Caniff repaving project is now underway – prepare to complain

The Caniff Ave. street rebuild project has begun, and yes, it is tying up traffic and causing many inconveniences. Better work out alternative routes because it’s going to take a few months to complete.

By Charles Sercombe
Get ready for a summer of doing the Caniff dodge.
Last week, construction began on Caniff, starting at the I-75 service drive, and it’s likely going to take pretty much the entire summer for the street to be repaved up to Jos. Campau.
The eastbound lane of the street is, at times, open for traffic. The repaving will be done one side at a time. When the westbound side is completed, it will be opened and the eastbound side will be closed.
The city is calling for patience.
“In the end, we’ll have a new street,” said Mayor Karen Majewski during her weekly Monday Facebook update on the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
By now, Hamtramckans should be used to this sort of thing.
In the last two years, construction tied up Holbrook Ave. when that street was repaved from Lumpkin to Conant.
Businesses along that stretch of the street all suffered, and residents were forced to cut through alleys to leave home and return. Expect the same thing to happen to businesses and residents along Caniff.
Not only is there a new street coming, but also lead water lines will be replaced for homes and commercial buildings. Notices were delivered to residences and businesses informing owners, informing them that they must sign off on allowing the city to replace their water lines.
The project is largely being funded by a $1.4 million federal grant. The city has to kick in about $300,000 from its annual state-funded road sign repair grant.
At the same time, the county will be repaving Conant through Holbrook.
So far, final plans for creating a bicycle lane on Jos. Campau are still to be worked out, but that lane installation was expected to take place sometime this summer.
Or maybe not. According to one insider familiar with the project, it’s getting complicated, in a way that only county bureaucrats can muck things up.
And yes, Jos. Campau is a Wayne County-owned road – just like most of Conant.
Just to make this summer even more of a challenge, the city OK’d the repaving of the following alleys this summer:
• Alley 1 – West of Jos Campau between Belmont and Yemans
• Alley 3 – West of Conant between Trowbridge and Belmont
• Alley 4 – West of Conant between Belmont and Yemans
• Alley 5 – West of Conant between Yemans and Evaline
Also included in this year’s alley repair project is the repaving of the parking lot at Caniff and McDougall.
This project is costing the city $440,000, which is being paid by the city’s yearly state-funded road repair grant.
Posted April 23, 2021