The morning commute between Brighton and Ann Arbor is expected to see a massive change this week.
Work is wrapping up along what’s become known as the US-23 Flex Route. The Flex Route is a new concept for Michigan — during peak traffic times an additional lane will be opened up to curb backups.
“It’s very important,” said Diane Cross, a spokesperson or M-DOT. “Anyone who drives southbound heading toward Ann Arbor knows traffic is always stop and go — in the afternoon we see a lot of that heading north.”
The Flex Route construction along the US-23 corridor attacked a few components: the road has been repaved and a number of bridges were replaced. The biggest change for commuters, however, will be the smart boards that hang above the roadway — they’ll direct people to shift over into a third berm lane during peak travel times. That along should relieve traffic by increasing road capacity by 33-percent — the boards will also give real-time messages on the speed of traffic, and whether a driver should merge if there’s an accident ahead.
“In a lot of areas we can’t expand the roadway whether it’s a financial thing, or the location because environmentally we can’t do that, so we think this is a good solution to the problem: more people than we have roadway,” said Cross.
Construction barrels were still in place early Monday morning, but they are expected to be removed this week — possibly as early as Monday afternoon.
MDOT is educating drivers how the new intelligent boards will work by posting an easy tutorial online for those who will soon be driving the route.
