It’s an old Midwestern joke that the true four seasons in states like Michigan are “almost winter,” “winter,” “still winter,” and “road construction.” With road construction season kicking into high gear, the Leelanau Ticker checks in with the Leelanau County Road Commission (LCRC) for a rundown of what road closures, lane closures, or detours local residents should be aware of in the coming months.

According to LCRC Managing Director Brendan Mullane, the department just kicked off its biggest project of the year last week: a reconstruction of County Road 626 (Omena Road) between Jelinek Road and Overlook Road. That road is currently closed to through traffic, and will be for most of the month of May.

“It’s a full reconstruction of that roadway,” Mullane says of the roughly 3.6-mile stretch. “We did some culverts last year in advance of that project. Now, they’re crushing and shaping the road. Team Elmer’s is doing it, and they’re hoping to have it finished by Memorial Day.”

The only other LCRC projects that will require full road closures and detours this summer, Mullane says, are a pair of culvert replacements on the Crystal River. Part of an ongoing project aimed at restoring the natural flow of local rivers, those culverts – identified as “Crossings 1 and 2” – are both located near the intersection of County Road 675 and M-22 in Glen Arbor, where 675 bisects the river. Work will start on Crossing 1, the westerly crossing, in “mid-June,” while the easterly bridge, Crossing 2, is slated for construction starting “the day after Labor Day.”

Beyond those two crossings, the future remains in doubt for several other culvert projects in the county. The Leelanau Ticker reported in late February that federal funding freezes were impacting the department’s plans to replace a pair of aging culverts on Cedar Run Creek, one at White Road and the other at Alpine Road. According to Mullane, there has not yet been any resolution regarding the fate of those projects.

“They are held up indefinitely right now,” Mullane says of the two culverts.

Beyond the Crystal River crossings and the County Road 626 rebuild, Mullane says most of the projects on the schedule for the LCRC this summer will be minimally intrusive for most county residents.

“We’re street sweeping right now and doing prep work for our chip seal projects, and mid-June is when we start those,” Mullane says. “And those will run pretty much from mid-June to mid or late August, depending on weather.”

This year’s list of chip seal projects includes sections of more than two dozen county roadways in eight different townships. The lion’s share of that work will happen in Kasson Township (sections of White, Tower, Valley, Bloswick, Baatz, Kasson-Center, and Gilbert roads) and Empire Township (including Plowman, Dorsey, Welch, Voice, LaRohr, Beeman, Osborn, Kitlinger, Stormer, Manning, and Wilco roads). Other chip seal work will touch Shady Lane Road in Bingham Township; Birch Point Road, spanning both Elmwood and Solon townships; Bodus and Eitzen roads in Centerville Township; Lime Lake and Traverse Lake roads in Cleveland Township; and Plamondon Road and Main Street in Leland Township.

The schedule for those projects is flexible, both because it will be weather dependent and because the work will play out in two parts.

“We typically put down the emulsion first, then the stone, and hit everything that way, usually in June or July; then we come back later and fog seal everything – which is just spraying a top layer – and that goes a lot faster, usually in August,” Mullane explains. “Both operations, we’ll keep one lane open and have flaggers to maintain traffic.”

Mullane adds that LCRC typically hits the chip seal projects closest to its shop in Suttons Bay first and then works its way “south and down around to Empire, and then back up to Centerville Township,” but doesn’t have a “formalized” dated schedule for those jobs. Locals who want to know where work is occurring on a week-to-week basis, he says, can keep an eye on the LCRC Facebook page throughout the summer for updates.

Of course, the biggest road construction project in Leelanau County this year isn’t the purview of LCRC, but of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). For the second year in a row, MDOT is underway on a massive northern Michigan road rebuild that will span the entirety of the summer. In March, the department kicked off a 2.2-mile, $25.8 million rebuild of M-72 and M-22 from Division Street in Traverse City to Cherry Bend Road in Elmwood Township. Though LCRC doesn’t have “any direct involvement now that the project is under construction,” Mullane notes that the department was “involved quite a bit in the planning,” given the job’s nexus at the key gateway between Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties.

“It definitely has a big effect on us and our other projects this summer,” Mullane says of the rebuild.

The M-72/M-22 project involves a total removal and replacement of the roadway surface, along with drainage upgrades, new sidewalks and nonmotorized paths, ADA improvements, and the construction of a brand-new roundabout at the M-72/M-22/Bay Street intersection.

Per MDOT, “One lane will be open in each direction on M-72 and M-22 at most times,” though “some short-duration lane closures with traffic regulators will be needed.” In addition, once construction begins on the roundabout, Bay Street will be closed “from M-72 to Ramsdell Street.” The Ticker has already reported about how the road closures will affect boat traffic at Elmwood Township Marina this summer.

Team Elmer’s is also the lead contractor the M-72/M-22 project and has been sharing intermittent updates about changes to traffic patterns and other milestones on its Facebook page. The project is set to wrap up in November, though Elmer’s has a history for finishing these types of jobs early. Last year’s Grandview Parkway rebuild, for instance, wrapped up in late October, compared to an initial estimate of mid-November.

Pictured: An aerial shot of a pre-construction M-22, courtesy of Team Elmer's.