draftpeppin

I'm very happy for the stadium and team coming to the city. Great news there. What I am questioning is the location. To me, from years of taking that Pearl exit for GVSU and the YMCA, I think that is one of the most difficult exit ramps (trying to merge quickly onto Mt Vernon, not having a good view of what's coming from Mt Vernon, and trying to get over quickly to turn right onto Pearl. Pushing a rush of cars before a game through there just seems very challenging. Hopefully someone much smarter than I am has this figured out. Side note: As someone who uses a wheelchair and uses the DDH YMCA, I hope that they maintain good snow/slush maintenance at the sidewalk street crossings between the GVSU ramp and the YMCA.

Just found my own answer! https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2023/11/roundabout-project-near-downtown-grand-rapids-will-be-finished-before-2024.html

Has anyone seen any solid updates on the traffic circle construction at Monroe and Coldbrook?

I drove eastbound 196 to eastbound 96 today. Lanes are open eastbound (thank goodness) but I noticed something interesting. It's still the same route to get from EB 196 to EB 96, but there's pavement down to the left of that, which I had assumed was going to be the next 196 EB route. The updates from MDOT and the media just reference that the 96 to E Beltline exit is left to be done. I'm wondering what's up with this other stretch of road. It's just odd that the updates from MDOT and the media indicate that the 96 to E Beltline bridge will be finished next year. No mention of other work on the project in 2020.

Could be. That document said part was supposed to be this year. Maybe it changed.

Great news! I wonder if they abandoned the Plymouth bridge reconstruction listed on the project website: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdot/I-96_I-196_Interchange_Open_House_635592_7.pdf

That's about a half mile from my house, and we recently bought a sectional there. My wife loves the place.

I believe I saw some fresh asphalt down on EB 96 between Leonard and the new overpass bridge this evening. Crossing fingers that we're close to an opening.

People are zipper merging instead of using the right lane for EBL only as the signs say. That's part of the problem. Reference :

So now there are four lanes carrying westbound traffic on those two highways but still one lane bottleneck right after the East Beltline exit carrying the load eastbound. It's too bad that they didn't cross a lane over to the other side or something to handle that uneven load.

Thanks for the info! Do you know about eastbound? That's what's getting me every morning. 96 is closed and there's a bottleneck where 196 goes past east Beltline and gets back to 96. Single lane handling 196 and 96 at that choke point eastbound. Google maps said it was hugely backed up this morning so I had to take Fulton to Cascade to 96. Took me 45 minutes to reach the highway.

Does anyone know the various steps of the 96/196/EB work? I'm a little confused. Here it says it will be done in late October of this year: https://mdotjboss.state.mi.us/MiDrive/map Here it says October of NEXT year: https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9621_11008-480166--,00.html It just doesn't seem like it's written very clearly anywhere, even in the news media websites. I'll certainly be glad when there's no longer a bottleneck of one single lane carrying all of both 96 and 196 traffic eastbound!