At a Wednesday work session, members and staff of the St. Joseph County Road Commission (SJRC) encouraged the public to report damage or obstructions on roads. Depending on jurisdiction, the Road Commission and the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) encourage citizens to report problems.
As an example of how reporting can work, Commissioner Rodney Chupp described a recent situation in Sturgis. On highway M-66 south from town, a lane was closed for a month, causing traffic backups with no apparent work taking place. “The public doesn’t realize that’s MDOT, not the Road Commission, so we get a little egg on our face,” Chupp said.
However, Chupp called MDOT and learned a utility company requested the closure to rewire some lighting. “They’re supposed to call and say they’re done, but they never did. They had a two-month window until August 1,” Chupp said. An MDOT official told him that “if nobody calls and we don’t happen to drive by, we don’t know until the time runs out and we check on it.”
Because M-66 runs into Indiana there, Chupp said, the section is, from a jurisdictional standpoint, like a cul-de-sac. MDOT crews don’t pass the location regularly. “Once they did know, it was like 24 hours,” and the barricades came down.
SJRC Managing Director John Lindsey said the same thing applies at the county level, where potholes or washouts on low-traffic roads can go unreported. “Please give us a call. We don’t know if we don’t know.”
Decision Process Detailed
Lindsey, along with Assistant Manager and Engineer Garret Myland, detailed how the staff’s evaluation and decision-making plays out for choosing road repair projects. Myland said staff use charts, graphs, and data to prioritize timing and funding.
“There’s a lot of science that goes into it,” Lindsey said. “We have a list of bad roads. We look at the roads, we try to stay on that schedule, you know, that seven-year rotation of chip seal.” This year, the commission is close to 135 project-miles, its annual goal for maintaining that schedule.
The network is divided between primary roads and local ones. For the latter, project funding is shared on a 50-50 basis with local jurisdictions through an allocation fund.
Lindsey described an experience early in his time with the road commission. He drove Sherman Mills Road in Sherman Township with a coworker who said, “that road needs to go back to gravel. It’s a failed road, it’s done.” Lindsey said there were about 15 houses in 1.5 miles, and an average of 200 cars per day. Similar density and traffic volumes often call for a gravel road. “We can’t afford to keep roads like that paved,” Lindsey said, “but through the allocation fund we can afford it.”
Garret said a variety of factors influence what roads get priority in a given year. Commissioner Eric Shafer said, “It’s not just a matter of giving it a PASER rating of one and calling it failed. It’s more scientific than that.” PASER stands for Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating, a system that ranks road surface condition on a scale of one to 10, with one representing a failed surface. “Some are just too far gone and need to be replaced,” Lindsey said.
Non-measured factors can influence planning. Although commissioners and staff agreed Balk Road’s riding qualities are poor, for example, it doesn’t get a rating of one, because the rough ride is from cracks across the road, not a complete surface failure. “PASER doesn’t factor how it rides,” Myland said.
Field experience also influences treatments. As hot weather causes tar to melt more frequently, staff make adjustments. Some things are unavoidable, Lindsey said. “We’ve been hit with more heat than we ever have in July. The cure for it is cool weather.”
Shafer said he received several questions about planned chip sealing on Crescent Beach Road.
Neighbors asked him whether commission staff notify residents of upcoming work. Lindsey said the challenges of getting word out center on volume, capacity, and unpredictability. A project can be scheduled for a given time frame, but factors like weather affect how the schedule plays out. Myland said citizens can see a working project map on the commission’s website.
Pandemic financial impacts may also affect upcoming work. According to Shafer, the Michigan Transportation Fund (MTF), which helps fund the commission, is down by 32 percent.
Nottawa Road Bridge Talks Continue
Myland plans to attend an upcoming MDOT workshop for possible work on the Nottawa Road bridge. The state recently approached Lindsey about including the bridge in a statewide “bundling” contract that awards a variety of bridge projects to a single contractor.
Commissioner Vince Mifsud clarified what the work would entail. “I’ve had three calls about raising the Nottawa Road Bridge,” he said. Recent high water has run across the road near the bridge, causing misunderstanding about the proposed work, which would only replace the bridge superstructure based on its lifespan. Commissioners and staff agreed the bridge isn’t causing flooding. Its approach embankments are designed to channel high water to avoid damage to the bridge or its abutments.
Chupp said the water is “a slow trickle over the road, never a flood. It keeps it from pushing on the bridge.” Myland agreed. “Raising (the bridge) is the only way to get no water on the road or bridge, and that’s a very large (cost).” Mifsud said doing so would turn the adjacent driveways into hills. Chupp said for the cost and logistics, “this much water, every five years for two weeks,” isn’t sufficient to expand the project.
County Considered for Pilot Program
The commission will also participate in the state’s pilot for a Federal project called the Inventory of Roadway Elements Data Collection Pilot Program, which it must comply with by 2026 anyway. The project will put a comprehensive list of roadway elements such as lanes, pavement markings, and signs into a single database.
Myland said the commission is well prepared to participate. It has already gathered data through GPS measurement. From the standpoint of attracting potential support, Chupp said it “makes us look better, not worse, to participate” in the program.
Light Bill Resolution Passed
Commissioners passed a resolution requested by Consumers’ Energy for lighting in the new roundabout at Farrand and Colon Roads. The resolution authorizes a two-year contract with Consumers in which it the commission pays $25 per month for energy for five LED light poles.
Commissioners speculated that although the cost seemed low for such a formal commitment, the request was likely a standard procedure for the company. The resolution passed three to two, with Chupp and Shafer casting no votes.
Myland said concrete work in the roundabout is scheduled for next Monday. After that, the roundabout will only need signs and pavement markings before it can open to traffic.
Retirement, New Hire, and Road Work Recognized
Lindsey said he wanted to give “a little shout out to Danny Brenneman. He retired after 44 years of service. We have a replacement picked from our last round of interviews, and we also hired Phil Farrier, everybody knows him, so welcome to Phil.”
Several commissioners said they received compliments for the quality of road repair projects, including repairs on Sauger Lake Road and storm damage cleanup, ditching, and tree removal on Fawn River Road. According to Chupp, one resident said of Fawn River, “if you ever want to show a picture of a successful project, take pictures of this.”
Dave Vago is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.
