Director outlines 2025 roadwork and 2026 priorities for Alger County

Director (Speaker 2) opened the board’s review with an overview of the Road Commission’s network and 2025 work, noting the commission “has nearly 500 miles of local roads and maintains 112 miles of state highway.” He said the commission used a mix of township millages, federal-aid and grants to complete paving, gravel and drainage projects last year.

The director listed several 2025 projects: a prefabricated steel bridge deck placed on Capitol Hill Road, extensive paving in Munising Township coordinated with that township’s two-mill, five-year millage, and underdrain repairs at US-41 near the Whitefish Bridge. He described grant-funded work on H-58 supported by a US Fish and Wildlife award and said the Allen-Johnson bridge was recently bid and will be awarded to Hebert Construction.

The director provided unit-cost context: “A chip seal is about $25,000 per layer,” and paving averages “around $220,000 a mile,” which board members used to discuss maintenance cycles and trade-offs between chip sealing and full pavement. He also said the commission targets about 25 miles of pavement marking each year to keep a multi-year reapplication schedule for primary routes.

Looking ahead, the director identified 2026 federal-aid priorities including two miles of crushing, shaping and paving on Evan Trenary Road and continuing bridge-program applications (Kivimaki replacement and Woodland Bridge) through design and funding phases. He told the board he would apply for federal-local bridge funds where appropriate and noted the commission’s preference to balance in-house work with local contractors to avoid undercutting the market.