By Meg Peters
Review Staff Writer
Road construction scheduled this summer will improve three different problematic areas in Orion Township.
Asphalt resurfacing began on Joslyn Rd., from Waldon to Clarkston, on May 5. The Road Commission of Oakland County will lay an additional one and a half inches of asphalt to the road surface utilizing a federal grant costing a total of $815,000.
The RCOC paid about half and Orion Township kicked in the rest. The project is expected to be done by about June 15.
A competitive local bridge funding program selected the Paint Creek bridge for bridge replacement on Orion Road over the Paint Creek River in Oakland Township. Bridge reconstruction will begin in late June and is expected to end by Labor Day.
Drivers will be detoured along Rochester Rd. to Stoney Creek Rd. and back to Orion Rd., and vice versa.
Recent road funding redirected by the state in surplus dollars’about $215 million’has also trickled down to Orion Township for a project scheduled in late summer on Orion Rd. About $800,000 of the $6 to $7 million in the State Roads Risk and Reserve Fund dedicated to Oakland County will be used to resurface Orion Rd. from Flint St. in Orion Township to Rochester Rd. in Rochester Hills.
A computer program that monitors surface conditions of roads in Oakland County prioritized the simple overlays scheduled for this summer, RCOC?’Public Information Officer Craig Bryson said, dividing roads into those which need resurfacing, reconstruction or replacement.
‘In this case it is simple overlays,? Bryson said. ‘Waldon Rd. is definitely worse and we are seeking funding. The funding required to do these little projects is nowhere near what is required to do Waldon.?
State surplus funding was divided into two segments. The first $100 million was dedicated to emergency winter maintenance and was divided between counties, where the other $115 million will be awarded project by project statewide.
The RCOC has submitted a project request for Waldon Rd. to this second tier of funding, which must be decided by the state by July 1 or else funding is redirected once again.