Harbor Light News

M-119 road project moving forward on schedule

Harbor Springs



A Big Dig... Phase two of the city’s floodplain mitigation work is underway, which means the M-119 entrance into downtown Harbor Springs is closed to traffic until early October. The road has been dug up-- and major piles of Earth have been moved-- to make way for the new box culvert that will run under the state highway. (Harbor Light photos by Mark Flemming; bottom left photo courtesy City of Harbor Springs)

A Big Dig… Phase two of the city’s floodplain mitigation work is underway, which means the M-119 entrance into downtown Harbor Springs is closed to traffic until early October. The road has been dug up– and major piles of Earth have been moved– to make way for the new box culvert that will run under the state highway. (Harbor Light photos by Mark Flemming; bottom left photo courtesy City of Harbor Springs)

While it looks like M-119 coming into downtown Harbor Springs may be torn up forever, city manager Victor Sinadinoski said the construction work is“going according to plan” and that he expects the road to reopen as scheduled in early October.

“It looks pretty crazy right now because there has been a lot of dirt moved as the culvert is installed,” Sinadinoski said. “People in town may have seen the trucks driving the culver in, one piece on each truck. It’s a whole lot of big equipment, cement, and dirt right now.”

The culvert, which is boxed shaped, is a major component of a flood diversion plan that the city has been working on all summer. Phase one of the project was lowering Zoll Street (the street itself would now act as a spillway into Little Traverse Bay, in the event of a historic flood). That took place during July and August; the street is now reopened.

The second phase of the $1 million-plus floodplain mitigation project– which was designed to keep additional private and city properties from being added to a recently revised FEMA flood risk map- – is taking place on M-119 from Hoyt Road to Zoll Street. The map dictates if properties need to carry flood insurance, and would make structures inside the flood zone subject to restrictive building codes.

 

 

This means traffic coming from the east into Harbor Springs is being rerouted down Lake Street to Harrison Street (the corner where the Harbor Springs IGA is located, just past Harbor Springs Car Care and this newspaper’s office), to State Street.

“The detour has been going well, but we do want to be sure people know that all of our downtown businesses are open.We also understand that many motorists will choose to just take Lake Street to State Street to get downtown. We chose Harrison Street as the detour route because we felt it was the safest alternative, especially for trucks, because of the left hand turn into downtown,” Sinadinoski said.

Once the 8×10-foot box culvert is in place beneath M-119, Sinadinoski said construction will move on to a paved open spillway with “low walls” directing flood water west to Zoll Street.

 

 

“We’ll see a lot more dirt being moved during this part of the project,” he said. “Despite appearances, however, things are moving forward on time and we hope to see the road re-open in just a few more weeks.”

Despite the major upheaval required to place the new culvert under M-119, city manager Victor Sinadinoski said he expects the road to reopen as scheduled in early October. (Harbor Light photo by Mark Flemming)

Despite the major upheaval required to place the new culvert under M-119, city manager Victor Sinadinoski said he expects the road to reopen as scheduled in early October. (Harbor Light photo by Mark Flemming)