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Made In Walker
The Made In Walker Podcast connects you to the people, stories, and ideas shaping our community. From local innovators to everyday change makers, we are diving deep into what makes Walker Michigan a great place to live, work, and grow.
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Made In Walker
Fruit Ridge Bridge Replacement Preview
Excitement is building for Walker’s Fruit Ridge Bridge project set for 2025, a crucial endeavor designed to relieve traffic congestion and enhance connectivity within the community. Through detailed insights from city engineer Scott Conners, the episode explores upcoming construction phases, detours, and the integration of pedestrian-friendly features, ensuring that residents remain informed and engaged throughout the process.
• Overview of the engineering department's role in community projects
• Recap of 2024's significant infrastructure developments
• Introduction to the Fruit Ridge Bridge and its community importance
• Planned traffic management improvements for better flow
• Integration of sidewalks and trails into the project
• Secured grant funding and its role in project success
• Expected timeline for construction phases and detours
• Communication strategies to keep residents informed
• Brief discussion on the library renovation project
Welcome to Made in Walker, a podcast that connects you to the people, the stories and the ideas shaping our community, from local innovators to everyday changemakers. We're diving deep into what makes Walker a great place to live, work and grow. Here's your host, nicole DiDonato.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us for the Made in Walker podcast. I'm Nicole DiDonato, the communications manager for the city of Walker, and today I'm joined by our city engineer, scott Connors, the man of the hour. We've got some pretty big projects a big project that is definitely coming up in 2025 here. But, scott, thank you so much for being here and tell us, kind of high level, a little bit what the engineering department does for the city of Walker.
Speaker 3:First, Well, we oversee the road system and a lot of the private developments. There's always a lot going on. What we try to do is work behind the scenes as much as we possibly can. We kind of summarize our duties with a three P's approach, which is the public projects, the private projects that come in from developers, and then the various programs that we have to enact that are really behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:Okay, a lot to keep you guys busy.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 2024 was a pretty busy year. Had a lot of infrastructure, a lot of road reconstruction, but that was all really to bring us to here and the big project of 2025, one of them, the Fruit Ridge Bridge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and 24 was the biggest year we've ever had by far, and we did a lot of different work with Kinney Avenue, with Bristol Avenue and the Railroad Bridge, with Center Drive and then finally with Walker Avenue to get that ready for the Fruit Ridge Bridge this year. So we added a traffic signal up at Form Island Walker. That was a joint project between Kent County Road Commission, the City of Walker and MDOT, believe it or not, and that was completed at the very tail of the year to get us ready so that this coming year, when Fruit Ridge is under construction, Walker Avenue will be ready, Kinney will be ready, Bristol will be ready and we'll kind of take a lot of our construction activity off the roads to let the city breathe a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll be nice, but until then, you know it can be some growing pains here. Let us know exactly what we're kind of in for with the Fruit Ridge Bridge.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I think within a couple months no later than March 31st we're going to see that the bridge over the highway is going to come down and that's going to be a pivotal day because there's a lot of traffic north and south across that bridge, a lot of very important traffic from the industrial businesses and then mostly from Kennewa Hills High School, where they have a lot of buses and parents and students coming across with facilities on both sides of the road. So that's really how it's going to start is with that kind of pain. We're trying to remind everybody that the pain is going to be worth it and at the end we're going to have a great project for them when it opens back up. We're going to end up with highway interchange ramps that are going to be lined up. Finally, the westbound ramps are offset slightly by the AGO gas station and that causes some problems with all the Amazon trips that come through there and all the traffic in the gas station, and we think that's going to make that a whole lot better along the whole corridor.
Speaker 3:And then to the south on the eastbound highway. The eastbound off-ramp gets off at Three Mile Road and that is very difficult because a lot of large trucks are getting off to go to different businesses on Three Mile and Fruit Ridge to the north, and it's very difficult to pull out of there when it's busy. Oftentimes you'll see somebody sit there for 20 minutes or so and then take a risk to pull out, and so what we're going to do is realign that with the eastbound off-ramp. That'll be on Fruit Ridge and it'll be signalized, and so that movement will get a whole lot easier.
Speaker 2:And you know, in addition to the truck traffic, the motor traffic, there's going to be also some sidewalks and trails as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's a really exciting part about this is that we're going to have some sidewalk on the east side of the road across the bridge. We're going to make all the connections that are needed on the east side of the road, but then on the west side we're going to have an actual regional trail and it's really a great link for all the different trail systems in the area. It's going to connect the Muscatawa and the Pioneer Trail and the White Pine Trail, essentially to the north, with the Standale Trails and Kent Trails to the south, and we've been waiting for a very long time to have this connection so that people from out of town can come through and pretty much get to wherever they want. We'll be kind of a little bit of a hub.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's kind of like that missing link, the last little section there in order to finish that trail system. Very excited for this. It's been a long time coming as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're excited. We did get a grant for about $2 million to help out with that. The budget was getting pretty tight on this project and that $2 million grant is going to make a huge difference to allow us to build that trail to completion.
