Another setback in making a dangerous mid-Michigan intersection safer for drivers.
Delta Township learned this week it won't be receiving grant money to have a traffic light installed at the intersection of Saginaw and Broadbent streets.
It didn't take William Hawley very long to learn he's living near a dangerous intersection.
“It’s a bad corner, I won't use it,” said Hawley. “Even though I live here I’ll go the other way and go around the block because it’s safer.
Safer because at the intersection of Saginaw and Broadbent streets, he's almost gotten hit.
Others Hawley says weren’t so lucky.
“We’ve had our power knocked out when they hit a pole a while back,” said Dawley. “I hear the sirens up at the corner but I haven't witnessed an accident but certainly we hear all about them.”
MDOT says in order to have a traffic light installed at the intersection, lanes must be widened on Broadbent Street on both the north and south side.
In order to get the funding for the project, the Eaton County Road Commission applied for a grant but hit a road block.
“Unfortunately found out last week that that grant did not go through,” said Delta Township manager Brian Reed.
It’s now in the hands of the Eaton County Road Commission as to what happens next.
Delta Township’s manager says projects like this just take time.
“In the end we went to facilitate the best project and I think that the road commission is trying to look forward and design the project in the best way and the safest way possible,” said Reed.
“It’s going to be deadly, there’s no chance that it can be the way it is now,” said Hawley. “Someone will get killed.”
The Eaton County Sheriff’s Department has received more than 30 crashes to the intersection since January 2014.
Nine personal injury crashes were reported, 18 property damage, two cars going into the ditch, two car deer accidents and according to the sheriff’s department, 1 unknown crash.
The Delta Township Manager plans to meet with the road commission within the next couple of months to determine the next steps.
