‘Trains not lanes’: Residents urge MDOT to take expanding U.S. 23 off the table

[KelleyCook]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of flex lanes. I don't mind them for short term improvements, but they need to be tied to a longer full rebuild and a permanent expansion. Shoulders are important and taking them away during the busiest hours isn't very wise in my opinion.

I'm ranting now.

They had plenty of room to put permanent new lanes in north of M-14 to 8 mile, they didn't, because this sexy (and operationally expensive for all the electronics) flex lane idea.  It should be noted that they redid every intersection for this improvement, so it wasn't because so they could save money on new bridges.  And despite literally everyone driving on it wondering why the third lane isn't open all the time, they are now pushing the lanes out to I-96.

Much worse they are also now putting a flex lane on I-96 in Oakland County.  And yes they tore up the whole road to do this. The entire sometimes lane is just stupid pandering to the "induced demand" fallacy, IMO.

And after spending a year reconstruction all the bridges, for the next two years (!!), they will be "remilling and resurfacing" I-75 from Clarkston to Grand Blanc and yet not adding a fourth lane at all, despite the road being expanded to four lanes for much of Flint to Bay City.  This section is jammed every weekend in the summer.  Hell they aren't even fixing the dangerous left hand entrances at the two sides of Dixie Highway.

IMO, MDOT has a real problem lately about expanding roads to their needed capacity and instead spends time appeasing traffic-clueless Lansing folks.

[JREwing78]

I'm ranting now.

They had plenty of room to put permanent new lanes in north of M-14 to 8 mile, they didn't, because this sexy (and operationally expensive for all the electronics) flex lane idea.  It should be noted that they redid every intersection for this improvement, so it wasn't because so they could save money on new bridges.

Slow your roll there. MDOT is underfunded, not incompetent. That lack of funding has an impact in what they are able to accomplish.

MDOT may have laid fresh asphalt and made minor changes at several interchanges, but they most certainly did not replace every bridge or ground-up rebuild the roadbed. A ground-up rebuild would have included rebuilding every overpass wide enough to accommodate at least 5 full lanes of traffic and full 12' shoulders in each direction. It also would've meant a much more massive price tag than the cost of the "Flex Lane" project.

The whole point of the project was a cheap-and-easy widening that would take the edge off the congestion the area exhibits during busy periods. MDOT didn't have to build this "Flex Lane" project to full Interstate-standard because the "Flex Lanes" are only in operation for limited periods of time. That saved time and money they could use to fix other roads, funding which is in limited supply.

IMO, MDOT has a real problem lately about expanding roads to their needed capacity and instead spends time appeasing traffic-clueless Lansing folks.

How many people volunteered to pay an additional 40 cents per gallon in fuel taxes to fix the damn roads? Clearly, the answer is nobody, because the state ended up bonding $3.5 billion to fund the current Rebuilding Michigan program. The state just paid a bunch of residents to ask their opinion about alternative road funding models, because straight-up raising the gas tax is such a non-starter. Politicians would rather give their donors fellacio than deal with the prospect of having to explain to voters why the gas tax went up.

You want MDOT to fix the damn roads? Time to pony up!