A cost estimate for the proposed Hartman-Hammond bridge over the Boardman River in Grand Traverse County – most recently put at between $280 and $320 million – represents a preliminary, likely high figure that covers all total project expenses, not just construction. That was one of several details consulting firm OHM Advisors and the Grand Traverse County Road Commission (GTCRC) emphasized during a recent work session to provide an update on the bypass – including how the project differs from past iterations – as well as the capacity of other local roads that could either be impacted by a bypass or require their own future improvements.

Steve Dearing of OHM Advisors said an environmental assessment is underway now on the “preferred alternative” for the Hartman-Hammond bridge, which would cross the Boardman River valley at those two roads as a four-lane bridge and then continue up to US-31 as a five-lane boulevard. The exact route of that boulevard and where it would end on US-31 – either at McRae Hill Road at its northern intersection or a flat section of land near Cherry Central – is still being determined as part of the environmental assessment. “There’s pros and cons for both,” Dearing said, noting that the McRae Hill location would require work to “flatten 31 to make sure that it would be a safe intersection.”

Dearing said that cost estimates – which are still being refined but recently tripled to between $280 and $320 million – are meant to be “all inclusive,” including right-of-way acquisition, design, engineering, and construction expenses. Bill Zipp of OHM Advisors added that “costs are still early” and generally come in higher during this preliminary engineering phase than final engineering. Road Commissioner Alisa Korn lamented that some reports made it sound like the cost estimate only included bridge construction, saying that a lack of context around the estimate had a “severe impact for everyone that is involved in this project.” The project’s ballooning price tag has alarmed many in the community, including local representatives like Grand Traverse County Commissioner TJ Andrews and groups like the Groundwork Center, which launched a campaign to stop the bridge and called it “outrageously expensive, ineffective, and environmentally damaging.”

Korn said some alternatives that have been suggested to building a bypass – such as widening Keystone Road and/or improving South Airport Road – have “been studied and studied to death” and were determined to be unviable. Dearing said that widening Keystone between Hammond and Cass from two to five lanes was rejected because of the railroad tracks that run parallel to Keystone. Those railroad tracks would require all the road expansion to occur on Keystone’s west side, a move that would require GTCRC “buying up and knocking down almost every house along that stretch,” Dearing said. “That was considered an unacceptable impact, and so that was taken off the table.” 

Similarly, while rebuilding South Airport Road is an alternative that’s still being evaluated as part of the environmental assessment, converting it to a four-lane boulevard would require 180 feet of right-of-way. GTCRC has 60 feet now; getting to an additional 120 feet would likely require shifting the road in one direction or the other. “But that means you’re wiping out every single business for the whole corridor (on one side),” Dearing said. “I don’t think Garfield Township wants to lose half an entire road’s worth of commercial properties.” If South Airport was the preferred alternative, the corridor would also have to be raised 10 feet out of the floodplain. OHM Advisors made it clear that while South Airport Road is still being evaluated out of due diligence, representatives did not consider it a viable option due to its extreme property acquisition costs and impacts.

Korn said it’s important for the public to “really understand what the scope is of these alternatives” – including their potential costs and impacts – in comparison to the bypass. Rebuilding South Airport Road also “does not provide resiliency,” Korn said. “I think that that’s a critical thing to talk about.” Resiliency is the ability of a transportation network to recover from a major disruption. If South Airport Road went down due to a major accident or event – either in its current or rebuilt form – that would majorly gridlock traffic, consultants explained. A bypass would add resiliency by providing another route for vehicles, they said, which the system lacks without one.

Dearing said the proposed Hartman-Hammond bypass differs significantly from designs of the past. The bridge that was rejected in 2002 – which was denied permits due primarily to lack of public input, consultants said – would have come out opposite Silver Pines as a four-lane boulevard. The bridge design pushed significantly down into the river valley, crossing at 18 to 35 feet high over the river compared to the 70-foot-high version proposed today. The new bridge design has prioritized length – approximately 2,000 feet compared to the past 200-foot span – with only a few piers to mitigate valley impacts, consultants said. The old design would have permanently impacted four acres of wetland – compared to an acre in the latest design – and was planned for speeds of up to 70 miles per hour, instead of 55 miles per hour today. In response to questions of funding and feasibility, Zipp said the bypass could potentially be built in four different construction phases over the course of a decade.

Perhaps most crucially from a permitting perspective, Dearing said the East-West Corridor Study – from which the bypass recommendation emerged – “put public participation in the forefront” compared to the past planning process. GTCRC has already implemented several of the short and mid-term recommendations from the East-West Corridor Study, such as introducing signal optimization technology and adding new roundabouts at Keystone/Cass, Keystone/River/Beitner, and Four Mile/Hammond. Still, for the region’s long-term transportation needs, Dearing said a bypass remains “a big piece of the puzzle for the network.” Todd Davis with WSP, another consulting firm on the project, noted that bridge parameters are still in flux as the environmental assessment unfolds, addressing everything from where bridge piers would go to how the big the project footprint will be to how construction workers would access the site.

The bridge’s construction could have an impact on other roads, staff noted. “This project, if the bridge goes in, is going to handle over 20,000 cars a day as soon as it’s built, and it’s going to take 37 percent of the traffic off of Airport,” said former GTCRC Managing Director Brad Kluczynski. “But it’s not only just Airport. It’s going to reduce traffic for the rest of the east-west corridors throughout the community.” He said another road that could benefit is Grandview Parkway, which could see a significant reduction in truck traffic – reducing the risk to pedestrians “playing Frogger” trying to cross the waterfront road, Kluczynski said.

As more public discussion unfolds over the bypass in the coming months – which still faces significant backlash in some community circles, despite the defenses shared by consultants and road commissioners – GTCRC plans to engage local townships and other partners on planning for the rest of the transportation network. GTCRC is evaluating other roads that need improvements based on capacity and safety concerns, logged in an interactive map that was shared at the work session. That map – along with the formation of a local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which will bring new transportation funding into the region – will both be tools that can help improve local roads, road commissioners said.

They cited as possible examples the hill on Beitner Road near Chums Corner – which could benefit in the future from a dedicated truck lane – or heavily congested two-lane corridors like Long Lake and Zimmerman roads. GTCRC plans to build a roundabout next year at Potter/Garfield/Hoch, another example of a project that was prioritized by analyzing capacity and safety data. Road commissioners said they wanted input from township leaders on where developments are coming into their communities so GTCRC can plan around those transportation needs. Saying that he doesn’t see the region’s “growth slowing down” and that GTCRC is “trying to look at the next 20, 25 years,” Chair Joe Underwood repeatedly asked community leaders to “work with” the GTCRC on improving the region’s transportation network. The next few years will require “heavy lifting,” he said, but “the system is going to get noticeably better in the near future.”