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
Projects improve travel near Grand Rapids, Traverse City
In the second installment of podcasts focusing on significant road and bridge project completions by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), conversations about a new roundabout on busy routes near Traverse City and a new bridge over I-96 in Walker.
First, Jeff Shaw, supervisor of Elmwood Township in Leelanau County, talks about what the roundabout means for traffic flow in the area, safety benefits and the connections for pedestrians and cyclists.
“Now we're able to take a look at the corridor and the improvements that have been made and know how much of a benefit this is going to be for the people that motor through here, that bike through here, that walk through here," said State Transportation Director Bradley C. Wieferich at a celebration event on Oct. 31.
Former U.S. Department of Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg, a Traverse City resident, also attended the celebration.
“I know folks grumble about roundabouts, but a well-placed roundabout can reduce injury crashes by 80 percent or more," Buttigieg said of the new M-72/M-22 intersection, a centerpiece of the project. "I want to commend MDOT, the contractors and, above all, the workers who, in partnership with this community, made sure this was a success."
At another celebration in October, City of Walker officials joined MDOT engineers and lawmakers to celebrate completion of a $30 million Fruit Ridge Avenue bridge over I-96.
The investment replaced the original bridge and interchange from 1961. Contractors widened the new bridge from two lanes to five and included non-motorized paths, linking heavily used trails on each side.
Art Green, manager of MDOT’s Grand Rapids Transportation Service Center (TSC), joined the podcast to talk about the long-time needs for the improved bridge and interchange, how the funding came about and improvements already showing up in traffic flow.
"Projects like this don't happen overnight," said City of Walker Mayor Gary Carey at the event. "They take vision, persistence, partnership, and a shared belief that our infrastructure is worth investing in."
Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson. Following up on last week's installment where I highlighted a couple of big projects that M Dot Cruise completed over the last few weeks. I am today highlighting a couple of others with a little bit of geographic spread. First, I talked to the Elmwood Township supervisor, Jeff Shaw, about a roundabout at M72 and M22, traditionally a signaled intersection just outside Traverse City. Jeff was very supportive of converting that into a roundabout and brought a lot of people on board with his advocacy and his support and helped the department by organizing an event to celebrate the completion. Later, I spoke with Art Green, who is the Transportation Service Center Manager in Grand Rapids or MDOT, about the completion of a project to replace the Fruit Ridge Avenue Bridge over I-96 in Walker, west of Grand Rapids. Another project that enjoyed a lot of community support, City of Walker officials, state elected officials, business leaders. There's a lot of industry in that area, and it's going to help both commercial traffic and commuter traffic. And he had a lot of good things to say about that. So I hope you enjoy the conversations. So before I talk to Jeff Shaw about the project and what it means to him and to the residents of his township, let's hear a little bit of what was said at the celebration from Director Weifrick of MDOT and also from former U.S. DOT secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
SPEAKER_01:Now we're able to take a look at the corridor and the improvements that have been made and know how much of a benefit this is going to be for the people that that you know motor through here, that bike through here, that walk through here. Um it's just an amazing project.
SPEAKER_03:A roundabout that can, I know folks grumble about roundabouts, but a well-placed roundabout can reduce injury crashes by 80% or more. I want to commend MDOT, the contractors, and above all the workers who, in partnership with this community, uh made sure that this was a success.
SPEAKER_06:So as promised, I'm here with Jeff Shaw, who is the supervisor of Elmwood Township in Lelanaw County, just outside of Traverse City. Lots going on there in terms of commerce and people moving in all the time, very busy place. Jeff was extremely supportive and helpful in helping this roundabout at M72 and M22 come together. It was a traditional signaled intersection. We know this is going to be better for traffic movement, better for safety, um, certainly better for cyclists and pedestrians, all kinds of good things. He was also helpful in uh putting together an event to celebrate it a couple of weeks ago. So, Jeff, thanks for being here. Thank you, Jeff. So, talk about why this project was important to you and why you were so enthusiastic about it from the start.
