MDOT: One Direction Of I-275 Will Be Shut Down At A Time For Major Construction
LIVONIA (WWJ) - The Michigan Department of Transportation wanted feedback from drivers about how to move forward with major repairs to I-275 and after getting nearly 4,000 responses -- there's a plan.
MDOT says they're going with the most popular option from an online survey, which ran Oct. 2 through Oct. 9, to completely close one direction of the freeway at a time. The project will take only one construction season to complete, and cost an additional $1.04 million for traffic control. The option was preferred by 87 percent of the 3,765 survey respondents.
The I-275 repair project is scheduled to begin next spring in Livonia, Novi and Farmington Hills. This $80 million investment will take place between 5 Mile Road and the I-96/I-696/M-5 interchange, and will include replacing 13 miles of concrete pavement, repairing entrance and exit ramps at each "Mile" road, repairing 16 bridges, improving drainage, and intelligent transportation systems work.
The other two options on the survey received scant amounts of votes. The second most popular option, which received 9 percent of the vote, would have maintained both directions of traffic on one side of the freeway, with a barrier wall separating traffic. This option would have cost an additional $4.85 million in traffic control and taken two constructions seasons to complete.
The least popular option, receiving only 4 percent of the votes, would have kept northbound I-275 open during the entire project with traffic shifted as work was performed, and a detour for southbound I-275 traffic. This option also would have taken two construction seasons to complete, with an extra $2.87 million in traffic control costs.
MDOT said they configured the three best options after evaluating 22 possible road closure configurations, detours, lane shifts and other traffic control options, such as barrels, barriers, signs and manpower.
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