FeedsRoad work prompts residents’ concerns
Lisa Kelleher has had it with traffic in Canton Township.
Especially since it’s about to get closer to her backyard.
She was among residents who listened last week to Wayne County plans to widen Canton Center road from two lanes to five lanes next year.
The county plans to reconstruct about a mile of the road from Cherry Hill to Palmer.
With two lanes in each direction and a left turn lane, it will be an improvement for traffic—more than 26,000 cars per day will drive across the road this year—but the extra lanes will bring the road 6 feet closer to Kelleher’s property, which backs up to the road.
She said she was frustrated by the fact that her neighborhood and Heritage Park will be separated by more concrete.
Jim Visger, an engineer for Wayne County, said wider roads are inevitable all over Canton Township, which will have more than 110,000 residents by 2030, according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG).
“Eventually, the grid system will be five lane roads,” he said, although he noted that it would take decades to expand all major roads in the township. A 1-mile stretch of Warren Road is being widened this summer, between Morton Taylor and Canton Center roads.
“At 1 mile a year, you can calculate that,” said Visger.
Canton isn’t guaranteed a mile every year, either, noted Tom Casari, township engineer.
“There’s limited funds, and there’s 43 communities in Wayne County.”
The Canton Center project will cost an estimated $3.5 million, and has been in the design stage since last year. In 2007, the road will be rebuilt and will also include improvements on Palmer slightly east of Canton Center, to widen the area approaching the intersection.
The driveway entrance to the township administrative building and library will be aligned with the entrance to the Glengarry subdivision, added Visger, to correct the existing left-turn conflict.
The road would be curbed and the storm water system would be enclosed, removing the ditches that currently exist there. New mast arms and traffic lights will be installed at Cherry Hill, Palmer road and the entrance to the fire station.
Speed limits would likely remain at 45 mph, said Casari.
While the expansion would make it safer for drivers, Kelleher is sad that her area will be less walkable.
“It’s just counter-intuitive,” she said about having to drive to her community park.
The plans don’t include any new stoplights between the fire station and Palmer Road, said Casari. That would create traffic backups and undo the congestion relief provided by the project.
“If we tried to put a signal at the driveway, then you’d really mess up the traffic progression from that point through that whole mile,” he said.
That answer didn’t satisfy Kelleher, though, who had her older neighbors in mind.
“I see grandma and grandpa crossing over to the library all the time,” said Kelleher. She said they need to take the shortest route and feared they might attempt to cross five lanes.
“A lot of people may not walk down (to existing crosswalks),” Casari said. “They may still try to cross where the library is, but it’s not advisable to do that. It’s advisable to take the longer route and make it a safer path.”
