Stronger, Safer Roads: Kochville Township’s Davis Road Receives Upgrades
KOCHVILLE TOWNSHIP – After years of work, new roadway, drainage, and water main infrastructure upgrades on the east end of the township have been completed
For decades, the 2.2-mile-long stretch of Davis Road offered motorists another route to access businesses along Tittabawassee Road and the Saginaw Valley State University campus. The 20-foot-wide road, which begins at Tittabawassee Road and extends northward to Freeland Road, runs mostly parallel to M-84. It is home to mainly farmland and residential neighborhoods. Portions of it were built directly next to the Kochville Drain.
“It is an old farm road that was never really truly paved,” Michael Niederquell, P.E., Spicer Group’s Director of Transportation Engineering, said. “The road was pretty narrow and there were no shoulders.”
Also buried beneath Davis Road between Pierce Road and Tittabawassee Road were both a 36-inch transmission water main and 48-inch raw water main installed by the City of Saginaw more than 50 years ago. These supplied raw water to the City’s water treatment plant and transmitted finished water to customers.
In 2015, the City of Saginaw had determined they needed to upgrade the water mains to increase the redundancy and operational flexibility of this critical water infrastructure. Because the existing, aging 36-inch water main was also built less than four feet directly beneath Davis Road, the decision was made to re-route the water mains to a safer, more manageable area. The shallow depth of the pipe had the potential to cause catastrophic problems.
In 2016, Spicer Group provided the city with professional engineering services for the design of a water system improvement project. Spicer was also hired by the Saginaw County Road Commission to design the improvements to this section of Davis Road independently from that project.
The water main infrastructure project included the installation of 10,000 feet of new pipe to carry raw water into the system and more than 10,000 feet of pipe to carry finished water out to customers. The new pipe was installed away from Davis Road and in an easement between Pierce and Trautner Road in Kochville Township.
This allowed portions of the existing 36-inch and 48-inch water mains to either be removed or abandoned in place during the road reconstruction project.
Davis Road during construction.
“We did an analysis and based on their locations, one of the water mains is being completely removed, and one will be filled and remain in place,” Niederquell, who is the Project Manager for the Davis Road improvement project said. “Those maintenance headaches will then be out of way for the Saginaw County Road Commission and the City of Saginaw.”
Construction on the water system improvement project began in 2018. Once enough of the below-ground infrastructure was substantially completed, construction could begin on the roadway improvement project.
To bring Davis Road up to county and state standards and make it safer for motorists, Spicer Group’s team designed a 38-foot-wide roadway. This includes 11 feet for each lane, four feet of paved shoulder on each side, and four feet of gravel on each shoulder.
“This design will build a road that has 12 inches of sand sub-base, eight inches of aggregate base, and then the asphalt will be three-and-a-half inches on top of that,” Niederquell said. “The project will use more than 8,300 tons of asphalt.”
To make room for the wider road width, portions of the Branch Number One of the South Branch of the Kochville Drain were relocated for this project.
“The drain was relocated westerly about 30 feet to get it away from the road,” Niederquell said. “This gave us the ability to move the road back onto the section line, which is the center of the road right of way, and we’re able provide that drain a safe slope away from the road.”
Spicer Group assisted in obtaining easements to relocate portions of the drain and obtaining EGLE permits.
New box culverts being installed along Davis Road.
This project also replaced aging and undersized culverts along the drain and road.
A 168-inch-wide by 84-inch-tall concrete box culvert was replaced and relocated away from the intersection of Davis Road and Kochville Road to improve intersection safety. A large culvert along the Kochville Drain was also replaced with a 142-inch tall by 91-inch wide CMP arch culvert.
Niederquell said four large arch culverts were also replaced on field access driveways as part of this project.
Spicer coordinated with local utility companies, such as Consumers Energy, AT&T, and Charter to relocate their infrastructure that was along the roadway. This included relocating a Consumer’s Energy high-pressure gas main that was buried beneath Davis Road.
Construction on Davis Road began in April of this year and is scheduled to finish in October. It is estimated that over the next 10 years, with the newly reconstructed road, the number of vehicles along the road will double.
“Davis Road will go from a road built from nothing to a modern-day high-tech version of what a road should be,” Niederquell said. “Saginaw County will have a roadway that meets all state and federal standards for the classification of roadway that they have.”
Along with the professional engineering services, Spicer Group provided design of the new permanent pavement markings, design of the new signage along the road, traffic detour management, assisted with the bidding process, survey services, construction administration services, and construction inspection on this project.
“Davis Road will go from a road built from nothing to a modern-day high-tech version of what a road should be”