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Highway and Road Construction Updates


GRDadof3

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23 hours ago, arcturus said:

I-196 work on the river:  

 

Those are the land bridges they're constructing in order to build the new bridge piers. 

Has anyone seen the designs for this widening project? The media is reporting that the bridge will now be 4 lanes (two exit lanes and two through lanes). That's what it is now, and not surprising that they're getting it wrong. I thought it was going to be wider than that. 
I looked all over MDOT's site and couldn't even find the project listed anywhere. 

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24 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

Those are the land bridges they're constructing in order to build the new bridge piers. 

Has anyone seen the designs for this widening project? The media is reporting that the bridge will now be 4 lanes (two exit lanes and two through lanes). That's what it is now, and not surprising that they're getting it wrong. I thought it was going to be wider than that. 
I looked all over MDOT's site and couldn't even find the project listed anywhere. 

The west bound is more like 3 1/2 lanes now as it starts out as 3 lanes and there's a short southbound exit ramp lane being the main issue for traffic backups so a full 4th lane would allow to open it further east to where the lane ends. Aesthetically, there's a rare opportunity to do something to greatly improve a massive and noticeably figure in the cityscape/skyline if you will. I doubt mdot will spend the money but the city should really push for something much improved like a an overhead suspension of somekind, before it's too late and have to wait another 50 years 

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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.:tw_grin:

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19 hours ago, Raildude's dad said:

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.:tw_grin:

So the lane that disappears and you have to get off at Ottawa will now continue straight onto the bridge? 

I was going to say that a bridge design has to be done years and years before it's started, not done on the fly. :)

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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................

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

OK, there have been survey crews, construction cones, and a bunch of tree clearing going on near the big cluster-f**k intersection of I-96 and I-196. The tree clearing is occurring North of the bridge of I-196 Westbound over the I-96 southbound lanes. 

Anyone know what's going on? I can't believe they'd be reworking this interchange without some major press about it. But jeez it's overdue. 

 

5a6a5fbc13761_i96treeclearing.thumb.jpg.54639236eac050af22a6be2b94e52049.jpg

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53 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

OK, there have been survey crews, construction cones, and a bunch of tree clearing going on near the big cluster-f**k intersection of I-96 and I-196. The tree clearing is occurring North of the bridge of I-196 Westbound over the I-96 southbound lanes. 

Anyone know what's going on? I can't believe they'd be reworking this interchange without some major press about it. But jeez it's overdue. 

It wasn't on MDOT's 5 year plan the last I checked it (which was probably a year or two ago). But my understanding is that the I-196 reconstruction downtown in 2011 was originally intended to be the first phase of a project that would include reconfiguring this interchange, the I-96/East Beltline interchange, and other improvements on I-96 all the way east to 28th St.

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Michigan is in the habitat of the Indiana bat. The bat has been declared an endangered species by the federal government and one of the restrictions is no cutting of trees during the construction season. So MDOT has hired the Road Commission to cut these trees this time of year so when MDOT has their construction plans ready, the contractor can can go to work. I'll have to inquire tomorrow what the 1st passe is. My daughter is working on the plans:)

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7 hours ago, Raildude's dad said:

Michigan is in the habitat of the Indiana bat. The bat has been declared an endangered species by the federal government and one of the restrictions is no cutting of trees during the construction season. 

It sounds like a boring bat that flies to slow in left lane.

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16 hours ago, Raildude's dad said:

Michigan is in the habitat of the Indiana bat. The bat has been declared an endangered species by the federal government and one of the restrictions is no cutting of trees during the construction season. So MDOT has hired the Road Commission to cut these trees this time of year so when MDOT has their construction plans ready, the contractor can can go to work. I'll have to inquire tomorrow what the 1st passe is. My daughter is working on the plans:)

Interested to see what they come up with. 

It looks like in my aerial that there's enough property @joeDowntownto connect I-96 Southbound to I-196 Westbound. If that were the case, I bet a lot of traffic on the Beltline headed to downtown would take that route down Leonard and get on instead of trying to leapfrog into 80mph traffic to get on 196 toward downtown. 