SPEAKER_02:Uh well, this is my ninth year as supervisor, so the beginning of the 10th, actually, I guess. Um, so in 2016, when I became supervisor in Elmwood Township, um at the first meeting, one of the things that I brought up to the board was that we needed um a safe crossing in M22. If you're familiar with our area, um there's parking on the west side of M22, and everybody wants to use the east side where the lake and the beaches and the harbors and the marinas and the restaurants, many of the restaurants are on that east side. So um, you know, we have a huge amount of people that spend their summers here, they come here to vacation. Um, you know, millions of people come to the Trevor City area, including Elmwood Township, which is the gateway to Lelana County. And um, Lelana County is an incredibly popular place to vacation. So uh we have thousands of cars a day and um people trying to get across the road. So um I actually said during that first meeting that uh we needed some sort of sidewalks um and um crosswalks and and a trail. And one of the board members actually said live and on camera, uh, well, we don't need sidewalks down there. I've never seen anybody walk in. My response was, of course, that's because there's no sidewalks. Um so uh gosh, six, seven, eight years ago, uh Rick Liptek, who was the director for this region at the time, um, and I sat down and started talking about just that. And um, you know, for the past several years, I have said to people, imagine being able to leave Traverse City um and come all the way to Cherry Bend Road, which is our the only stoplight in Lelama County, is at Cherry Bend Road and never have to cross a road. And that's what this has accomplished. So the non-motorized transportation part is incredibly important to me from a safety standpoint. Um, as far as the roundabout goes, since the roundabouts opened, there has not been a traffic backup. And um you can go through there at the busy time, eight in the morning, five in the afternoon, and not have to slow down, not have to you know wait in line like it was when there was a stoplight there. So it's been a it's been an awesome project. The MDOT crew up here, the the um were great to work with. The contractors were awesome to work with, and um we we appreciate it immensely.
SPEAKER_06:So is it is it fair to say that you and Rick Liptak, the former MDOT TSC manager there in Trevor City, hatched this at the world-famous Apache trout grill? Is that right?
SPEAKER_02:I would I see it that way. Um, that's you know, we sat down and chatted, and actually, interestingly, I had gone door to door to the businesses here in in Greylockville in Elmwood Township along the corridor and gotten them 61% of them to sign a petition to create a special assessment district to get sidewalks. And a couple of weeks prior to the meeting that I was going to introduce that to the board, um, Rick called me and we sat down and hatched this idea.
SPEAKER_06:So no, he he deserves a lot of credit. So does Dan Wagner, who picked up the reins as the TSC manager now and for sure. Lots of other people there. That's great. Um, so so far you're seeing people have adapted to it. They always do. There's always some consternation about a roundabout that goes in anywhere. And people are surprised at how well it works out um after it's in there. So that's what you're seeing, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, for sure. And you know, the day that the paving was done on the trail, as soon as they took the the um cones down, there were people on it. And and I use it every day on my bike or I run every day. And um and there's always people on that trail now. And I can't wait till next summer where it's gonna be just full of people.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, that's where we'll find out how it's really working out for sure as we get into the summer season. But no, that's great. I'd really uh appreciated your support, both in uh in MCing an event that we had back in the spring to kick it off and what was a kind of rainy, blustery day. Uh, this time was different, it was not not warm, but we had rainbows, which was kind of an omen, I think. I hope. Oh yeah. Yep. Yeah. So uh going forward, um, talk about a little bit about what these corridors mean. Well, 72 obviously goes in a different direction, but M22, very important to your township and to you know the other communities as you go up the lake shore. Um, what do you see in terms of growth? I mean, it sounds like you're you're braced for and anticipating more, right?
SPEAKER_02:Well, um, we are the gateway to Lelana County, and we are the main the main transportation lane that people use to enter to enter the county. Everybody wants to stay along the lake because it's a beautiful drive. So yeah, we we are the we're the bottleneck in the funnel, as we've referred to it in the past. You know, every every house, every business, every person that moves into Lelano County ends up traveling through Elmwood Township. So, you know, we we have had people that were concerned about growth within Elmwood Township and how that affected the traffic. But what some people didn't understand is it's everything north of us. Um, those people, you know, have to funnel through us. And so having this roundabout and having the curb and gutter and the safe trails, um, it's it's huge to us. It it will totally transform the corridor. It already has um into in some areas, it was kind of an industrial looking area. Um, you know, we already have marinas being planned and um the freshwater research and innovation center, uh, which is gonna be a$30 million building they've they've started construction. Um, it's gonna totally transform our corridor into a really quite a destination.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, that's exciting too. Yeah. If there's any doubt how much people love M22, I mean there's been some copycats with some other roads now being featured in bumper stickers and um other shirts and things, but nothing comes close to M22 and it's not just in Michigan. You actually see it outside of Michigan. So for sure. Plenty of evidence of the popularity of that road. Yeah. Well, thanks, Jeff. Thanks for uh all your support on this and uh for talking about it a little bit and sharing your your enthusiasm for the project.
SPEAKER_02:You bet. Thank you, Jeff. And again, thanks to M Dot for everything you guys did out here. It it uh it was really a great project. We're thrilled with it, the contractors, the TSC team, everybody. So thank you. Yeah, yeah, it's nice when the collaboration works.
