Michigan winters can leave the roads looking pretty pitiful. And Joann Baumann is sick and tired of driving over potholes.
"I'm tired of seeing people get broken axels, literally seen them get broken axels,” Baumann said. “I'm tired of doing repairs on breaks. Family members, extended family members doing repairs on breaks. What's wrong with Michigan? What's wrong with Lansing?"
Well good news for Joann... Some of those potholes are about to disappear because Bill Conklin with the Ingham County Road Department says:
"Relief is on the way," Conklin said.
Ingham County Road Department is busting out these bright orange barrels all over the place. They've got three big projects planned this summer and are gonna be working on around 100 miles of roadway.
One project has already started. Cedar Street is reduced down to one lane in both directions from 127 to College, lasting until the fall.
"We're first going to be attacking those roads that are kind of in fair condition, fair to poor condition, trying to bring those back up to preservation," Conklin said.
The two other big ones are starting up sometime in July. Holt road will be down to one lane from downtown to College for a couple months. And they'll be working on the intersection of Okemos and Jolly.
"It's one of our busiest intersections in the county," Conklin said.
Conklin says the final plans for that project are still in the works. So you might end up seeing a lot going on there. Or most of it might wait until next year. Conklin says none of this would be possible without the road funding plan that raised gas taxes and vehicle registration.
"We'd probably be in just an emergency reactive patching and emergency maintenance mode if it hadn't been for that road funding," Conklin said.
It gave them about three million dollars to work with. They expect to have an even bigger budget because of the plan in 2018.
