Construction on ultra-busy Canton roadway just days from completion
Local dignitaries (and one frozen yogurt cone) attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Canton Center Rd. earned notorious award pre-construction
Voted “The Worst Pothole Road” in metropolitan Detroit in a 2017 online survey conducted by a local media outlet, Canton Township’s Canton Center Road — from Ford Road to Warren Road — should be in the running for one of the area’s smoothest stretches once post-construction striping is completed the week of Sept. 12.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the almost-end of the four-month total-replacement project of the pothole-infested street was held Tuesday afternoon with several local dignitaries — and one giant frozen yogurt cone (courtesy of Menchie’s) — on hand to celebrate the achievement.
“This is the first five-lane road replacement project Canton has ever done,” noted Township Supervisor Anne Marie Graham-Hudak. “The three-phase project was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.”
Graham-Hudak said the exclamation point on the project will be the grinding of the road surface which will completely flatten it and get rid of the subtle unevenness.
In addition to making driving gentler on the undercarriage of drivers’ vehicles, the improvements to Canton Center will allow emergency personnel to cut their response times, Graham-Hudak emphasized, “because they won’t have to go around potholes anymore.”
State Representative Ranjeev Puri, who represents the state’s 21st District in Lansing, joked that Canton Center was so rough pre-construction that his new SUV shifted to off-road mode during a short errands-completing trip down the road.
Graham-Hudak said anywhere from 35,000 to 45,000 vehicles drive on Canton Center Road on any given day.
“It’s an important road and why it needed to be fixed as soon as possible,” she said.
Graham-Hudak thanked the business owners who were impacted by the construction project for their patience.
Jacob Matthew Jewelers owner Tammy Haggerty, whose business is located in the heart of the construction project, said she went with the flow during the four months Canton Center was lined with cones, no left turn signs and other traffic-altering barriers.
“Instead of saying, ‘Woe is me’, we tried to make the best of the situation and started road construction sales,” Haggerty said, smiling. “We also encouraged customers to enter their name in a contest. When the construction is completely done, we’ll draw one of their names and they’ll win a gift.”
Once the striping is completed around Sept. 12, there will still be one cone left along Canton Center — the larger-than-life Menchie’s frozen yogurt mascot cone.
But rest assured, it won’t be diverting traffic.
