2-month resurfacing project on South State Street in Ann Arbor begins Monday
The city of Ann Arbor plans to begin a two-month project next Monday to resurface South State Street from Oakbrook Drive to Eisenhower Parkway.
During the project, traffic along the 0.3-mile stretch will be reduced to two lanes — one northbound and one southbound.
The crumbling section of State Street north of Eisenhower Parkway as it looked on Wednesday afternoon.
Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
The project, one of a number of resurfacing projects this year in Ann Arbor, includes resurfacing of the road pavement to eliminate potholes and increase the service life of the road. It also includes the replacement of sidewalk ramps to comply with the Americans with Disability Act.
Local access for vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic is expected to be maintained except when vehicular traffic might be temporarily restricted due to paving or concrete work. City officials said businesses will be notified if a driveway is affected.
Pedestrian traffic will be maintained on at least one side of the street during the project.
To maintain the safety of all, city officials ask drivers to reduce speeds and drive cautiously through work zones. The work is being completed by Barrett Paving Materials.
A portion of South State Street north of Henry Street to north of Rose Avenue was reconstructed last year as part of the Stadium bridges project. As part of that project, State Street was closed to northbound traffic, which won't be the case with this year's work.
Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's email newsletters.
Comments
Sarah Beard
Fri, Jul 12, 2013 : 2:49 p.m.
This construction is taking its toll already on the local businesses and employees of these businesses surrounding state street. Ruining lives is what this construction is doing. All for a " face lift" for ann arbor. Why don't we think about the businesses and the employees that are hurting terribly to financially make it through til the end of September. They closed us down last year for several months just to tear it all up this year?
John Hritz
Thu, Apr 11, 2013 : 2:17 p.m.
It could be my imagination, but we seem to work on multiple arterials at the same time. Packard and State are both going to be under the knife.
Cory C
Thu, Apr 11, 2013 : 12:51 p.m.
What everyone that's yelling about the timeframe needs to understand is that there are many ways to pave a road. As is mentioned in these comments, in Arizona (or any other state that rarely sees cold weather) the asphalt and underlaying layers are thinner. Thus making them both cheaper material wise and labor wise (it takes less effort to dig up and repave them). States like Michigan that get very cold and have wide temperature swings use thicker pavement and more layers underneath the pavement. It's not a simple issue of "repaving" the road, instead they have to rip up the old asphalt, the old underlayers, bring in new material, compact it, level it, then put asphalt on top that's quite thick. Hence why it takes longer and is more expensive to pave a road in Michigan than in, say, Florida. Not only that, but the roadworks are much more expensive as well, and thus the state government has less in the budget to fix each individual road. So Michigan gets full of broken asphalt and potholes, the people suffer, the government yells about a lack of funding, and we see construction year-round on roads that were built 70 years ago, with a life expectancy 20 years, and haven't been updated since.
aarog
Thu, Apr 11, 2013 : 4:13 a.m.
This stretch doesn't come close to the vehicle wrecking South Main street just north of I-94. That should have been done 5 years ago.
Paul
Thu, Apr 11, 2013 : 1:58 a.m.
Looking at the photo, it looks like it should have been done a year or two ago.
Joslyn at the U
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 10:33 p.m.
What they need to fix is state street from the stadium fiasco north all the way to depot. But that's asking too much I suppose
LSB
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 10:13 p.m.
Hello!
bluetonguedlizard
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 8:14 p.m.
Can't wait for this to be done, it's quite a mess on that stretch.
OLDTIMER3
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 8:12 p.m.
My driveway is almost that long and it only takes about 3 hrs with a walk behind snowblower to clear it in the winter. They must be using horses and antique equipment to repair the road.
Anthony
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 9:44 p.m.
Turns out, they're not blowing snow, they're repairing a road! Crazy!
Michael
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 9:29 p.m.
So, I'm assuming your driveway receives tens of thousands of motorists per day as well?
djacks24
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 8:38 p.m.
Maybe they are going green with paving using horses instead of fuel burning machinery. This is Ann Arbor after all. Inconvenience and higher cost for the sake of the liberal agenda.
aa1940
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 7:57 p.m.
2 month for .3 of a mile ???? I would think and hope this high traffice density area would be of a higher priority than that.
Paul
Thu, Apr 11, 2013 : 2 a.m.
Michigan has this thinking road work should take place until the weather turns bad in Nov. Places that have nice weather year round, seem to have a different time frame.
JRW
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 11:48 p.m.
The time frame is part of the problem with road repair in Michigan in general. There are often many days on projects with good weather where nothing is going on or being done. I have a hunch that these repair crews are spread too thin and end up working on multiple projects simultaneously, thus the inexplicable delays and endless orange barrels.....
Ryan J. Stanton
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 : 9:49 p.m.
Yeah, it seems like it could be done quicker, but I'm not a construction expert. My only reference point is that I used to live in Arizona where I watched crews repave two-mile stretches of roadway in under two or three weeks. Road projects always seem to take significantly longer here in Michigan.