The Michigan Department of Transportation will be doing some maintenance on bridges along US-31 and M-139 starting next week.
MDOT Spokesperson Nick Schirripa tells us crews will be working briefly on a total of seven bridges in Berrien County starting Monday.
“Over the next couple months, we’ll be just doing some preventive maintenance work on six US-31 bridges and one M-39 bridge,” Schirripa said. “We’re doing some bridge beam coating and some epoxy crack repairs. Again, seven bridges, but we’re not going to be at any one of them too terribly long. So, hopefully it won’t be too big of an inconvenience for folks. We may be at each bridge for five to ten days at each bridge, and then we’re out of the way and move on to the next one.”
The first bridge will be the M-139 bridge over the St. Joseph River. Among other things, crews will apply silane coating to the structures.
“Silane coating is silicone coating that goes on exposed steel and helps prevent corrosion and rust and just extends the life of those steel beams.”
US-31 will have one lane open in each direction, while M-139 will have one lane of alternating traffic with traffic regulators in the area of bridge work.
Schirripa says each individual bridge will only take about a week, so the inconvenience to drivers should be minimal.
The $746,000 project will continue through October.
