News Blog

The County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan honored former Baraga County Road Commission (BCRC) commissioner Roy Koski with a Distinguished Service Award at CRA’s 2020 Highway Conference. Distinguished Service Awards recognize road agency staff and commissioners who have dedicated time and service in an outstanding manner to advance the county road and bridge system in Michigan.

Koski served with distinction and honor on the Baraga County Road Commission board from 1984 until his retirement in December 2019, making him the second longest-serving road commissioner in Michigan history.

Koski is an active member of the Great Lakes Council of 11 county road commissions; has served on various committees with the Upper Peninsula Road Builders Association; and volunteered as an alternate for Baraga’s engineer/manager on many committees.

“We at the County Road Association appreciate Roy, and many more commissioners like him, who devote hundreds of hours of service to improve road systems and road commissions, and building relationships with their road partners,” said Denise Donohue, CRA director.

In keeping with their responsibilities to the residents, drivers and commercial businesses using the 90,000 miles of roads under county responsibility, the County Road Association of Michigan this morning indicated that all 83 county road commissions and departments remain on the job.

“While I would say it’s definitely not ‘business as usual’ in our offices, the staff at county road agencies are an essential government service and we are committed to maintaining our transportation infrastructure in service to the public,” said Dave Pettersch, managing director of the Gladwin County Road Commission and president of the County Road Association of Michigan.

“Many road agencies are closing their doors to walk-in traffic – depending on how the office is set up. Yet our employees are on the job blading and maintaining the roads, working on drainage issues typical of spring, and communicating with the public while respecting the social distancing concept that will help prevent the spread of COVID-19,” Pettersch said.

Maintaining public contact without contact. Several road agencies contacted indicated they are taking steps to reduce person-to-person contact including:

• Cancelling nonessential meetings,
• Establishing conference call capabilities to accommodate public involvement in board meetings;
• Updating social media with important information; and
• Communicating via emails, US mail and phone calls, among other steps.

Residents are urged to call ahead if they have business with the county road agency to determine the best way to achieve their goal.

Protecting, assisting employees. As with all businesses, county road agencies are currently considering some or all of the following options:

• Posting bulletins, training staff and making materials available to clean frequently touched surfaces including steering wheels, doorknobs, countertops, keyboards and work stations;
• Evaluating which staff could work remotely and how to accommodate those with children out of school or daycare; and
• Moving in-person meetings to conference calls or on-line platforms.

Evaluating seasonal weight restrictions to accommodate COVID-19 relief. At present, 59 counties still have seasonal weight restrictions (SWR), which are implemented each March to protect local roads from excess weight during the spring thaw when roads are most vulnerable. That said, individual road agencies are working to exempt motor carriers and drivers that need SWR relief so that they may provide direct assistance related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Direct assistance means transportation and other relief services provided by the motor carrier or its drivers to allow immediate restoration of essential services including medical care, food supplies and the like.

Voters in local elections across Michigan expressed support for road millages again during the March 10 primary election. Voters passed 95% of the millage renewals on the ballot and 70% of the new road millages proposed.

New millages

Regarding the 10 proposed new road millages in townships, the seven that passed had average voter approval of 65%. The three new millage proposals that didn’t pass were in Williamston Township (Ingham County), Grattan Township (Kent) and Denmark Township (Tuscola).

Renewal millages

Of the 21 road millages proposed for renewal, there were 18 township, one city and two countywide (Dickinson, Van Buren) questions on the ballot. All passed except for the millage proposed in Green Township (Alpena), which resulted in a tie. Excluding the tie, the renewals had an average 72% voter approval.

“Voters understand the need for local dollars to match state and federal funds for road and bridge projects, and want to move ahead by helping their local road agencies improve the quality of infrastructure and life in their communities,” said Denise Donohue, director of the County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan.

Lance Malburg, PE, county highway engineer of Dickinson County Road Commission (DCRC), accepts the IMPRESS Award for Collaboration on behalf of DCRC.
 

The County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan honored the Dickinson County Road Commission (DCRC) with a statewide IMPRESS Award at CRA’s 2020 Highway Conference for its innovative road surface using repurposed rubber. IMPRESS Awards recognize county road agencies that demonstrate innovation with special projects in communications, operations and collaboration.

DCRC received an IMPRESS Award in Collaboration for its project, “County Road 607 ECR Project.” DCRC partnered with Michigan Technological University, Michigan Department of Energy Great Lakes and the Environment, the Dickinson County Bike Path Committee and Bacco Construction Company of Iron Mountain, to complete a paving project on County Road 607. The project showed the benefits of using engineered crumb rubber to improve qualities in hot mix asphalt pavement.

