. So again, it's really eye-opening once you get out in the field, see people driving by you that quick. It's a little unsettling, to be honest, but again, that technology that we demonstrated here was something we had actually seen in other states and learned from. We talked to them quite a bit on how it's working there and, in terms of compliance, what they have seen is it's been very effective. So it's something we're hopeful for here in Michigan, again with a goal of just keeping everybody safe, whether it's a worker, driver or anyone else.
Jeff Cranson:Yeah, it's been very successful in several states you know Maryland, Virginia, New York, Arkansas, I think, Washington, Illinois, certainly. So, yeah, so yeah, I think that the takeaway for the legislators was really interesting. They definitely it had an impact, and I think that you make a very good point about the deterrence factor, that this doesn't have to be about writing tickets or generating revenue. It's just the knowledge that this could be there, you know, will definitely alter behavior. So hopefully we can get those things across the finish line. Well, thanks, Greg. Is there anything you want to talk about in terms of maybe some of the big projects across the state, some highlights as we get into the season?
Gregg Brunner:Sure. So what the public may be aware. But we're kind of in the final phase of our Rebuilding Michigan program, which is a majority of the large projects that were given through a bond program through the governor. Just to key in on a few of those that are still going on and should be wrapping up in the next couple of years, we have I-475 in Flint.
Gregg Brunner:For that project overall there's a few different segments but we're rebuilding about eight miles, including extensive bridge repairs, of the I-69, i-475 interchange. That's about a $300 million project and that one's going to extend out to about 2027. But again, the work out there is ongoing through a few different projects. The other big one that's currently going on, as well as I-96 flex route in Oakland County, that's about 12 miles of reconstruction between Kent Lake Road and I-275 in Oakland County and that's another $269 million project which will create, in addition to rebuilding the lanes out there, it's going to add a flex lane similar to what we have on US-23 in the Brighton area. Again, that's an operational improvement in addition to the new pavement that's being put in out there.
Jeff Cranson:Yeah, it's always nice when you can say we're not just giving you back what you had, but there's some value added right.
Gregg Brunner:Right, yeah, and that operational improvement should make things a lot smoother for that commuter traffic running through that major route into Detroit. Then we have the I-94 project in Jackson where we're rebuilding about 13 miles of I-94. That's about a $162 million project that'll be completed later this year. So again that one's closing in and kind of the other big one we had was US-131 south of Grand Rapids. That's about three miles of reconstruction from 76th Street to 100th Street. That's a $70 million project which will actually be completed next year, in 2025. So again, there's still quite a few of these big projects going on around the state as part of the Rebuilding Michigan program and again it's good to see these longer-term fixes that we're able to go through and get completed to address some of the bigger projects that we've had sitting out there for a while.
Jeff Cranson:Yeah, and that I-94 project you mentioned in Jackson, the west side of the city, pretty much the last phase in what's been a multi-year project. That's just great all the way around. Anybody that's ever traveled that interchange at 127 and 94, it's been due for modernization for many years and part of this overall project created a divergent diamond interchange there, which is just awesome for both safety and efficiency of travel. And I know there was trepidation among some citizens, just like there was when one of those was built at a university and I-75 in Auburn Hills and then at Cascade Road and I-96 on the east side of Grand Rapids, and now this is another one that people weren't sure about at first because it does seem a little counterintuitive. But once you do it, you get used to it and it really flows well. I think we'll be seeing more of those in Michigan's future.
Gregg Brunner:Yeah, we've had a lot of success, the ones we've installed so far.
Jeff Cranson:Well, this is great, Gregg. I appreciate it.
Jeff Cranson:I know we'll be talking again, but thanks for taking the time today. No thanks for having me, Jeff. I appreciate it. I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jacke Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.