City grants U.S. 31 project easements
Sep. 21—TRAVERSE CITY — Michigan's highway agency has the OK to work on city property when it rebuilds a major east-west thoroughfare in Traverse City.
Commissioners on Monday agreed to grant the Michigan Department of Transportation a set of permissions to rebuild sidewalks, tweak a few intersections, grade earth and close a few curb cuts. The department will pay the city $59,802, to be spent on the city's portion of the largely state-funded project, documents show. But commissioners wanted assurances that the city could reopen those curb cuts if the city needs the driveways again in the future.
Stretches of Grandview Parkway and East Front Street need repaving, and MDOT plans to reconfigure parts of the two roads in the process, as previously reported. That includes where Grandview meets East Front, to eliminate an always-green right-turn arrow for westbound traffic and add pedestrian crossings. Other plans include doubling and extending a left-turn lane on Grandview at the Division Street intersection and adding crosswalks elsewhere.
The project will cost just around $20 million and is set to begin in September 2023, according to MDOT. Work should wrap by November 2024.
Commissioner Tim Werner cast the only vote against granting the highway agency permission. He criticized the project before, and on Monday he questioned whether the city would come to regret giving up the two driveways.
"I have concerns about both of those, because I don't think we necessarily know the future and whether those curb cuts will be needed by the city five, 10, 20 years from now," he said.
One connects city parking lots T and B to Grandview Parkway, while another leads to a gravel lot at the Traverse City Senior Center, just east of the East Front and Barlow streets intersection.
Werner said the driveway into lots T and B, the latter of which is the home of the Sara Hardy Farmers Market, could be useful the north end of Cass Street is ever closed off to traffic. That's how it would be in one possible concept the Downtown Development Authority recently presented, with the street serving as a plaza instead.
And the parking lot to the senior center could have some future use, Werner said — he suggested it might connect to a rebuilt senior center, although the latest concept shown at a meeting Friday would eliminate the drive altogether.
City Engineer Tim Lodge said the drive into lots T and B is awkwardly placed, causing some traffic backups when drivers try to turn left onto Grandview and find a center island blocking their path.
Lodge said he doubted the driveway at the senior center would ever be put to use, both based on the new site plan being considered and his own experience.
"It's an entrance to a gravel parking lot that I can tell you was a paving project when I started in 2003 that we wanted to do and we've never done it," he said.
City officials wanted to close off both drives, and adding them to the highway repaving project would do so at no cost to the city, Lodge said.
While city Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht said the city could request the reopening of both driveways in the future through MDOT's usual process, Mayor Richard Lewis wondered if it would be easier not to give them up in the first place.
In an email, MDOT spokesman James Lake said the department would have no problem with the city rebuilding the two driveways later at its own expense.
Project plans are on schedule and under internal review, and an updated cost estimate is within budget, he said.
Those plans drew some criticism, both from people who saw the features as too car-centric and over a planning process they saw as unequal for the city, as previously reported. Plus, a 1947 agreement states the city needs to give the state highway agency permission for any roadwork.
MDOT officials defended the process as closely involving city department heads, and argued the agreement is moot since the department needs the city's permission anyway. Some local nonprofit leaders agreed the proposed design improves on existing conditions.
