KALAMAZOO (WKZO) — A collaborative interagency study of the I-94 Corridor in Western Michigan has been completed and released and there were a few surprises.
The audit was ordered after last January’s chain reaction collision near Galesburg damaged or destroyed 193 vehicles, left one man dead and about two dozen injured. It took days to remove all the wreckage.
MDOT plans to spend millions upgrading I-94 between New Buffalo and Jackson, improving safety, smoothing pavement and expanding the Interstate from 2 to 3 lanes when the traffic warrants it, but they say there are much worst sections of I-94 than the so-called ‘Galesburg Triangle’ where the wreck occured.
Winter and summer accident rates are much higher just south of St. Joseph where I-94 and the Red Arrow highway intersect, in sections of Van Buren County, at the I-94-U.S. 131 intersection, and in Jackson.
MDOT Deputy Chief Engineer Brad Wieferick says January’s record breaking 193-vehicle chain-reaction wreck was caused by a white-out and slippery pavement, not a problem with the design of the roadway.
At a two hour long presentation Monday MDOT officials, statisticians who mined through all the data and State Police presented their analysis of the accident statistics along the I-94 corridor west of Jackson.
They detailed their five year plan for improvements to make the roadway safer and smoother, but it was the same plan that existed before January’s wreck. The only spending planned for the stretch near Galesburg, where the big pile-up occurred is a resurfacing project next year.
Wieferick says widening it to three lanes would cost billions, producing some safety improvements but not enough to justify the cost.
There are plans to widen I-94 to three lanes from Lovers Lane to Sprinkle Road, at a cost of $67-million in 2020, completing the widening of the urban interstate where they say the volume of traffic warrants the improvement, but they say east of Sprinkle, it’s not warranted.
