Dixie Highway In Saginaw County Receives Upgrades & Safety Improvements

SAGINAW COUNTY, MI -

Every day, nearly 10,000 motorists travel along a stretch of Dixie Highway in Saginaw County that runs from Junction Road in Bridgeport Charter Township south to Birch Run Road in Birch Run Township, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation’s (MDOT) traffic data. 

Built long before the I-75 corridor existed, Dixie Highway is a main access road and shipping route for local businesses in the surrounding communities. But time, vehicle use, and the ever-present Michigan weather have all taken their toll on the roadway. 

“It had been in rough shape for a long time,” Dan Armentrout, P.E., the Director of Engineering for the Saginaw County Road Commission, said. 

He said the busier intersections in that corridor, such as the intersection of Dixie Highway and Curtis Road in Bridgeport Charter Township, were also the site of many accidents. 

In 2022, the Saginaw County Road Commission received more than $700,000 in MDOT Safety Grant funding and $2 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation for a safety and improvement project to redo nearly seven miles of Dixie Highway. This project included repaving the roadway, reducing the number of travel lanes from four lanes to two lanes, installing a left-turn lane, installing right-turn lanes at intersections, widening all the lanes, paving shoulders, and installing a modern-style traffic roundabout at the intersection of Dixie Highway and Curtis Road. 

Spicer Group was hired by the Saginaw County Road Commission to design the roadway improvements and provide construction engineering for the project. 

Portions of this stretch of Dixie Highway date back to the 1920s, when it was owned and maintained by the State of Michigan. When I-75 was constructed, the state handed over ownership and maintenance of the road to the Saginaw County Road Commission. 

As a previous state highway, the corridor was four lanes wide, giving Spicer’s team more room to work with when designing the roadway and safety improvements, Michael Niederquell, P.E., the Project Manager for Spicer Group, explained.

“We did a lane conversion and put it on a road diet, transforming it from a four-lane road into a three-lane road,” he said. “The traffic data supported that a three-lane road was appropriate for the volume of traffic that road sees, and a three-lane road is safer as well.” 

The four 10-foot-wide lanes and gravel shoulders were transformed into three 12-foot-wide lanes with paved shoulders.  At the county road intersections, right-turn lanes were also added to reduce rear-end crashes by keeping motorists out of the lane of travel while slowing down to turn. The intersection of Dixie Highway and Curtis Road was the site of at least one fatal vehicle crash, prompting the Saginaw County Road Commission to install a roundabout there to slow the flow of traffic and improve safety.

“This modern roundabout has tapers, curves, truck aprons, and islands that are all built to drive on,” Niederquell said. “We designed this for semi-trucks to be able to go through as well, knowing the type of traffic that flows through there.” 

Construction on the project began in April of 2024, with Ace Saginaw Paving Company as the prime contractor. An international hockey tournament in the area required that parts of the project be completed ahead of the original schedule to accommodate the high volume of travelers. 

“We wanted to be able to use the Junction and Dixie intersection, so we changed around the construction schedule to make sure the intersection was done and not under construction during the Memorial Cup at the end of May,” Armentrout said. “It ended up working out very well.”

Construction continued throughout the summer, with crews working in phases to keep traffic moving through the entire corridor.  With the number of homes and businesses along the project route, closing Dixie Highway for construction wasn’t an option. 

“(Dixie Highway) is a truck route and there are no good detours,” Armentrout said. “We had to find a way to keep Dixie moving. We had four lanes to work with to start, so that gave us room to shift traffic during construction.” 

Jon Townsend, the Construction Manager for Spicer Group on the project, said most of the roadway paving and first phase of the roundabout construction was complete by mid-July. Spicer Group construction technicians and inspectors were on site as nearly 75 percent of the paving for the project was completed before July 4. On average, 2,500 tons of asphalt was placed each day, with some days more than 100 asphalt trucks delivering nearly 4,000 tons of asphalt to be laid on the road’s surface in a single day. Townsend said these larger production days allowed for less joints to be placed in the roadway, which ultimately results in a smoother ride. 

The entire roadway improvement project was substantially completed by the end of September 2024.

“Now, Saginaw County motorists get a smooth and safer ride,” Armentrout said. “There is improved safety at the intersections now too. I feel like we have a smoother surface, a quality product, and a safer product.”