“The Dickinson County Road Commission has shown how we can all work together to make a big impact on our county roads,” said Denise Donohue, CRA director. “By innovating and pioneering new technologies in colder climates, DCRC has shown its commitment to improving our county road network.”

An independent panel of communications and operations experts from several of Michigan’s 83 county road agencies judged the projects. Award recipients were honored for projects that solved time restraints, labor costs, communication barriers and fostered collaboration.

The County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan board of directors has elected Dick Timmer, chair of the Chippewa County Road Commission (CCRC), as its 2020-2021 president effective April 1.

Timmer, of Brimley, served as vice president of the CRA board for the past year. As president, he succeeds Dave Pettersch, managing director of Gladwin County Road Commission.

Timmer has spent 30 years in construction management including roads and bridges and 12 years in construction consulting and education. In addition to the CRA board, he has served on the Chippewa County Commission, been a candidate for State Representative, is secretary of the Eastern Upper Peninsula Regional Planning and Development Board, and is a member of the Upper Peninsula Committee on Area Progress Board. Dick was appointed to CCRC in 2011 and joined the CRA board in 2012.

“It’s an honor to be elected as CRA’s board president,” Timmer said. “I look forward to leading our association and members in our efforts to improve county roads in Michigan, and am excited for what the future will bring.”

Timmer was elected president at the 2020 CRA Highway Conference in mid-March. His term is for one year.

The County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan board of directors has elected Fred Peivandi, PE, managing director and county highway engineer at Genesee County Road Commission (GCRC), as its 2020-2021 vice president effective April 1.

As vice president, he succeeds Dick Timmer, chair of the Chippewa County Road Commission.

Peivandi joined GCRC in 1993. He has nearly 40 years of experience in the civil engineering field and served as adjunct instructor at Baker College and Wayne State University. Peivandi has a BS in civil engineering from Louisiana State University and a master’s degree in civil engineering from Wayne State University.

“I’m looking forward to serving the CRA board as vice president,” Peivandi said. “Together, we can improve the outlook for county roads in Michigan during this challenging time, and I’m excited to be a part of that.”

Peivandi was elected vice president at the 2020 CRA Highway Conference. His term is for one year.

The 83 members of the County Road Association of Michigan represent the unified voice for a safe and efficient county transportation infrastructure system in Michigan, including appropriate stewardship of the public’s right-of-way in rural and urban Michigan. Collectively, Michigan’s county road agencies manage 75 percent of all roads in the state, including 90,000 miles of roads and 5,700 bridges. County road agencies also maintain the state’s highway system in 64 counties. Michigan has the nation’s fourth-largest local road system.

PICRC staff celebrate the 100th anniversary of the road commission in 2016. 

Although Presque Isle County’s name is French for “almost an island,” the Presque Isle County Road Commission (PICRC) operates in a world of cooperation, not isolation.

In a county known for having the “ideal climate for hay fever sufferers,” two state parks, several large lakes and a 69-mile-long Lake Huron coastline, PICRC has used new road funding, grants and public-private partnerships to complete some of the much-needed road projects for the residents and tourists of Presque Isle.

“The new money has been very helpful,” said Jerry Smigelski, a 28-year PICRC employee and manager for the last 11 years. “But we have a long way to go on the roads. Like other counties we have cut back on personnel, services and equipment over the years. This year I was finally able to add an additional employee in one of my garages. “

PICRC is featured in the Fall 2019 edition of Crossroads, the quarterly journal of the County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan.

New road funding has allowed PICRC to increase its township road funding match by 10 percent, purchase new trucks and begin sealcoating primary roads in the county.

However, PICRC still faces funding challenges, which includes finding the dollars to replace its three 50-year-old buildings in Roger City, Onaway and Posen.

“All three of our buildings were former MDOT properties,” Smigelski said. “We have updated the heat and lighting, but they are still very old, and we need to either upgrade or replace them.”

While facing these challenges, PICRC is also adopting efficient measures to get more work done with limited funds including maintaining roads for the village of Posen; and making group material purchases with Alpena and Cheboygan counties plus the cities of Onaway and Rogers City.

PICRC has also taken advantage of grants. It has been the recipient of the MDOT Transportation Economic Development Fund (TEDF) grant to improve 3.24 miles of county roads in the “high wire” corridor that accommodates Moran Iron Works, the Onaway-based international metal fabricator. PICRC also received a FEMA Pre-emptive Grant to replace three 60-year-old rusting, side-by-side steel culverts with a 32-foot bridge around Grand Lake.

