On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a discussion about a new video emphasizing the need for drivers to slow down when driving through road construction projects. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer talks about MDOT’s “drive like you work here” message and why it is important as more major roads will be rebuilt in 2021. The governor explained her Rebuilding Michigan plan during the Jan. 31 edition of the podcast.
As a Sept. 25 news release explained, while there are fewer motorists on the roads, the number of road and work zone fatalities are on the rise. The increase in crashes and fatalities comes at a time when the department is reporting a 20 percent decrease in overall statewide traffic volumes due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
As of September, 730 people have died on Michigan roads. That's an increase of 58 deaths compared to this time last year. In September, vehicles struck two on-the-job road workers, who died from their injuries.
Later, a conversation with Steve Wessels, a veteran maintenance supervisor at MDOT who was featured in a Fox 17 story talking about efforts to stay safe while working alongside heavy vehicle traffic.
Wessels shares his stories from the road and how he trains workers to protect themselves on projects.
On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a discussion about a new video emphasizing the need for drivers to slow down when driving through road construction projects. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer talks about MDOT’s “drive like you work here” message and why it is important as more major roads will be rebuilt in 2021. The governor explained her Rebuilding Michigan plan during the Jan. 31 edition of the podcast.
As a Sept. 25 news release explained, while there are fewer motorists on the roads, the number of road and work zone fatalities are on the rise. The increase in crashes and fatalities comes at a time when the department is reporting a 20 percent decrease in overall statewide traffic volumes due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
As of September, 730 people have died on Michigan roads. That's an increase of 58 deaths compared to this time last year. In September, vehicles struck two on-the-job road workers, who died from their injuries.
Later, a conversation with Steve Wessels, a veteran maintenance supervisor at MDOT who was featured in a Fox 17 story talking about efforts to stay safe while working alongside heavy vehicle traffic.
Wessels shares his stories from the road and how he trains workers to protect themselves on projects.
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Jeff Cranson: Hi, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. It is Thursday, October 22, and today we are focusing again on crashes at road construction sites. We're doing this because in recent weeks two more Michigan road workers were killed while doing their jobs on Michigan freeways. Twenty-six-year old Zach Morisette, a three-time cancer survivor, died from injuries sustained when he was struck by a vehicle while working for Macomb County on I-94, and Jeremy Zeitz was working for a private contractor on I-69 south of Lansing when he was killed. He was 40 years old and the father of three. So, first I’ll be talking with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer about why this topic is important to her and her ambitious Rebuilding Michigan plan. Then, we'll hear from Steve Wessels, a veteran MDOT maintenance supervisor, who has seen a lot in his years working alongside traffic, but first let's hear some of what Governor Whitmer had to say on a video MDOT produced on the topic.
Gov. Whitmer: The next time you're on the road and approach a construction site, put yourself in the shoes of those people in the orange vests and hard hats. They want to go home to their families tonight just as we all do. As my friends at MDOT would say, when you approach a work zone, please drive like you work there.
Jeff Cranson: So, once again I’m really pleased to have with me Governor Gretchen Whitmer to talk about work zone safety and why it's so important in the wake of some very horrible incidents recently. Governor, you participated in a video that MDOT produced on this issue, and it's something that's pretty much never been done before to have a governor talk about that in such passionate and strong terms, and we really appreciate it. Can you talk about why this matters to you and, you know, your crusade to fix the roads?
Gov. Whitmer: Well, you know, I want to first say thank you and tell all of the incredibly hard-working people at MDOT how much I appreciate the work that they do. Everyday they're working to fix the damn roads, but we got to make sure that we do it in a safe way. That the public understands how important that is, and I think, you know, Rebuilding Michigan means more than just, you know, simple road projects. It means more workers on the road. It means more for families who want their loved ones to come home to them, and it's really important that we recognize that, we educate the public because no one wants to be that that driver that strikes the worker because they weren't paying attention, or because they were texting, or because they didn't know they need to drive slower in a work zone. And that's why I think it's so important for so many reasons that we take this on, we educate the public, and hold people to a higher standard because these people that are putting themselves in danger to make life better for the rest of us deserve no less.
Jeff Cranson: So, you've had to have the very painful task of having to call some of the relatives of some of these fallen workers, and I know it's very important that you do that, but can you talk about why you do that and how you do it, I guess?
