Major Road Repair Slated For Macomb County

MACOMB COUNTY, MI — A crumbling, major artery through Macomb County is about to undergo a facelift, thanks to a federally funded grant money being infused in the region. Nearly $98 million in federal funds is aimed to fix the deteriorating a 10-mile stretch of Mound Road, running through two of Michigan’s largest cities: Sterling Heights and Warren.

The road is a pipeline for workers, materials and finished products flowing to and from automotive factories and Michigan's aerospace and defense manufacturers.

The grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation will help fund Macomb County's three-year, $184.6 million project to reconstruct and upgrade a nine-mile stretch of road from Interstate 696 to M-59, Michigan congressional representatives announced this week. Local contributors to the project include Macomb County paying $43.3 million, Sterling Heights investing $29.06 million and Warren putting up $14.3 million.

Macomb County's Department of Roads spends $3 million to $4 million annually on maintenance and repairs of Mound Road, a 30-year-old, eight-lane artery that has its greatest concentration of traffic between I-696 and M-59, according to a report by the Detroit News. Daily traffic on some stretches of Mound in Warren and Sterling Heights tops 40,000 vehicles, according to traffic counts done in 2015 for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments.

If Congress approves the grant, the county's repair project is expected to begin in early 2020 and conclude by 2022. Besides rebuilding the nine-mile section of Mound, the project will include the installation of two pedestrian walkways, uniform lights and signs, and technology to accommodate a connected vehicles pilot project, according to reports.

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