Long awaited improvements to a side road near a school in Oceola Township are likely on hold for months to come.

Oceola Township officials have been in discussion with the Livingston County Road Commission and Michigan Department of Transportation over needed repairs to Bigelow Road. Bigelow Road exits onto Latson Road, near M-59 (pictured), and is in a condition there that township Supervisor Bill Bamber calls ‘unsafe.” The Latson Road and M-59 intersection can become highly congested during peak hours and is in close proximity to Hutchings Elementary School. Bamber said the road commission and MDOT seem to think it would be best to have traffic go west on Bigelow to where it turns into Eager Road, and then exit to M-59 there. The problem Bamber sees with that is without a light on Eager Road it would be very difficult for drivers to turn left onto M-59. The Board of Trustees is hopeful that a light will be put in there this year. The best case scenario for the township now seems to be work beginning on the project this fall.

There is needed work to be done clearing brush and repairing a bridge on Eager Road if traffic is expected to be redirected through it. Brush work can’t begin until after October because of the possibility of endangered Indiana Bats being in the area. Work on the Bigelow Road intersection likely can’t start until late this year, or early 2019 because of these factors.

Bamber said they have been trying to get this work done for 3 years now but it seems to be getting nowhere. The supervisor said that every year he thinks it the year to do it, it hasn’t happened. He was skeptical of the new late 2018-19 timeline, saying he hears it, but doesn’t necessarily believe it. Picture courtesy of Google Street View. (MK)