By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


The Tyrone Township Board is weighing potential road projects for the coming year.

At a recent virtual meeting, the board discussed possible road projects to consider for the Livingston County Road Commission’s Primary Road Pavement Preservation Program. It was stated during the meeting that all local roads are way underfunded so the county has been focusing on paving primary roads through cost sharing agreements with local municipalities in which each party pays 50%. The township doesn’t have a road millage and thus has to budget for projects. Supervisor Mike Cunningham noted the budget surplus won’t be as bountiful as in the past as they did a lot of things at the township this year but said they’ll still have a surplus. He said they’ve been putting a lot of money into roads the last few years and will be carrying over just a little bit over $500,000 into this year.

The board discussed various roads in need of attention and potential projects to get quotes on from the county. Cunningham said when it comes to gravel roads; Whitaker Road to the north end of the township had limestone added over ten years ago. He commented that once it gets beat down, it turns to a very fine dust that gets all over vehicles and isn’t pleasant. There was some initial talk of putting done new limestone but the point of that was questioned because other roads are getting new gravel. It was stated that gravel is actually cheaper and the residents would likely be happier with the gravel than all of the limestone dust.


The board agreed it didn’t want to get too crazy with projects and would get an estimate for the gravel on Whitaker and an estimate to repave White Lake Road from Carmer to Hartland Road and see how those estimates come back. It was also agreed to get an estimate for some possible chip seal work on Old US-23, which was paved ten years ago in the area from White Lake Road all the way down. Cunningham said they want to keep that in as good shape as possible; especially when the township has master plan that calls for development in that area because you don’t want to market potential property with really bad roads.

The township also budgets for chloriding every year and members agreed that they didn’t want to totally deplete the road fund just because the money is there. The item was just for discussion and there was consensus to get the various estimates and determine what projects would be most beneficial and affordable.