Roads Committee

The Grosse Ile Roads Committee oversees road and bikepath conditions, and serves residents by providing recommendations for repairs and improvement. As a Township, our roads are the property of Wayne County: We rely on the County to be our primary repair and replacement source. Grosse Ile residents recognize the benefits of good roads, and they augment the County’s budget with a millage, to allow us to have better roads than total dependence on County funding might provide. By maintaining our great relationship with the Roads Division of Wayne County, and by careful allocating of our millage funds, we have accomplished several improvements in cooperation with them.

During the last paving season, Elba Road received a badly needed new surface. Several portions of guard railing (some damaged and some simply deteriorated) were replaced on Grosse Ile Parkway and on Meridian Road, by Wayne County Roads Division. Wayne County also worked on several roadside culverts and improved drainage in several parts of the Island.

Our committee successfully pursued an offer made by Wayne County Roads Division to give our residents a 20% subsidy as an incentive to pave gravel roads. We were the first Township in our County to enroll in this five year Wayne County program, and are the first to benefit. By prompt and assertive actions on our part, we enabled several roads the opportunity to be paved, while saving each person who owns property along these roads a significant sum of money. Grosse Ile residents recognize that good roads are an investment that results in increased property values, and Rucker and Lake Roads, to name two, will be paved in 2002, as a direct result of this program.

In 2002, we anticipate seeing the completion of a multi-year total replacement of West River Road, from SouthPointe to the Wayne County Free Bridge. The Township has authorized engineering work to begin on the stretch of West River Road from the Wayne County Bridge, north to its end. This will be a very complicated project, and will be engineered so as to accomplish this roads replacement after all work is completed on the massive sewer separation project that Grosse Ile is currently beginning.

The John Neidhart Memorial Bike Path System remains a showpiece for our community. Several additions were completed in the last year, and Roads Committee has presented a comprehensive outline to the Planning Commission, for incorporation into the Township’s Master Plan, of where our residents tell us they want to see additions to the bike path system. Potowatomi Subdivision, for example, is an area that strongly supports a link to the main bike path system. Perhaps the most exciting new link is one that envisions a path along Grosse Ile Parkway, from Meridian Road, up to and across the Grosse Ile County Bridge, where we would link in Elizabeth Park. This would link our bike path system with a County –wide bike path system which will go from Lake Erie Metro Park up to Detroit. We hope to accomplish this link in 2004, when Wayne County’s preliminary plans call for a periodic overhaul of the County Bridge. Roads Committee will be keeping you fully informed on progress.

Please attend a meeting! Unless unusual conditions occur, we meet every first Tuesday of the month, at 7:30 PM., in the 1st floor Meeting room at the Township Hall. Some of the best things that happen to Grosse Ile’s roads begin with a comment made by an attendee. We want your input!

On Behalf of Our Committee,

Walter J. Pociask, Chair
Woody Clark - Secretary
Rodger M.Will, Board Liaison

Phone and Fax - (734) 676-1763

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