Gov. Whitmer: Well, you know, we're in the middle of a global pandemic, right? And every lost life is meaningful and it's important, and that's why I think we can't let us grow numb to the numbers that we see in terms of fatalities of COVID, and the same goes for our state workforce. Any loss of life is something that— I know there are families who are mourning. I know that it's important to show that, as the governor of the state, I am grateful, and our state is grateful for the work that people do on all of our behalf. And we use this, you know, as continued motivation to do better and keep people safe. When I talk to families I’m always just stunned at, you know, the stories that they share about their loved ones, and that they are able to talk about the people they love so much and they've lost. And I think it's important for us to show us a state that that we recognize that.
Jeff Cranson: Well, I think you mentioned Rebuilding Michigan and when we come out of this, in whatever form, the roads weren't suddenly going to be fixed by themselves. So, we're going to have to get back at it. It's going to be a top priority next year, so, you know, we've got the Rebuilding Michigan bonds and we plan to ramp it up in earnest next spring. Can you talk about what that means to you and your agenda?
Gov. Whitmer: Yeah, well, you know, as I got around the state, I got into all 83 counties, someone referred to it this cycle is the full Whitmer.
Jeff Cranson: [Laughing]
Gov. Whitmer: But I had gotten into all 83 counties, and no matter where I was people wanted to talk about the roads. And I didn't pull test the phrase fix the damn roads, I just said it because that's how we all talk about infrastructure that needs desperately to be reinvested in and to be rebuilt. And, so, this is central to our work to make Michigan a destination for tourists and businesses and families alike, and that's why this will continue to be central to the agenda that I am going to push and I’m going—we, together, MDOT and my office are going to get done.
Jeff Cranson: So, I guess we could amend the phrase to say, ‘fix the damn roads safely.’
Gov. Whitmer: Right. Amen.
Jeff Cranson: Thank you, Governor, for taking time to do this. I appreciate it.
Gov. Whitmer: Absolutely, thank you.
Narrator: I hear that all the time and it's something that happens at my office. That's not the case when many of us go to work and there's not much we have to worry about. But what if your office looked like this? Cars whizzing by only inches from you while you work and many drivers are not following work zone signs and speed limits. That's their office. The hardworking men and women rebuilding and maintaining Michigan's roads. You put these workers' lives at risk every time you enter a work zone, so do your part. Give 'em a brake - slow down and pay attention, especially when and where workers are present.
Jeff Cranson: As promised, I’m back with Steve Wessels, an MDOT maintenance supervisor in the Grand region, which includes the counties surrounding Grand Rapids. Steve’s on the front lines of road maintenance, and he's seen a lot over the years. So, Steve, thanks for helping to put a spotlight on this issue.
Steve Wessels: So, I’ve been within that 23 years. I started when I was 20 with MDOT up in Reed City. I worked in North region for 18 years and then I worked my way up through. I worked on various region crews. I worked in—one of the jobs I did up there is I worked catch basin clean out. So, I actually worked in every county in North region, all the counties, all the cities, and cleaned all the catch bases throughout the whole North region. So, in doing so, it gives me opportunity to meet a lot of people. I often times work with county employees and city employees, so I learned a lot of different areas, you know, different areas, different types of operations.
Jeff Cranson: Well, just so folks have a geographic understanding, MDOT's North region is pretty much everything north of US-10 in the northern lower peninsula, so it's a pretty vast stretch and it's a lot of counties.
Steve Wessels: Yeah, exactly, it was, you know, there was 23 counties before RPI, and we did that, and we cleaned 4,500 basins. We either checked or cleaned throughout the year, and that was in every county, you know, so we worked with a lot of contract agencies through there. So, like I said, it gave me opportunity to meet a lot of people, and when you're dealing with different entities throughout there, they have different regulations, you know, they follow different rules. They follow different protocols for their safety. Whether it be PPE, work zone safety, you know, there's just so many variations. I mean, you've probably seen it in your travels on how a county sets up a lane closure, versus how MDOT sets a building closure, how maintenance sets up a lane closure, versus how construction sets up event lane closures.
Jeff Cranson: Well, that's kind of the challenge that you outlined in your very good interview with Fox 17. I think as a maintenance supervisor who has to obviously worry about yourself, but, you know, you take very seriously the safety of the crews that work for you, and doing maintenance often doesn't afford you the kind of time to set up a fully barrier work zone, you know. You're moving on the fly a lot of times, so talk about some of those close calls and what you see, you know, when you're out there on the road.
