Merging lane to be added on U.S. 127(Lansing)

[airforceguy]

Merging lane to be added on U.S. 127
$1.3M project is for stretch between Lake Lansing Road, Grand River Ave.
Barbara Wieland - bwieland@lsj.com - December 13, 2010

The $1.3 million project will take a month to complete and will add a "merge/weave" lane between the Grand River on-ramp and the Lake Lansing off-ramp. Essentially, a car entering U.S. 127 at Grand River and exiting at Lake Lansing will be able to make the entire trip without changing lanes once the work is complete.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20101213/NEWS01/12130322/Merging-lane-to-be-added-on-U.S.-127

[JREwing78]

That lane has needed to be built for at least 5 years, maybe longer. I'm a little surprised that it wasn't built while that stretch was receiving concrete pavement repairs.

During much of the day there's too much traffic in the two through lanes on US-127 for traffic on the on-ramp from Grand River to merge comfortably. If traffic is heavy enough, it easily backs up traffic all the way back to the off-ramp from EBD I-496.

A weave/merge lane also needs to be added to SBD US-127 between Lake Lansing and Saginaw. This one will be more expensive because it may require moving retaining walls near the Grand River exit to maintain a sufficiently wide shoulder.

The next portion that needs weave/merge lanes is between Saginaw and I-496, and the ramp connecting EBD I-496 to NBD US-127 needs to be straightened where the ramp meets NBD US-127. However, this will require widening 4 bridges, a lot of fill, and retaining walls. There is sufficient width to accommodate 4, possibly 5 lanes in each direction, but any further expansion outward will be progressively more expensive. There is sufficient room for at least an extra lane in the existing median, and MDOT could reconfigure this stretch so that through traffic on US-127 uses the two interior lanes, while the outer lanes feed into I-496. Eventually, though, expansion outward will also become necessary.

Thanks to current budget constraints, any further improvements on this stretch will be slow to arrive, and they'll be waiting in line behind a host of other projects, like US-23 between Brighton and Ann Arbor, or the I-94 widening in Jackson. You'll probably see a third lane on I-96 between US-127 and Okemos Rd sooner - and MDOT just rebuilt that stretch without it.