SPEAKER_06:We'll be right back. Stay tuned.
SPEAKER_00:No, before you go, head on over to my drive to check out the latest on road construction and possible delays along your route. For a detailed map, head over to Michigan.gov slash drive.
SPEAKER_06:So again, before I talk to Art, let's hear a little sound from that day. In this case, it will be Mayor Gary Carey of Walker talking about the project.
SPEAKER_04:Today we celebrate not just a new bridge, but the journey it took to get here. Projects like this don't happen overnight. They take vision, persistence, partnership, and a shared belief that our infrastructure is worth investing in.
SPEAKER_06:So, again, as promised, I'm with Art Green, who is the Grand Rapids Transportation Service Center manager. Art has been involved in a lot of projects in the Greater Grand Rapids area over the years, but uh not many probably uh took as as much patience as this one. Um we never knew if the funding would ever arrive. Luckily, some state lawmakers got on board, got their colleagues on board to come up with some special grant funds to enable it. And uh it's a it's a really exciting project for a lot of reasons. I think uh mostly um that day there was a lot of discussion about the non-motorized components and the connections that it creates between some really popular trails. So Arc talk a little bit about this I-96 Fruit Ridge Bridge and uh, you know, what it meant to you to finally see it come to fruition.
SPEAKER_05:Sure, Jeff. Appreciate you, appreciate you having me on today to to talk about this and kind of celebrate a little bit more um the project and and and what it's gonna mean for the area uh to have a you know a more uh modern um function and operation there at Fruit Ridge. And and um the non-motorized was a was a big big connection and a big lift to connect miles and miles and miles to trails, both um, you know, north-south and east-west, um, that have been a little bit truncated, you know, in that Walker area. So so that was definitely a huge improvement um from a network perspective for the non-motorized component uh in the greater West Michigan area. Um so it so it did accomplish that, but that's big by itself. Um not only did it do that, though, it it did replace a bridge and interchange that was functionally obsolete. And I guess what I mean by that is is it's just really um the interchange design um had ramps that kind of ended into local streets rather than um conventional, you know, interchange operation uh type scenarios. So uh a lot of conflict and how to operate that as you can imagine between 1961 when that bridge originally opened and that interchange really opened, um, to today um traffic and traffic patterns as well as growth and development have changed quite a bit, making um the operation of the interchange very challenging before we were able to widen that. Um went from a basically a 26-foot wide structure to a 99-foot wide structure. And that's not necessarily um just looking at completely future, but it's really looking at you know bringing that interchange and that bridge up to you know some of the safety and operational values and looking at a little bit of a you know how operationally different we are today than we were back in you know early 1960s.
SPEAKER_06:So I'm guessing, not that you were around on earth, let alone you know, growing up in the upper peninsula, that that was all cornfields when that was built in the early 60s.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I mean much of uh much of the I-96 freeway um was was certainly that. Um and uh and you know that that whole freeway was constructed again from historical purposes, yeah, because I did miss 1961 by nine years on the planet. So uh I not around, I definitely was not around and certainly not in the West Michigan at that time. But what I can tell you from the history, yeah, yes, a lot of the 96 freeway was uh was going through um rather you know forest area or you know farm type environments and certainly was not um you know something that uh and it and you know at at this point here at Fruit Ridge it connected you know some county primary roads. And you know, if you look at those today, um that's this is another thing that you know we talked about, you know, not only with our city partners at the city of Walker, um but also with our county partners because you know they they do help us with the maintenance and operation of the system. But that you know, Fruit Ridge is a county road uh when you get uh when you get north of the city and goes for miles and miles and miles to the north and and uh you know as a parallel route to uh our M37, which is Alpine Avenue, just to the east. And um naturally when the area grows, you're gonna see you know those uh parallel routes starting to grow with the major routes, and um the the widening and the operational improvement here is gonna pay dividends for many, many years to come.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, nobody could have envisioned that what the city of Walker was going to be so successful at, and that was uh building industrial parks right near that interchange and creating you know all kinds of jobs and commerce, um not just the Meyer headquarter or Irwin Seating, but some smaller companies that are that are headquartered there. It's uh it's an incredibly busy area now, and what you've done is going to serve those businesses, but also serve the commuters and the cyclists and other users that we talked about. Um talk about some of the challenges in this project and getting it over the finish line.