Charles E. Ramirez and Christine Ferretti

The Detroit News

Romulus — Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said Thursday the county is bolstering its $30 million road improvement plan by hiring 50 seasonal employees and spending nearly $4 million on 62 new pieces of equipment.

Under the plan, the county will tackle 16 road improvement and reconstruction projects this road construction season. He said the projects were picked in collaboration with communities and prioritized by need. Funding for the projects will come from a combination of state and federal transportation dollars.

“This isn’t going to fix all of the bad roads in Wayne County and I’m not suggesting that it is,” Evans said. “But ... with the funds we have, we picked the projects that were the most important to the most people. Hopefully as funding increases in the upcoming years, we’ll be able to do what we can with the others.”

Evans made the remarks during a news conference Thursday morning at the county’s road maintenance yard on Goddard near Metro Airport in Romulus.

The county executive said the improvements, which will focus on 21 communities in Wayne County, are scheduled to begin this month and wrap up by November.

Two roads are slated to have sections reconstructed under the plan: Sibley between Toledo and Allen roads in Brownstown Township and Six Mile between Northville and Haggerty roads in Northville Township.

Andy Linko, Brownstown Township’s supervisor, said his community welcomes relief on Sibley. The county did some temporary repair work on the road last year, he said.

“We appreciate the county recognizes the need for repair work to be done on Sibley,” Linko said. “We’ve been working with the county on this for some time and we’re extremely pleased it’s doing the project in our township. We look forward to future road construction and maintenance projects between the county and the township.”

Meanwhile, eight other sections of roads in Allen Park, Belleville, Detroit, Garden City, Lincoln Park, Southgate, Taylor, Trenton, Van Buren Township, Westland and Woodhaven will be resurfaced.

County work crews also will patch concrete on Baseline between Newburgh and Farmington roads in Livonia and Eureka between Middlebelt and Inkster in Romulus.

Evans said the county will use more than 36,000 tons of asphalt this season to repair primary and local roads. It also will use more than 6,600 tons of cold patch to fill potholes.

cramirez@detroitnews.com

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