Second noise wall may go up around new Blue Water Bridge plaza
When the state began unveiling renewed plans to expand the U.S. Customs Plaza at the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron over the last year, much of the focus on its potential impact was off of Scott Avenue.
There, a wall the Michigan Department of Transportation proposed to block the neighborhood from a relocated Duty Free to the south side of the bridge with a new entrance ramp that would loop around it.
But now, a second wall could be erected along the west side of the plaza’s footprint, and following a noise assessment of the project, select residents in both areas have until Dec. 1 to vote on whether they want a barrier to help keep the sound down from traffic spurred by the long-awaited expansion.
“The reason this got so much more focus is because something was going there regardless. It was either going to be a decorative wall or a noise barrier,” Jocelyn Garza, an MDOT regional spokesperson, said Monday toward the tail end of the project’s second open house this year.
She was referencing the Scott Avenue area — the second area now in the barrier discussion being between Mansfield and Garfield streets and just west of 14th Avenue and the freeway exchange.
“So, the question was if the noise analysis comes back and shows that the area could benefit from a noise wall, now we have to build the wall to scale to actually be effective,” Garza said.
The open house follows another held last January.
MDOT officials said 2,345 postcards went out as notice of the forum.
Garza said most people seemed to get “enough of a first idea from the first meeting in January that this was coming down the pipeline,” and by late Monday afternoon, more than 150 had turned up to learn more.
What's involved in the noise issue?
Those in neighborhoods impacted by the potential noise of the plaza — totaling 128 eligible participants, including renters and property owners — were also already notified that they could vote on a barrier.
Some returned their vote on Monday.
Tom Zurburg, noise wall specialist in MDOT’s ancillary structures unit, said their traffic noise studies are typically done in two separate but intertwined parts, as they determine who’s affected and whether a noise barrier would be effective as a acoustical reduction mechanism and as is reasonable cost-wise.
Maps from the state agency showed more than two dozen residential sides on the western side of the plaza footprint were close enough to be considered impacted by noise.
That’s the area that wasn’t already slated to get an aesthetic wall that could also help keep out sound.
Zurburg said they’re looked at noise levels today, as well as what they could be over the next couple of decades, taking into account that “traffic goes up.”
“We’re looking to see who’s impacted by traffic noise, which is a specific criteria,” he said. “It’s 66 decibels or more for an hour, for the loudest hour of the day, an average over the hour. If you're at that or more, we consider you impacted.”
Other people within a few-block radius of the footprint may also be considered as a beneficiary of the barrier, though not technically impacted.
Zurburg said the responses to the potential second wall varied.
Some people didn’t want to look at it. Others didn’t think taxpayer money should be spent on it.
“Some people mention stuff to us like, ‘Oh, we’re looking forward to it because now I have security. If people break down on the road, now they can’t come walking into my yard asking for help,’” Zurburg said. “Some people see it as a barrier. A vehicle can’t come flying off the road and drive into (their) yard. Some people think it keeps out the air pollution from the traffic. All that, if it does, it’s coincidental. But what it is there for is to get the decibels down.”
What about the rest of the project?
Outside of two potential site barriers, much of the project for the plaza expansion remained the same.
MDOT is planning the expansion by building new facilities to replace the current site while also reportedly aiming to spur safer and clearer traffic paths.
Toll booths and outbound primary inspection sites for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol would be moved slightly west. And because Duty Free and the entrance ramp would be where the exit ramp off to Pine Grove Avenue is currently, the exit would be moved slightly south for a new intersection on Pine Grove.
Carrie Warren, senior project manager for the plaza, said they have “dialed in” more on the latter reconfiguration, also impacting 10th Avenue. Still, she said, the new exit ramp location saw “no significant changes” with its primary focus of “getting rid of the skewed intersection and making it safer to traverse.”
Similarly, she said moving Duty Free meant keeping truck traffic on the freeway exchange and out of traffic on Pine Grove, where they “just won’t have any reason to be there anymore.”
The phases of construction and timelines also remained similar.
The toll booths, entrance ramp and Duty Free construction are the second component, while the new Pine Grove connector was the first.
The third component is secondary truck inspection, which is currently located close to Marysville, and other facilities north of the bridge and where Duty Free and other businesses are currently located.
The timing of any acquisition of that property, Warren said, is one thing she hoped to make clear to residents: There would be no abrupt closure of any businesses in the future footprint.
Toward the end of Monday’s open house, Warren helped answer questions for a couple of visitors, who inquired over the bowling alley Port Huron Lanes. The nearby Comfort Inn would also be affected, and Warren said they’d work with businesses to acquire property needed for later phases over time.
“I’m in charge of what that schedule looks like,” she said.
A forum attendee jokingly laughed, “Muhaha.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” she replied with a laugh. “But if I find out all of the agreements have been made and we’re comfortable going forward, I can sit down (with them) and say I need the property by such and such date, hopefully, two, three years away.”
Warren said acquisition wasn’t likely until 2027 or 2028.
“When we’ve fully made it through our agreements with customs and border protection, then we will proceed with ample time,” she later said. “… I’m going to be awfully busy between now and then just building what we have on the plate now. Even if a giant bag of money fell out of the sky, there’s only one Carrie.”
The bulk of construction of earlier phases wasn’t expected until 2025 through 2027, though some work for noise walls and the new eastbound Interstate 69/94 exit could get underway next year.
For more information on the plaza expansion, visit the project’s webpage at Michigan.gov/bwbplaza.
Contact Jackie Smith at jssmith@gannett.com or (810) 989-6270.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Second noise wall may go up around new Blue Water Bridge plaza
