Raildude's dad

There was logic to what was built in the 60's. The city fathers wanted the freeways to come thru town and not bypass it. Plus the traffic on the freeways was 1/10th of what it is today. They worked pretty darn good at 1/10th of today's traffic plus people focused on driving, not their smart phones.

Those "bars" are faux balconies. They show 4 panel windows, the real thing is 3 panels. Do I personally like all the architecture of all the new developments, no. But it's encouraging to see all the construction going on after a lost decade of nothing. I just hope it's not a bubble about to burst.

That's nothing. Last week a older woman did the same maneuver about 9 in the morning in front of me and stopped, yes stopped dead halfway between the left and center lanes and waited for traffic to clear so she could get in the right lane. Cars and trucks in the right and center lanes started doing hard braking and swerving left and right to avoid hitting her and the other swerving vehicles. I held my breath waiting for the crashes to begin and figure out where I was going to go. Thanks to the driving skills of my fellow motorists, nobody touched her or anyone else. The last I saw her in my rear view mirror about was about Grandville Ave putting along in the far right lane.

Not quite a complete makeover. The power and telephone poles are still there.

Yes, to come up with a suspension or similar bridge, it most likely would require 10 years. The "wheels" at MDOT tend to be square. "They" were all excited about the "light towers" on the S-curve reconstruction. My comment was "big woopie", just a token enhancement. There's 2 lanes at Ottawa, one that just disappears and the one far right that must exit. I'm pretty sure the lane that disappears will be connected to the exit lane on the bridge over the river. I don't ever foresee 3 lanes between the ramps to and from US-131. Maybe.............. in 50 years with the next reconstruct................

The configuration will be 4 lanes, 2 thru and a left (south) and right (north) exit lane. The exit lanes will have full shoulders as opposed to no shoulders now. i believe the WB lane drop at Ottawa will disappear. The time for some type of signature structure is long past (by about 3 or more years back when the project was scoped). About all that can be done now is for the City to add led lighting like the bridges down river.

The ADT on M-6 near the west end is about 42,000. The 36th St extension is handling about 16,000 vehicles a day. This was a quote on Mlive: I can assure you the concrete on 36th Street was tested after it was on the ground at the paving train. That was the procedure when I first entered the road building business in 1972. Draw your own conclusion.

That's the Butterworth landfill. Google it. Capped with a clay layer

The 36th Street entrance / exit was located where it provided the best access back to Patterson to 44th & Patterson. The ability to extend it to the airport was verified by the Road Commission who managed the design and construction of the 36th St extension. It can be physically built but I don't believe it's on short or medium term plan. Information tidbit - the 36th Street extension was constructed the same time as the west end of M-6. Constructed by the same contractor - Ajax, using the same MDOT pavement design and specifications. It gets the same ice control and snowplowing as M-6 by the same government agency. I don't believe it has one defect.

Experienced that yesterday about 3pm between 28th and Cascade WB. Then at rush hour drivers that don't know how to merge at speed at Cascade bring that strech to stop and go.

Some strategic lane additions and merge weave lanes would go along way to ease congestion. WB 96 west of Cascade, NB 131 at 96 needs an extra lane under 96, EB 196 from Lake Michigan east to extra lane at Lane Ave are just a few. NB 131 from 28th has too many entrances with short acceleration ramps. As for the EBL, a lot of the congestion is due to all the turning volumes. If you give the thru traffic more green, the turning cars back up into the left thru lane. Again strategic lengthening of the left turn lanes would help. Plus letting 2 turn side by side would help. However MDOT appears to be paralyzed to do anything along those lines. I suggested they look at the merge weave lane between Leonard and Ann St 20? years ago. (I work right there and my employer has about 40 trucks that use those ramps every day.) It took them 15 years to build the NB, didn't have funds to do the SB for 3 more years. Part is the lack of funding. They are paying down the bonding debt and are also focused on repaving whenever a few cracks show up.

You folks can say what you want but he put his money where his mouth is. And he's got the money.

There is (or was) a conveyor system in the floor of the dock. There would be one or 2 boxcars (capacity was 2) with paper rolls for the Press. The fork lift would set the rolls on the conveyor and they would be delivered into the building via a tunnel under the parking lot. I was never inside the building where the rolls were stored to see how that worked. IIRC, they used about 2 cars a week. They would come in 12-13 car blocks so when the cars showed up they would get switched every night. They only got 48 hours to unload a car so they would get demurage charges once they went over the 48 hours. I witnessed a heated discussion one day over a $25 demurage charge between the ops guy and a RR rep.

My daughter graduated from Mich Tech in 2005. She was able to get an engineering job here in in GR.(Civil). She was the only one of her friends at Tech that got a job in MI. She was the last engineer hired in their GR office until 2016. She drives I-96 first from Alpine to Cascade and then I-196 Fuller to I-96. She could see the traffic drop off as the economy here worsened. The "rush hour" was much less. Now it has been recovering and the "rush Hour" increasing. We both joke that GR doesn't have anything close to a rush hour. More like a "rush 15 minutes". Try Chicago or Toronto if you want to see rush hour traffic.

Time for Road Funding 101. No county funds are used for roads. Most comes from the state gas and weight taxes. Some comes from the federal gas tax and the most townships contribute some funds to the road commission. (don't know where the bold is coming from - can't get rid of it:( )