95.3 / 88.5 FM Grand Rapids and 95.3 FM Muskegon
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

M-6 crumbling near Grand Rapids years ahead of schedule

pothole in road
Uncl3dad via Wikimedia | Public Domain image
/
wikimedia.org
File photo of pothole.

State highway officials say concrete is crumbling on a three-mile stretch of the M-6 freeway south of Grand Rapids years before it should've started deteriorating.

Michigan Department of Transportation spokesman John Richard tells WOOD-TV that transportation officials are blaming the failure on a shortage in the natural resin used in highway concrete when the freeway was built about a dozen years ago.

He says crews were forced to use synthetic resin on the project.

The department plans to spend $10 million to tear out and rebuild the stretch of M-6 between Kent and Ottawa counties in 2018.

The nearly 20-mile freeway was completed in 2004 at a cost of $700 million.

The state spent almost $2 million to fix crumbling asphalt on the east end of the freeway in 2009.

Related Content