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, um the this project, I think, um was a little bit, you know, a little bit challenging from you know from the planning side, just looking at operations. What did this intercession uh entertainment need to be? Uh three mile roads very, very close to the freeway, um, very, very busy corridor, um, a lot of uh industrial commercial use on three mile. Um, and then of course on the north side of the road where um the the the North Ridge uh industrial park comes in, which is you know one of the bigger one of the biggest drivers you know for the immediate need for expansion for the you know for the interchange as well as the non-motorized use, um, is trying to figure out that that traffic puzzle and and how are we going to solve that. So we knew the interchange design had to change to align some of the ramps that are out there a bit a bit better, um, improve you know the controls out there, which uh which meant uh not only improving the existing signals, but maybe adding a uh a couple more for the for the interchange operation and to serve better um some of the land use that's already transitioned and changed. Um we had a few partners uh involved that we normally have, but you know, in this location and you know hadn't been looked at or changed in cut quite some time. So with the trail, we had to work with uh you know the rail company, you know, to accomplish some you know trail crossing and and and uh you know project you know relative uh work, uh a lot of drainage um changes, improvements there, um, creating and replacing some natural value uh that we're that we were needing to do with as mitigation. When we build new ramps and kind of you know original ground, we have to kind of replace that environmental value. And we've done that with some wetland type mitigation with the project as well. And of course, we solved uh some uh kind of some difficult decisions on how this uh should be built. I mean, we should we put back a a big long bridge, you know, the kind of replacing the skinnier bridge that was there, or should we look at a two-structured design that maybe helped us with some grades some more and and uh you know made some choices to use steel beams instead of concrete beams and lots of things like that with this job that uh we certainly you know tussled around with, but I think in the end we come up with you know the best you know economic um and asset friendly you know uh design for you know for for now and of course well into the future looking at you know how we might maintain the interchange and the operation.
SPEAKER_06:Have you uh had a chance to look at operations since it opened? Do you see uh some some efficiencies that have already uh shown up?
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. There's there's not as much um conflicts and um understanding of how we use them. And the the one example there is is uh we used to have a uh a loop ramp that uh brought traffic, you know, from Fruit Ridge uh southbound to the freeway eastbound. Um that ramp was always a little bit in conflict with the entrance ramp, you know, back to the eastbound direction up top on Fruit Ridge because there is always this we don't know which cars are going what and kind of trading spaces getting in and out of those ramps. And um, now that the ramps are built now and actually aligned for the uh you know the eastbound off and the eastbound on with a with a normal signal operation, you're seeing a lot more continuity. Um we certainly believe over time it's definitely going to be safer. We're gonna be you know removing some of the odd site sweep sideswipe type crashes that we've seen. Um similar function, the the the uh the eastbound off ramp of 96 to Fruit Ridge used to actually exit and go onto three mile road versus um onto Fruit Ridge like it does today with the new design. And uh that was just a short distance to the uh to the uh west of of the three mile and fruit ridge interchange, which caused a lot of conflict for folks that are trying to you know turn left out of that that ramp was very difficult. And of course, for folks that are trying to turn left on their fruit ridge, always in conflict with those left turns and storing, you know, turn left on the fruit ridge from three mile road. So um definitely seeing improvements there, a lot more continuity, a lot more understanding from the driver. You know, uh because as you mentioned, this is a big growing area with a lot of industrial use and commerce, um, you get a lot of new drivers. It's not always your same commuter folks, even though this does serve a huge community pop, you know, population. There's a lot of over-the-road trucks and things that are new to the area that are constantly back and forth serving, you know, those businesses and things. And we want to have you know driver intuitive type designs so they understand exactly how to operate those things and and uh aren't causing conflicts themselves just because they you know are are unfamiliar.
SPEAKER_06:Well, yeah. I mean, thinking in terms of young drivers, you've got a high school just a couple miles away. Absolutely. Yep, yep. Well, thank you, Art. Congratulations again. Uh, it was a great celebration, it was a beautiful day. Even had the Kennewell Hills High School marching band there. Um, I know Representative Glanville and Senator Heisinger were very excited about seeing this thing get over the finish line, and uh as well as the mayor of Walker and other local officials. So I think you and the team should feel really good about this one.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we do. Thanks, Jeff. And and uh, you know, our our team's real happy uh to have things uh open and operating. And uh, you know, our partners at the city of Walker uh are are definitely you know one in a million. They've they've come to the table and and uh helped this project get over the finish line in a lot of different ways, simply by knowing their community, knowing knowing what they need, and we were able to pair up um our knowledge and uh and and uh asset you know management for the interchange itself and and uh and definitely made a good project out of this.
SPEAKER_06:No, yeah, you've had a series of of mayors and city commissioners and uh engineers and others in the city of Walker that really really get infrastructure and make make for great collaboration, that's for sure. Absolutely. Thanks again, Eric. Take care. 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 Jackie Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.