Owing to weather delays and additional work added onto the original contract, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) announced this week that segment 2 of the Interstate 75 modernization project will be delayed into late December.
At $224 million, the Oakland County-focused project involves reconstruction of 8.5 miles of pavement in each direction of I-75, along with improving 18 bridges over two years. This year’s work has focused on rebuilding the interstate’s northbound lanes and replacing 11 of those bridges. As part of this, traffic has had to share the southbound side of the freeway, but plans were in place to get northbound traffic onto newly constructed lanes by Thanksgiving. That has been delayed until late next month.
“This delay is not due to lack of effort,” Sue Datta, MDOT senior project manager for segment 2 of the I-75 modernization project, said. “On average, between contractors, laborers, and MDOT personnel, we had close to 200 people working on this job daily in various areas over the 9-mile work zone. No other project compares in complexity and scope to this complete infrastructure replacement.”
Instead, the delays stem from an unusually wet spring, followed by heavy rain over the summer paired with extreme temperatures and a record level of snowfall throughout this month. In all, such natural troubles have cost work crews around 60 days of production, leaving them scrambling to complete ramp work and mainline paving before the traffic switch.
Once this is done, work crews will spend the winter working on a sound wall not included in the original contract and begin preparing for southbound reconstruction to take place next year.