Speaker 2:Yes, and as far as, like the project itself, it's going to be MDOT taking most of the work and then the city of Walker will be kind of doing some support work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the financing was a little strange because the $25 million that's really the seed for the project came to the city of Walker through a state appropriation. So we had a little bit. We had a pretty good hand in the card game there in how this comes out. But we realized early on that it's way better to have MDOT actually be the designer, because most of the work is in their right-of-way and with the highway there is some work that's city work and that is adding a center turn lane on Fruit Ridge to the north to help out those businesses with people getting in and out and then the trail itself obviously. So we do have a role in the project. We're going to try to focus our resources more on those areas, but we're also going to help out a lot with communications and problem solving related to the overall project, because having that bridge out of service is a big deal to all of our residents and business owners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. What kind of a timeline are we looking at here?
Speaker 3:Well, it's going to start in March, maybe as late as March 31st. There may be an opportunity for that to start early, but not as early as we thought originally, which is around February 1st. So we'll have a little bit of a reprieve here. But the project is going to be pretty hot and heavy throughout the summer, with a lot of changes. There's many different phases to it, with access being adjusted here and there, but it sure should be done by middle to the end of November.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's going to be a little bit of a tough summer for all of us, but we're all in the same boat here. That's right.
Speaker 3:It's going to be a real test and I think, even the people that are working on the project. We're very fortunate. Our engineers from MDOT live in the area no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Very much, you know. Yeah, short-term pain, long-term gain. Sometimes the mayor likes to say so. Talk about detours, how we're going to be kind of getting ourselves around, right so the detour is going to be Walker Avenue.
Speaker 3:I think that's the simplest way to say it. But for some of the businesses, like if you have a business on Fruit Ridge Road, it's going to be a long detour because you won't be able to go across the bridge. If you want to go south, you'll have to go north, the four-mile road, or you can use North Ridge and then east on four-mile to Walker Avenue and then south to the Walker Interchange. Vice versa, I guess you could use three-mile road to the south if you're stuck on the south end of Fruit Ridge and you want to get to the north end, but it's going to be a long detour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it will be. And for the schools, as you were mentioning, kenoa Hills has schools north and south of that bridge there. What is that looking like for them?
Speaker 3:Well, it's especially important for them because their bus garage is on the south side as well. So the high school and the middle school are on the north. You've got some elementary schools to the south. They're going to go through a little bit of pain as they try to cycle those buses back and forth, but we've reached out to them, we've worked with them. In fact, earlier today I saw an email from the superintendent asking for an update and the communication's been great.
Speaker 2:That's huge and that's what we kind of want to get out to residents and businesses as much as possible. We will be communicating changes and whatnot. And how will that communication look like?
Speaker 3:Well, I think a lot of it might be coming through your office, through social media updates, and from our office we may have some direct mailings. I also suspect that this will be kind of a heavy news story. We'll probably be doing interviews from time to time. We're going to use everything that we have available to us to get the word out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, All right, and you know we appreciate that. Again, we knew this was coming for a while. 2025 is the year, but it's going to be so much better once it's all done.
Speaker 3:It'll be a great project.
Speaker 2:Yes, and if people do have kind of questions and a good way to reach out, who are going to be the point?
Speaker 3:people Well, I'll be the point person from the city, MDOT will also have a point person, and they have a local communications manager that can talk to the specifics of the project. But I guess the beauty of this is that we're working as a team and so we'll have many opportunities and resources to help people out.
Speaker 2:And how does it feel for you? You know leading a lot of these projects coming off a year like 2024, so much on your plate.
Speaker 3:What did that look like? Kind of looking back, I'm very tired. Yeah, that was a really rough year last year, I think with all the work we had it was way more than we've ever done at least twice as much as we've ever done but it was important. We had to get all that stuff done. We had to divide and conquer a little bit and we feel fortunate that it was kind of a miracle that we got all of that stuff done. This coming year is going to be a different kind of year because we're not going to be managing active construction projects on our local road network like this, but we'll have some other projects as well, with some water, main and sidewalks and things to occupy the construction side of us of the city of Walker.
Speaker 2:All right, well, we really appreciate it, scott. Of course that's not the only big project you have. We will be talking about the Walker Library on some other podcasts, but of course a lot of the word has already been out through the news and such. Maybe just briefly a little bit about what folks can expect for that.
Speaker 3:The library is a great project. It's at the center of our campus where the existing library is. We're going to be renovating the existing building and adding a two-story building adjacent to it. It's a great project. The design has been wonderful. We're going to create something that we're calling a beacon, that is going to speak to Remembrance Road and it's going to pull people in. And we're even working on some adjustments to the existing campus to make the existing campus fit with the new design, which is very exciting.
Speaker 2:That's a lot on your plate, but I know you're up for the challenge though, right.
Speaker 3:I think so.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, we appreciate that so much. Scott. Thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Of course, we're going to have a lot of information about the Fruit Ridge Bridge coming out. As Scott was mentioning, a lot of it will be on social media. Doing our best, we have monthly electronic newsletters. If you're not even subscribed to that, that's something that you can take advantage of Facebook, twitter, instagram, linkedin, you name it. We're going to get that information out to you. Thank you so much, scott.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:And we appreciate you joining us for the Maiden Walker podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Made in Walker podcast. If you have comments or questions about this podcast, or if you have suggestions for future episodes, we'd love to hear from you. Please drop us an email at podcast at walkercity. Made in Walker is the official podcast of the city of Walker, Michigan. You can find Made in Walker wherever you get your podcasts.
