A look of concern stayed on Lt. Governor Gilchrist’s face as he traveled down 496 and through I-69.
“That’s incredibly unsettling,” he says while looking out of the window.
6 New rode along with Gilchrist and representatives from the Michigan Department of Transportation as they drove down bumpy roads and crumbling bridges.
“One of the things I shudder to think about is bridge failure,” says Gilchrist.
MDOT has been putting bandaids on oozing wounds when it comes to road repairs. But Governor Gretchen Whitmer hopes to change that with the “Rebuilding Michigan Plan“. Now, the State will use bonding to fund road projects.
“Before we were planning on just doing a resurfacing project taking off a couple inches of asphalt hoping to get 10 years out of it, now we can go back in there and do a fix that’s right and we may not have to go back for 25 years,” says Greg Losch, Manager of MDOT Transportation Service Center.
The bonding program will expedite 122 major projects in five years.
The fist in Ingham County will be on 496. It is expected to start in April and end sometime in November. Several other projects will be staggered from 2022-24.
“I hope that as these things get fixed people will see that this administration is taking action,” says Gilchrist.
But the Lt. Governor says the bonding program is a step in the right direction, not a solution. The initiative will not apply to local roads. So politicians at the Capital will still need to come together to pave the way for all roads to be smooth sailing.
