PORT HURON — A busy section of Lapeer Avenue is slated for reconstruction next year under an engineering agreement OK’d by city officials this week.
City Council members signed off on a $373,840 agreement with Rowe Professional Services on Monday for the project to rehab Lapeer between 16th and 24th streets.
The roughly half-mile segment of roadway is listed as being in a “poor” condition on the city’s latest PASER, or pavement surface evaluation and rating, map completed in 2022. And according to traffic data kept by the Michigan Department of Transportation, that section of Lapeer east of 24th saw roughly 5,000 vehicles daily in each direction.
On Monday, officials briefly remarked on the poor condition of the road and its at-times difficult drive for motorists — Mayor Pauline Repp adding, “That is an adventure there, especially in front of the funeral home.” Currently, the roadway is riddled with cracks and potholes.
Port Huron City Manager James Freed said they’d have some challenges in addressing the surface grade in the adjacent sidewalks along Lapeer, and that there were other details still being worked out.
“If you go down Lapeer right now, some of the sidewalks are close to the road, and they’re kind of steeped — banked like that,” he said Monday, turning each of its hands inward. “That doesn’t meet current ADA accessibility, so this will be a very challenging project to grade that road in such a way that meets (standards).
“We are, as well, looking at road dieting that road for safety. There’s a lot going into this design. It’s going to be a complicated project.”
Under the agreement with Rowe, preliminary plans and site reviews would be done this fall before undergoing a final OK in early 2025 and going out for reconstruction bids in April through MDOT.
Officials did not name an expected overall cost to rebuild Lapeer this week.
However, the city’s latest capital improvement plan put a cost range of $1.5 million
Freed said federal funds delivered through the St. Clair County Transportation Study, or SCCOTS, group was expected to help with costs.
Contact reporter Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.
Most Popular
Comments / 0