Safety paths approved for 2021 construction

By Lisa Brody

Bloomfield Township trustees unanimously approved the safety path routes proposed for the 2021 construction season at their meeting on Monday, December 14.

Engineering and environmental services director Olivia Olsztyn-Budry said that each fall the board of trustees is presented with the proposed routes for the following season. The routes for the 2021 season were identified in the 2008 safety path master plan, she said.

Proposed for 2021 are the east side of Telegraph Road between 14 Mile Road and Lincoln Road, for a probable cost of $460,000; the west side of Lahser Road between 14 Mile Road and Lincoln Road, for a probable cost of $535,000; the north side of Maple Road between Inkster Road and Westmoor, to be done as part of a cost-sharing agreement with a reconstruction project of Maple Road by the Road Commission of Oakland County (RCOC), for a probable cost of $115,000.

In addition, she said that in September 2019, the board of trustees approved proceeding with a transportation alternative program (TAP) grant application for the construction of a pedestrian crossing at Square Lake and Telegraph roads, which would require a 20 percent match. Olsztyn-Budry said the grant was awarded to the township in August 2020, but with a few modifications.

“It now requires a match from the township of 45 percent, and MDOT will allow a six-foot wide path rather than an eight-foot path,” she said, which would cross at Square Lake at Franklin Road, go south on Franklin and around the commercial property at 2555 Franklin Road, and then cross Telegraph along the south side of Square Lake Road to connect to the existing safety path on Telegraph.

A pedestrian crossing is also to be installed in front of the Villages of Bloomfield, on the west side of Telegraph at Bataan Drive.

Total proposed grant funding, she said, is $1,725,509, with the township providing $770,804 in match funds, Olsztyn-Budry said, but the township can have design control.

The total probable costs for the 2021 safety paths, to be paid from the safety path millage fund, is $1,362,500. Maintenance and repair costs, which are done each season, are estimated at $440,000 for 2021.

Olsztyn-Budry said one project was approved and leftover from 2020, a safety path on Club Drive between Square Lake and the Forest Lake Country Club parking lot entrance.

“Design is completed, but the project was not constructed during 2020. Temporary and permanent easements are necessary to construct the path. Several properties have granted easements, and the township will be reaching out to the remaining property owners for the rest of the needed easements,” she said. “The cost for the Club Drive safety path have been rolled over and included in the 2021-2022 preliminary budget in addition to the costs for the proposed 2021 program.”

The cost for the Club Drive project is estimated at $1.3 million.