With the last of the rebuilt northbound side’s concrete poured Thursday, the Michigan Department of Transportation expects the contractor on I-75 just north of the Ohio border to start setting up the wintertime traffic pattern winter by the middle of this week.
Northbound traffic should start using the rebuilt lanes on Wednesday or Thursday, and the goal is for all lanes in both directions to reopen by Christmas Eve, Aaron Jenkins, an MDOT spokesman in Jackson, said late last week.
“Once two lanes of northbound traffic are re-established on the new northbound pavement, there will be roughly a week of work to clean up and restore southbound lanes to their normal configuration and other final items of work before all three lanes are open” on both sides, Mr. Jenkins said.
The wintertime hiatus will mark the midpoint of the $115 million reconstruction project between the state line and a point between Erie and Luna Pier roads in Erie Township.
After some preparatory work in June, the northbound lanes’ reconstruction began just before the Fourth of July and included work on the northbound ramps at Exits 2 and 5. The Exit 5 ramps, currently closed, will reopen when the northbound lanes do.
On the southbound side, the Exit 2 ramp to Summit Street will be closed from Monday through Wednesday for interim repairs.
“We are placing a few concrete patches on the southbound exit ramp ... to get us through the winter and into next year’s construction,” Mr. Jenkins said. “There are a couple of very rough sections of the ramp.”
Cold-patch asphalt, meanwhile, will be used in spots on the southbound side in the area “to hopefully help with some of the potholes through the winter,” he said. That work will be done once northbound traffic has been moved back to its side of the roadway, he said.
I-75’s southbound lanes are scheduled to be rebuilt starting in the spring and ending next summer, also with ramp closings at the two exits. Two lanes of traffic are to be maintained in both directions using the northbound pavement during that phase.
Separately, the freeway’s left lanes reopened Friday near the River Raisin bridge after being closed for several months in that area while median crossovers were built. The crossovers will be used during work next year to repair joints in the bridge’s steel beams.
First Published December 16, 2019, 1:30 p.m.