Steve Wessels: You know, a lot of the things that we do— we tend to be as less of an inconvenience as possible to the motoring public, you know, and sometimes I wouldn't say that we take risks, but, you know, a mobile operation has less restrictions, you know. We can do a moving operation and maybe only put up one or two signs and utilize our vehicles for our, you know, illumination, and basically that's our visibility is all that. And you see that a lot in the Grand Rapids area, a lot of, you know, moving operations where they will include, you know, the sheriff's patrol or they'll utilize their weighmaster with red, you know, lights. That's one of the things that we did say in the interview they didn't include, but, you know, the coloration in lighting over the years has gotten tremendously better, you know. We went from rotary amber lights that you could barely see in the daylight to, you know, LED bright green, amber, you know, it's gotten better.
Jeff Cranson: So, you think the change to green lights has really made a difference, huh?
Steve Wessels: Absolutely, I mean I’ve always said that when you think about it and you've got a garbage truck that runs around with a blinking yellow light, you've got an oversized load with semi that's going from Kansas to Canada and they're driving down the freeway with blinking amber lights, you got the mail lady that's got a blinking amber light. How do you distinguish the difference between somebody that's out of the truck filling a pothole standing in the roadway or somebody that's in a seat belted vehicle driving down the road, you know what I mean? There's no variation, and at least this gives us a distinct difference, you know, so people can say, ‘hey, you know, that's a green light., that's probably somebody standing outside of the truck or possibly stopped in the lane of traffic.’ No different than, you know, for years if you've seen that that rotating red bubble you knew that was a state cop. If you've seen, you know, red and blue you knew that was a county or a city cop. There's just this, I don't know, it's a knowledge that you get of who it is, and you can tell who it is just by the coloration and lighting. And I think the green lights have been very helpful to be honest with you.
Jeff Cranson: Well, talk a little more about some close calls you've seen. I mean, you've probably been in a situation where, you know, you had a split second to realize that somebody was going pretty fast, maybe veering, and maybe you caught eye contact at the at the last minute. What’s that like to think, you know, that this person— it's certainly not personal, but, you know, they're driving through your workplace, as we talk about a lot, and we talk about our video drive like you work here, you know, what's that feeling like?
Steve Wessels: Well, it's uncomfortable, you know, and you do get upset and you do take it personal because your safety's in jeopardy, but, you know, maybe it's just an elderly person driving to the store that's confused. A lot of times what we'll get is with mobile operations maybe we'll have a car that pulls in between the two vehicles that's in our convoy, and then a lot of times people will follow the leader and then next thing you know you got people stopped, and two people are trying to get into the convoy, and somebody else is trying to get around them, and then they get impatient, and, you know, you hear honking horns, and people yelling at everybody and, you know, it's just— it can be hectic, you know. They want the roads fixed, but they want them fixed at night while they're sleeping.
Jeff Cranson: Exactly.
Steve Wessels: That's what we've always said, you know, they want to wake up in the morning and all the road work's done, all the snow's pushed back, the roads are clear, and they can drive 80 to work.
Jeff Cranson: And 80 is slow nowadays.
Steve Wessels: I agree with you.
Jeff Cranson: I mean, that project that you're specifically, you know, doing that story, that work on 96 between Grand Rapids and Lansing, I mean, that that's just a heavily traveled road and even with traffic down because of the pandemic. I’m sure you've noticed that, you know, we've talked about this a lot and nobody can quite put their finger on why, except that early on there was less traffic and people got in the habit of driving fast, but they're still driving fast.
Steve Wessels: Absolutely, and it was weird, like, we've been, you know, first responders and we were essential throughout this whole pandemic, so I work, you know, in Hastings and I work in Grand Rapids, and I travel every day through those areas. And it was so different how when nobody was on the road you just—the traffic, the accidents, the volumes, everything was reduced. I didn't really notice it at first, but we also get, you know, I get alerts on any closures or, you know, traffic delays or anything like that through Kent County or Barry County, and I was hardly getting any emails. Then all of a sudden it was like when things started opening up and people started going back to work, it was like the emails started to compile more and ding more often and accidents were happening, and now it's like now it's almost back to normal, you know. I know that traffic is still reduced, but it's closer to what it was than been earlier, you know.
Jeff Cranson: Yeah, oh, absolutely, yeah, it's recovered a lot. Well, what do you tell folks, you know, that since you've been at this and you're a veteran, and, you know, you bring on younger people every year, and you obviously have all kinds of training that you do related to safety specifically, but, you know, what do you tell people to try to impress upon them that, you know, you you've got to keep your eyes and ears open, you can't count on those drivers to watch out for you? How do you impress that upon a younger person going into maintenance work?
