Waters Road paving project expected to begin this fall following final meeting

The final meeting on the paving project will be held Tuesday night at the Lodi Township Hall at 3755 Pleasant Lake Road.

Townsend said he expects the issue to pass the board and anticipates paving crews will be working on Waters Road before mid-November.

In a matter of about three months, Waters Road residents collected about 60 signatures to create a special assessment district for the paving improvements they wanted to see on the roadway, said Roy Townsend, managing director of the Washtenaw County Road Commission.

The Road Commission has agreed to pay two-thirds, or $200,000 of the project cost, while Lodi Township has agreed to pay the remainder of $100,000, Townsend said.

Residents in the special assessment district will then pay the township back for the work.

The Road Commission recently wrapped up a safety improvement project to the same portion of Waters Road this summer.

Trees were removed from shoulders and ditches of the roadway, and drainage from the roadway was improved. Gravel and six inches of limestone were added to the road in August.

The project was necessitated after a number of accidents had occurred on that portion of roadway that involved vehicles running off the road and hitting nearby trees, Townsend said.

In adjacent Pittsfield Township, Waters Road is paved and receives a fair amount of traffic. At the township line between Pittsfield and Lodi, however, the pavement abruptly stops and the dirt road begins.

Crews from the Road Commission have had to grade Waters Road about once a week, Townsend said, as the 1,500 vehicles per day that travel a road built for 500 vehicles per day cause potholes to come back quickly.

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