 

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Here's the link to a MDOT projects presentation. The I-96/196 project is one of them . It says 2019 - 2021 construction although my daughter says the 1st contract is hoped to get underway yet in 2018.  My daughter is doing quite a bit of the roadwork design so I have the inside DL;)

No SB to WB with these projects. The design is laid out to provide for the ramp in the future.

http://www.gvmc.org/GVMC Website - New/administration/documents/MDOT 2017-GVMC Board Presentation.pdf

Edited by Raildude's dad
New info on "the ramp"
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13 hours ago, Raildude's dad said:

Here's the link to a MDOT projects presentation. The I-96/196 project is one of them . It says 2019 - 2021 construction although my daughter says the 1st contract is hoped to get underway yet in 2018.  My daughter is doing quite a bit of the roadwork design so I have the inside DL;)

No SB to WB with these projects. The design is laid out to provide for the ramp in the future.

http://www.gvmc.org/GVMC Website - New/administration/documents/MDOT 2017-GVMC Board Presentation.pdf

So this is an interesting design:

(You have to click on the image to make the notes readable)

5a6c7cc3c20fd_i96I196.thumb.JPG.cf7075451094e3bb9b1c5be7be7ea684.JPG

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So they're not doing anything to expand the beltline at all?  All of this needed to be done years ago.  I really hope they are planning that this will be effective 20 or 30 years down the road.  It seems like a bandaid for one of the busiest stretches of highway in W. MI.   They really need to add a ramp from the beltline to W I-196 that enters on the left, the leapfrogging is dangerous.  Also SB to WB, there are many people that get off on the beltline only to turn around and get back on the highway.

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On 1/27/2018 at 11:07 AM, Floyd_Z said:

So they're not doing anything to expand the beltline at all?  All of this needed to be done years ago.  I really hope they are planning that this will be effective 20 or 30 years down the road.  It seems like a bandaid for one of the busiest stretches of highway in W. MI.   They really need to add a ramp from the beltline to W I-196 that enters on the left, the leapfrogging is dangerous.  Also SB to WB, there are many people that get off on the beltline only to turn around and get back on the highway.

It does show that they're adding an additional left lane on I-196 to handle traffic headed toward downtown. It says additional westbound lane from Maryland to the RR bridge (or actually I think it'd be better to describe it as "from the RR bridge to Maryland."   That should help the leapfrogging going on a bit.  Maybe they can actually add signage (above and on the actual pavement which is really nice) that tells the far two left lanes that they're going to downtown I-196 West and the two  right lanes are going to I-96 Northbound/Westbound, in this new configuration.  But it does seem like this fix is to address Eastbound issues by physically separating I-96 and I-196 traffic from those who want to get off at the East Beltline and those continuing through. Maybe there's a long-term Westbound fix. 

Is I-196 going to be enlarged from this interchange to Fuller? 

 

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What also needs addressing is that bottleneck from the westbound on ramp from Cascade Road to the beltline.  They created that long merge lane but what should've been done is continue that merge lane until it meets the on ramp from Fulton.  That short squeeze from Cascade Road to Fulton creates massive backups every single day - especially at rush hour.   I wonder if the rationale is that there isn't enough space between the supports and the abutment on the Fulton bridge but it would certainly appear that there is enough room there.

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6 hours ago, wingbert said:

What also needs addressing is that bottleneck from the westbound on ramp from Cascade Road to the beltline.  They created that long merge lane but what should've been done is continue that merge lane until it meets the on ramp from Fulton.  That short squeeze from Cascade Road to Fulton creates massive backups every single day - especially at rush hour.   I wonder if the rationale is that there isn't enough space between the supports and the abutment on the Fulton bridge but it would certainly appear that there is enough room there.

I think it's pretty tough to merge an onramp with another existing onramp. What they could do, since they're going to add an additional left lane, is shift the whole dang thing over, the three lanes that include the two westbound lanes and the Cascade Rd super long onramp, and continue that 3 lanes all the way through to Fuller.  The Fulton St onramp would then create a 4th lane for that short segment until the I-96 north switch. 

The whole thing is a froggin mess. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I-196 between Grandville and Holland turned into a minefield of giant potholes over night. Cars were lining the highway due to damage and Ottawa County road workers were out in the pouring rain filling in the craters. We can't keep up this bandaging philosophy. Michigan's infrastructure needs an overhaul.

 

Edited by GRLaker
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