Residents of Macomb County haven’t heard the latest “mumbling” on their county roads because the quieter sinusoidal rumble strips – a.k.a. mumble strips – are taking the place of traditional rumble strips technology.

Rumble strips on the edge and centerlines of roads and highways have been around for years. They’re used to keep drivers alert and prevent head-on and run-off crashes. Mumble strips function like rumble strips except they produce less noise.

The Macomb County Department of Roads (MCDR) is one of the first road agencies in Michigan to use the new technology, on almost 100 miles of two-lane roads in its northern, more rural areas

“With sinusoidal, your tires still bump down and up, but less abruptly,” said Mia Silver, MCDR project engineer. “It’s quieter outside the vehicle and it’s also quieter inside the vehicle, but it is still loud enough inside the vehicle to provide effective feedback to the driver.”

This new technology is featured in the Fall 2019 edition of Crossroads, the quarterly journal of the County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan.

In addition to driver safety and alertness, mumble strips also improve the visibility of a road’s centerline significantly, especially in wet conditions. This is due to the strips’ waved surface pattern. MCDR hopes this quiet innovation — funded with a grant from MDOT — will reduce the number of crashes and fatalities in the county. In 2014, Macomb County experienced 24,471 crashes and 41 fatalities. By 2018, that number had risen to 25,784 crashes and 52 fatalities.

“Macomb was looking for applications, technologies that can help with run-off-road or head-on crashes on two-lane roadways,” said John Abraham, Ph.D., PE, PTOE, director of traffic and operations for MCDR. “We conducted thorough research on sinusoidal, looked at the design elements, and talked to our partners at MDOT who were also looking at this application. We came to a consensus that this could work for us.”

The Jackson County Department of Transportation’s (JCDOT) road equipment has pull, literally.

JCDOT is utilizing a piece of equipment known as a SuperMag to suck up metallic objects on the side of the road and reduce the number of flat tires on its fleet of small trucks.

“The SuperMag, purchased in 2017, has helped reduce flat tires – and the resulting downtime – from a rate of nearly 90 percent of its small truck fleet to only a handful,” said Brian Zimmerman, assistant superintendent for state trunkline at JCDOT.

This powerful technology is featured in the Fall 2019 edition of Crossroads, the quarterly journal of the County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan.

The SuperMag is a ceramic magnet mounted on the front of a plow truck that is pivoted to magnetize a bottom plate. The plate is then lowered to about 8 inches off the ground and attracts anything metallic to it.

Once the magnet is pivoted back up, the plate loses its magnetism and drops all the metallic objects – including those pesky nails – for crews to sweep up for recycling.

The magnet weighs more than 2 tons – heavier than a snowplow. It is expected to last for decades as the magnet loses only about one percent of its strength every 100 years.

Battling winter’s everlasting ferocity is sometimes best executed with age-old tools. Chippewa County Road Commission (CCRC) uses its age-old apparatus known as a “bank slicer” to battle tall-ish snowdrifts in the county.

CCRC’s bank slicer is a wing for the grader that has been inverted from a normal wing and installed behind the drive wheels, rather than ahead like most wings. It hovers above the ground with the leading edge toward the front of the grader and carves through snowbanks to bring the snow onto the roadway. A blower following then collects the snow and blows it away from the roadway.

CCRC’s snow battling technology is featured in the Fall 2019 edition of Crossroads, the quarterly journal of the County Road Association (CRA) of Michigan.

“It serves two functions,” said Rob Laitinen, PS, CCRC superintendent-manager.

“One, it keeps the blower machine on good footing. It also leaves a nice sloped snowbank instead of a vertical face that a snowblower cut would make, and allows the wind to follow the slop of that snowbank. That helps prevent drifting. If you left a vertical wall, it would drift back immediately,” Laitinen said.

Laitinen said he’s never seen an apparatus like the bank slicer anywhere else and it’s not commercially available. It’s so old, no one currently working at CCRC knows when it was built.

Since the machine is “homemade,” it is easy to maintain.

“It’s pretty simple. It’s got cables and chains that attach it to the grader, and it’s kind of foolproof. Now and again you might break a chain or you might do this or that, but they’re easy repairs you can make in the field.”

The apparatus typically makes its appearance in February, and continues to make follow-up appearances on clear, windy days throughout the winter.