6-mile stretch to be repaved in fall

A portion of one of the county’s most heavily battered roads will receive attention from road crews in the coming months.

The Michigan Department of Transportation recently received $840,000 from the state legislature’s Roads and Risks Reserve Fund to repave a stretch of road on M-60, from edge of Howard Township to a half mile east of Hospital Street. This project will be combined with the agency’s existing plans to repave a portion stretching from Barron Lake Road to the township border, for a total of 6.3 miles.

The project is expected to begin this fall, starting Sept. 15 and ending Nov. 7.

According to MDOT spokesperson Nick Schirripa, the repaving will make expansive improvements to that particular stretch of the state highway, which is used extensively by county residents to travel between Niles

and Cassopolis.

“The project is not just a resurface, but it’s not a full reconstruction either,” he said. “It’s somewhere in between.”

Unlike simple spot work to troublesome potholes and other portions, the planned work will be more intensive, with crews replacing the damaged top layer of the roadway with new pavement.

“This is a much more permanent fix, the kind that lasts five to seven years, maybe longer depending on the traffic volume,” Schirripa said.

The entire M-60 project will cost an estimated $1.94 million.

Cass County was one of several counties in the state that MDOT will handle road reconstruction projects for in the next year. In total, the agency will spend nearly $115 million for upcoming road improvements.

“State lines have been taking a beating for years,” Schirripa said. “As traffic increases and the amount of funding available to us decreases, it has been difficult for us to keep up, and this winter has pummeled our roads.”

The work on M-60 is the only major project that MDOT expects to handle in Cass County this year, Schirripa said.

“There a lot of miles of roads in the state that need attention, and [M-60] is the next one up,” he said.