By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
VASSAR — On Monday morning, as Vassar Public Schools students return to school, motorists traveling through Vassar will learn traffic on the M-15 bridge over the Cass River has been reduced to one lane as part of a $5.3 million replacement of a bridge built in 1938, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president.
State officials plan to start using temporary traffic lights to restrict traffic to one lane about 8 a.m. — school starts at 8:20 a.m. — according to state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Anita Richardson.
There will be only one lane of traffic crossing the bridge until workers complete the project by the end of October in 2015.
“I’m glad to see this happening. I’ve lived here my entire life and that’s the same bridge that’s been there since I was a kid,” said Terry Mocny Jr., 34, of Vassar. “I remember the flood of 1986 and that put stress on it.”
About 9,000 cars cross the bridge daily, on average, according to Richardson. When workers erected the bridge in 1938, the top hit song recordings included “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” by Ella Fitzgerald, and “Begin the Beguine” by the Artie Shaw Orchestra.
Workers will remove the existing bridge and replace it within 13 months, Richardson said. Steve Todd, 70, of Vassar Township said he wasn’t aware the project would last that long.
“We’ll just have to see how the traffic goes when they get it set up,” Todd said Friday.
Crews completed their last major work on the bridge in 1980 when they installed a bridge-deck overlay. Mocny called the bridge replacement “a necessary evil” and said he has seen evidence of the crumbling bridge while fishing the Cass River below it.
“You can see where pieces of concrete have fallen out and you can see the rebar inside,” Mocny said.
This week, workers placed temporary traffic signals at M-15 and Cass Avenue, and on M-15 before it meets East Huron Avenue. Crews will activate the signals Monday morning to alternate traffic flow on a single lane over the bridge.
Vassar Township resident Doug Wischmeyer, 59, urged all motorists to show patience.
“I think this (project) is great, and that way we have a new bridge and we don’t have to worry about falling in (the river),” Wischmeyer said.
If Vassar residents become upset about the project, they’ll get over it, Wischmeyer said.
“In a year, it’ll all be done and gone and we’ll say ‘Man, we made it through it,’” Wischmeyer said. “If they wanna get across the river, give ’em a canoe. They’ll make it. As a matter of fact, you can walk across this river. I’ve done it many times when I was a kid.”
For drivers avoiding the M-15 bridge in Vassar, the next-closest bridges over the Cass River are along Caine Road — about four to five miles from the M-15 bridge depending on which side of the bridge a driver leaves from — and along Ormes Road, about 5.5 to 6.5 miles from the M-15 bridge.
Mocny predicted traffic “bottlenecks” in Vassar from 7 to 8:30 a.m. on weekdays when traffic travels to school, and from 3 to 4 p.m. when traffic leaves school.
But Gail Fuller of Vassar Township said drivers will make the attitude adjustment next week.
“They’ll get by,” Fuller said, “as long as they got one lane open.”