The Berrien County Road Department is being asked to keep a closer eye on traffic in Niles following the recent completion of a Michigan Department of Transportation project.
Curran told colleagues at Thursday’s meeting the flow of traffic has been affected in a potentially dangerous way.
“I think we’re going to ask the road department to keep track of maybe some traffic flows down in Niles because of what MDOT did at M-51 and 3rd Street with US-12,” Curran said.
Just last month, MDOT completed a rebuilding project in that location that culminated in a new intersection. The project replaced the freeway interchange with an at-grade intersection of US-12 and M-51 featuring Michigan Lefts. However, Curran said some mapping software hasn’t noticed yet.
“If you, on your phone, Google directions from, say, Merritt Elementary School, and you want to go to St. Joe, Google doesn’t recognize M-51 or 3rd Street as being able to turn left. So if there are directions, they will take you down Bell all the way to Bond.”
Curran said that change in traffic could result in more crashes. He wants the road department to keep an eye on crash numbers to find out by how much. He also said he believes MDOT should reimburse the county for what it’s doing to the roads.
Curran made the report to commissioners after a discussion with Berrien County Road Department Director Mark Heyliger this week.
