Interstate 75, dubbed “Michigan’s Main Street,” is the prime transportation route and economic artery that traverses the two segments of the state from the Ohio border to Canada.
“It is a heavily traveled freeway corridor,” said Robb Welch, Vice President/Senior Civil Engineer with Lansing-based Fishbeck, which is overseeing the work to rebuild a 3.74-mile segment of the highway in Monroe County for the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). “It is extremely busy with commercial traffic, a very high volume of trucks. I liken it to the scene in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ movie, where they're jumping from one truck rooftop to another. I think you could do that on I-75.”
“The existing concrete pavement was in very poor condition, with significant areas of spalling and longitudinal faulting,” Welch said. “It had panels that were breaking and cracking and then kind of dropping, and areas that were very rough riding. As well, several of the bridges on and over the highway were very deficient.”
As part of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Rebuilding Michigan program, the $175 million project was performed by general contractor Miller Bros. Const., Inc. of Archbold, Ohio. It includes removal and reconstruction of the roadway, building five new bridges and repairing two others, constructing two new entrance and exit ramps at two interchanges, redoing and upgrading two truck scales at the respective weigh stations, and installing an intelligent traffic system (ITS). Work began in April 2022.
The project is routed adjacent to Lake Erie, so water became one of the team’s biggest challenges.
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“This particular area of freeway has a unique feature from being so close to Lake Erie,” Welch said. “The lake is rather shallow and prone to wind-blown elevation changes in the water level. A very stiff wind in a particular direction can blow the water either away from land or towards land. And that can create as much as a 6- to 9-inch difference of water levels in the roadside ditches, creeks, and the county drains flowing into the lake. So we had to work around particular weather systems or patterns that were blowing water towards the land.”
The roadway bridge over Otter Creek, the widest waterway in the project, required deep abutments and large culvert installations. Temporary coffer dams were built to control water levels while the work was underway.
“We fought some water infiltration at the coffer damns that wasn't expected, so we had to bring in some outside resources to get those sealed up in order to get the substructure of the Otter Creek Bridge built,” Miller Bros. Project Manager Andy Durham said.
The initial work on the project addressed maintenance of traffic matters, which presented a few challenges. The northbound highway and its bridge sections were scheduled to be rebuilt first, with traffic rerouted to the southbound route, and then vice-versa.
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“We faced some challenges maintaining drainage at the mainline crossovers,” Durham said. “Also, with the poor condition of the existing roadway, we experienced some pavement failures and had to repair those areas over weekend closures to keep the existing roadway operational while the new pavement was being constructed.” Work on the bridges over the highway were also done in that phase.
The new bridge across the highway to the lakeside city of Luna Pier, with its popular beaches, boardwalk, and marinas, presented a daunting issue.
“It was underneath high voltage power lines that could not be relocated,” Welch said. “We were able to manipulate the schedule to proceed with construction operations when these overhead lines had the ability to be de-energized in the wintertime, when the need for the power load was lower.”
The new roadway features a sand sub-base and 6 inches of aggregate over which is a 6-inch cement-treated permeable base that is similar to lightweight concrete. Atop that is 13-inch concrete pavement.
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“That treated cement piece is an enhanced cross-section to address the commercial volumes that this roadway sees,” Welch said.
During the highway work phases, fiber lines were installed along the interstate to support the ITS system. It features cameras to observe traffic and inform drivers of conditions ahead with permanent message boards, as well as sensors and probes to gauge the condition of the pavement.
“It can help determine traffic operational needs, monitor the temperature of the pavement if winter storms are approaching to customize salting operations, and things of that nature when needed,” Welch said. The sensors also help indicate any potential roadway maintenance issues.
Miller Bros. was able to meet worker capacity on the project thanks to the help of Michigan’s unions and by bringing in personnel the contractor works with from its Ohio base. But they did face another related challenge.
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“The state of Michigan has had an abundance of projects in the last few years. The trucking demand created some shortages,” Durham said. “When we talked to different brokers, the trucks were there, but not enough drivers to put in the seat to drive them.”
“MDOT utilizes consultant partners when work volumes increase beyond the capacity of their local construction offices,” Welch said. “So they bring in industry partners to assist them, and that's how this project was structured.”
Durham has high praise for Fishbeck’s efficiency in interfacing between Miller Bros. and MDOT. “It's been a great partnership working with Robb and his team,” he said. “They've been timely with responses when we needed answers from the owner on which direction they wanted to go on a couple of unforeseen matters.”
As a result, the project has overcome its numerous challenges and — as of the writing of this article — was expected to open on schedule at the end of last month. Truck and car traffic will now be riding quickly and smoothly on the stretch of I-75 known as the Toledo Freeway toward and from Detroit and the rest of Michigan.
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- Owner: Michigan Department of Transportation
- Construction Engineer: Fishbeck, Lansing, Michigan
- General Contractor: Miller Bros. Const., Inc., Archbold, Ohio
- Subcontractors: Toebe Construction LLC, Wixom, Michigan (concrete paving); Cadillac Asphalt, Monroe, Michigan (asphalt paving); J. Ranck Electric, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan; Black Swamp Steel, Inc., Holland, Ohio (rebar installation); Action Traffic Maintenance, Inc., Grand Blanc, Michigan (signs and guardrails); PK Contracting, LLC, Troy, Michigan (pavement marking)
- Suppliers: Stoneco, Monroe Charter Township, Michigan (aggregates); Northern Concrete Pipe, Inc., Sylvania, Ohio (drainage pipe); Mack Industries, Inc., Brunswick, Ohio (drainage structures); Triad Metals International, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (steel); Prestress Services Industries, LLC, Lexington, Kentucky (bridge beams)