Steve Wessels: We try and tell them not to get too comfortable, and, you know, we want people— it's a double-edged sword, you want guys that that aren't afraid to work out in traffic because if they're nervous they're not going to do a good job, and they're not going to do quality work. But on the same note, you don't want somebody that's so comfortable that they're going to be running a broom out into a live lane of traffic and getting hit, you know what I mean? Where they forget where they are, you know, so you always want to be cautious to your surroundings. You always want to respect where you're at, you know, and don't get too comfortable because as soon as you get comfortable with where you're at something bad is going to happen, you know. You're not paying attention, somebody comes, you know, screeching through and you're not paying attention and you end up getting hit, you know. It's hard to remember close calls, you know, I haven't had any like aha moment to myself, you know, but you smell breaks burning through your work zone, you hear screeching, you hear horns honking, you know, those are all distractions from work, and it all it all wears on you after a while, you know, I mean, so—
Jeff Cranson: Well, so, what, you know, you've been at it and you obviously enjoy it and you find satisfaction in it. There's some intrinsic reward in what you do, you know, I mean, it's so important it's the, you know, you guys are the offensive lineman of a transportation organization, right? You feel like you never really get any credit, but they can't operate without you. So, what keeps, you know, interested and motivated to do your job?
Steve Wessels: Self-satisfaction, you know, we get to drive down the road and we know what we did, you know, what I mean? You know hey, I did that project or hey, we did that project last year. It's really holding up good, or, you know, boy, that didn't work, you know what I mean? And it's on all ends, you know, we do things that that are great and we do things that aren't great, you know, everybody does, so a lot of it is, you know, I always tease people I’m like, you know, when you work for the state you don't get a turkey at Thanksgiving but, you know, you get the self-satisfaction of knowing that you've kept people safe on their way to their, you know, Christmas dinners or Thanksgiving feasts and stuff like that. It's just one of those one of those things. It's more an internal thing and it has to be built in you because if you expect something out of it, you're going to be disappointed.
Jeff Cranson: Yeah, well, I think the year-round nature of your work—I mean, people think especially in Michigan, as you know, road construction is primarily a summertime thing, but you guys will switch from, you know, patching and mowing and repairing guard rails to plowing the before we know it, and then back to filling potholes in the spring and the cycle will continue so—
Steve Wessels: Exactly correct, we just actually had this conversation, you know, the construction folks when you have people in construction, when's their downtime? They get a downtime in the winter, you know, in maintenance we don't have downtime anymore with our short—you know, our staff numbers are so low. We have maintenance projects that we have to do all summer, so, you know, we go from winter, we change over our trucks, we clean up our trucks, remove all the salt and get everything ready for summer maintenance. Then we go right into summer maintenance. We do our summer programs and we get all that summer routine maintenance done, get everything ready, and then we clean up our trucks and we prepare everything for our winter. There's just no downtime. It gets hard, you know, for morale after a while. The guys get— it's just one of those things where, like I said, you get self-satisfaction of knowing that you did a quality job, you kept the motor in public safe, you know, you helped in aiding this.
Jeff Cranson: Yeah, no, I think it's that's really well said, and I think that could be helpful in trying to point out in recruiting efforts because even though these are, you know, these are good jobs and they're good income, good benefits, it's hard to hire people in transportation right now, like a lot of industries are facing a talent drain, so I know you guys are too.
Steve Wessels: Yeah, it is hard. We're actually going through hiring our winter staff right now. Boy, you know, it's hard, you know, you really got to treat your employees well in order to keep them.
Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
Steve Wessels: We’re pretty fortunate, I know us in the Grand region, we've got a pretty good program going. We've got a lot of returning people. I’ve got winter employees that come back. I got one guy I think it's his tenth winner in a row that he's come back, just as seasonal help, you know. That's the biggest thing, you want knowledge to help keep the public safe, you know.
Jeff Cranson: Absolutely, Steve, thanks for taking the time to do this and helping us to put an emphasis on this. This is a drum we're going to keep beating and I know the governor is very committed to this because, you know, she ran on fixing the roads and she knows that the people that fix the roads have to be safe. So, you're helping to underscore that message and I appreciate it.
Steve Wessels: Yeah, anytime. Anything you need I’m willing to help. I did a lot of things in different areas of the state, so I’ll help in anyway I can.
Jeff Cranson: Okay, well, thanks again, take care.
Steve Wessels: Alright, thanks a lot, Jeff.
Narrator: That's a wrap for this edition of Talking Michigan Transportation. Check out show notes and more by subscribing on Apple podcast.
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