A stretch of Northland Drive in Plainfield Township between Cannonsburg Road/West River Drive NE and Belding Road NE will completely close after evening rush hour Friday.
That’s when crews will begin working around the clock for one week installing a pedestrian tunnel.
Kent County Parks Director Ben Swayze explains its part of the Grand River Greenway Initiative.
“A partnership between Ottawa County and Kent County and over a dozen other municipal partners to build a continuous, separated, non-motorized pathway, which will stretch from Grand Haven all the way to Lowell, and then we'll actually connect with a different trail system that goes all the way to Owosso.”
Swayze says there was discussion about leaving one lane open, stretching the project out over months to keep traffic flowing or:
“The other option was to do all of the other work with the road completely open, then pick out about a week where we would close it down completely and have our construction crews working around the clock to basically cut open the road, dig the tunnel, put the tunnel together, and put the road back in order. Ultimately that's what we chose. We figured that a week of a lot of pain was better than 4.5 to 5 months of moderate pain.”
A detour will route drivers east to Myers Lake Road.
Traffic is expected to be heavy.
Northland Drive is scheduled to reopen by Monday, October 5th for the morning commute.
For a weekly dose of news right to your inbox, sign up for the WGVU newsletter.
