CLICK TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH DAN WEINGARTEN, M-DOT
All 32 of Michigan Department of Transportation roadside parks in the Upper Peninsula will close for the season this Friday.
They close every year in late October and open in late April, and feature rustic facilities like pit toilets, picnic tables, barbeque grills, well water, and travel information. M-DoOT spokesman Dan Weingarten tells the Radio Results Network that with the Upper Peninsula climate, there’s no way to keep them open year-round.
“They close because they are not all-year facilities and the buildings are not heated, so the water will freeze,” Weingarten said. “The pit toilets, they’re basically outhouses. They’re also maintained by contract cleaners and we need to set an end date for those contracts, so we just picked the end of October as the optimal time to end those contracts.”
Why not at least plow the paved areas, so that people can pull in for a rest if they’re on a long journey across the U.P.?
“The problem with that is what those drivers would use those facilities for, when the toilet faclities have to be locked and there’s no water,” Weingarten said, referring to people who might use the bathroom outdoors, with no bathroom. “There’s really the danger that people could litter. They’re also very difficult to plow.”
Weingarten says there are still five, heated, indoor rest araes alongside Upper Peninsula highways that are open year-round, along with six Welcome Centers, mostly in border towns.
“There’s plenty of places for people to stop, gas stations, and other facilities that do remain open in the winter,” he said.
Meanwhile, the road constructution season is coming to an end across the Upper Peninsula, as M-DOT gets ready for thr winter maintenance season. But there are still a couple of projects still going on in Marquette County.
One of those projects is the well-behind-schedule project on M-35 in Gwinn. Weingarten tells the Radio Results Network that it’s because of more-than-expected work that was needed with underground utilities in that area. And it won’t done before the snow flies, either.
“There was a mutual decision between the contractor, M-DOT, and the (Forsyth) Township, to push that remaining work into next year,” Weingarten said. “We do have some paving to do over the next couple of weeks. We’ll try to get the blocks that have been reconstructed paved for the winter, then they’ll be two blocks of that project remaining that we’ll finish up next year.”
Also, there’s two projects still going on US-41/M-28 in Marquette County.
“The project between Marquette and Negaunee which has been going on all summer is nearly done,” Weingarten said. “We’ve got a few more pavement markings and striping to do. But other than that, it will just be cleanup on that project. And the other one is in Ishpeming at the roindabout project. That one got started late in the season, and we’ve got some pretty important work still going on there. That is work on the bridge over the Carp River, which is being widened to allow for the approach for the new roundabout.”
He says that project should be done by the middle of November.
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