Northern Mich. U.S.-31 has detour for holiday travelers

Near the tip of Michigan’s mitt, a spring has been bubbling deep underground for months, just so it could mess with Labor Day drivers.

Last week, the hidden stream gave state taxpayers a $1.2-million soaking when it collapsed pavement on U.S.-31 in Emmet County. No one was hurt, but engineers say they need 80 semi-truckloads of rock to shore up 200 feet of damage.

Bound to aggravate people more than the price tag, though, is the timing. Highway officials announced this week that a detour around the problem will last through Labor Day weekend – the very time when the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) prides itself on having construction sites open to traffic.

“We do try to pull the orange barrels aside,” said James Lake, spokesman for MDOT in the northern Lower Peninsula.

The timing is exactly why this detour on country roads, starting about 25 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge, could cause traffic backups, even though it's roughly the same distance that motorists would drive had roadwork not been under way.

There is also an alternate route -- Interstate 75 -- that takes travelers headed to the UP more to the east.

On Labor Day, this rural spot in Michigan's highway network is expected to be the conduit for an estimated 14,000 vehicles – more than double its usual volume -- as hordes of motorists rush pell-mell to the Mackinac Bridge, psyched to join the big annual bridge walk.

For metro Detroiters, the 58th annual bridge walk won't compete with this weekend’s Jazz Fest in Detroit, nor with the Ford Arts, Beats & Eats festival in Royal Oak. As well, the usual Labor Day parades are scheduled in Detroit and Hamtramck.

In northern Michigan, though, strolling across the Straits is a marquee event. AAA Michigan predicts that about 1.2 million Michiganders will take road trips over the four-day Labor Day weekend, the highest mark since the pre-recession travel volume of 2008. Gasoline prices should average more than a $1 a gallon cheaper than last year, lowest for any Labor Day since 2004 – another lure to tourism, AAA Michigan spokeswoman Sue Hiltz said.

"After all, it's the last hurrah of summer," Hiltz said. For this year’s bridge walk, organizers expect 40,000 people – 10,000 more than last year, she said. They'll make the 5-mile walk from north to south, starting at 7 a.m., with Gov. Rick Snyder set to uphold tradition by leading the way.

“That guy walks fast,” said Chris Christensen, 43, of Boyne City, who walked just behind Snyder a few years ago. Christensen is planning to make his ninth bridge walk with wife Sara Christensen, 39, and any other family members they can recruit. They’ll dodge the washed out highway detour by taking county roads over to I-75, he said.

But plenty of others may need to do the same. Would-be walkers have until 11 a.m. to get to the start of the bridge walk in St. Ignace, after navigating the yearly crush of cars, buses and pedestrians that jam both ends of the bridge, beginning well before dawn and limiting bridge traffic to one lane each way. The last thing anyone hoping to check off a bucket-list bridge walk is running into a highway detour 20 minutes south of the goal.

Bridge-walk wannabes likely to get caught in the backup will be coming from the tourist havens of Harbor Springs, Petoskey, Charlevoix and points between. Even those who duck the detour by making a beeline to I-75 on the way north could get caught coming home “when a lot of people like to take a leisurely route home,” and so they might be tempted to head south from Mackinaw City on U.S.-31, Christensen said.

The sunken, water-logged trouble spot on U.S.-31 is halfway between the small towns of Brutus and Alanson, on a two-lane highway with a speed limit of 55 m.p.h. The official state detour is barely any farther in mileage but bound to be slower on a rural, county road that includes about 50 yards of a dirt-road access drive from US-31. Luckily, the collapse didn’t cause any injuries or wrecks when pavement began sinking a few hundred yards from the Maple River Animal Clinic.

"It's a big hole and it's deep and there's water on the bottom of it," said clinic receptionist Mary Hemstreet. "If they go through the pylons and hit that hole, they're going to regret it," Hemstreet said with a chuckle.

Her clinic's outgoing voicemail tells callers to hit 5 for details on using the detour. Yet the temporary route isn’t mentioned on state websites that extol the thrills of walking the bridge, including those of the Mackinac Bridge Authority the Pure Michigan tourism campaign. Nor is there anything in the bridge-walk promotions on the St. Ignace city website. The AAA Mobile App does show a long red line on U.S.-23 that indicates an impassible stretch in that area; see AAA.com/mobile, free to anyone.

The road closure is scheduled to last until Sept. 11, warned Lake at MDOT's field office in Gaylord. The detour "will be quite well marked," he said. Highway crews have installed temporary stop signs, giving bridge-bound traffic priority over local drivers on Emmett County's rural Milton Road. Moreover, the alternate route is hardly any farther in mileage.

"But with it being a holiday weekend, there is the potential for congestion," Lake said, in tones of official understatement. He suggested avoiding the area altogether. Instead, when northbound Mackinac Bridge walkers reach the traffic light in downtown Alanson -- population 742 -- they should take M-68 east to Indian River to connect there with I-75.

"That's about 15 miles farther, but with the higher speeds on I-75, it might end up being faster," Lake said.

He added: "Certainly, the last thing we want to do is make for an unpleasant experience in going to this event."

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com or 313-223-4485.