HOUGHTON – While road and waterway repairs are underway, ways to address traffic in Houghton are being discussed according to City Manager Eric Waara and Houghton Police Chief John Donnelly. The two officials addressed the city council of during Wednesday’s regular meeting. Donnelly said he and Waara met with MDOT Wednesday morning regarding local traffic and pedestrian crossings on Shelden Avenue.

“We haven’t had a lot of people hurt downtown crossing the street, but every time we make a decision on Shelden Avenue, we’re causing a further backup on M-26 in front of Dunkin’ now, and if you look back over the last four or five years where people are getting hurt, it’s that area,” Donnelly said. “I know you want to make easily walkable and stuff like that, but we also want to keep everybody safe, and we want to take that into account as we’re making decisions about how to make the downtown more walkable because the more we cause stacking out there, the more people are getting hurt.”

Donnelly said the city and MDOT have a lot of ideas regarding pedestrian crossing with various scenarios. He said he is optimistic that by next year those ideas can be presented to try and help the situation. Donnelly explained the problem of the Portage Lift Bridge and its choke point comes from decisions that have been made over 75 years regarding the traffic route. Several factors such as the land layout and the bridge being the only crossing between Houghton and Hancock create a complex situation in which engineers over the years have tried various scenarios to create a steady flow of traffic.

Waara explained another problem comes from drivers trying to take shortcuts which pushes the problem to different places. Waara shared that during the meeting with MDOT it was discussed that stoplights, crosswalks and stop signs can have a ripple effect to traffic since people will go out of their way to avoid them. Waara said MDOT is in the process of trying to make it less convenient for people to take shortcuts.

Donnelly said certain things need to prioritized with the potential ideas. “How do we get people on the bridge efficiently? How do we eliminate the stacking out of M26 where people are getting injured and how do we make it make where you can get across the block?” he asked.

Donnelly said a new member of the Houghton Police Department will be joining soon after graduating the academy on Friday.

Waara shared paving has been going on for road repairs and driveway slabs along with repairs to water service leaks and a couple block sewers. One of these biggest paving jobs was on Sixth Street. Waara said it was standard fare for any time of the year. The annual lead and copper samples were recently collected with results expected in September and will be shared with the city.

The floating dock has been completed near Bridgeview and signage will soon be present to indicate where and how boaters need to park their boats.

Waara updated the council on the the workings of regular meetings between local officials and representatives from Michigan Tech he is calling a “coffee clutch.” These talks will ensure local municipalities and the university are aware of each other’s plans and ongoing projects.

“I met with Dr. Koubek at Michigan Tech about kind of forming a coffee Klatch at Michigan Tech and he’s got some folks from his executive team. I’d like to get folks from our end. We haven’t set a schedule yet. We wanted to make sure maybe somebody like the mayor would like to meet with Michigan Tech, just to kind of talk about what’s going on here, what’s going on there, where we cross over,” Waara said.

Waara asked Mayor Robert Backon if he would be interested in attending, and Backon said yes. Other individuals Waara is considering for the coffee clutch include a representative from the city planning commission and Donnelly.

The city applied for a water infrastructure grant through MEDC to which the city received a letter of interest inviting it to continue with the rest of the application. The process will continue in September.

“Right now, MEDC has got us doing all of these things to set up for that. So I feel very confident about that. That was for water work between Franklin and Dodge up in the Houghton Avenue South Avenue area with some of the older pipe in town, and that grant was a $1.5 million towards $2 million project,” he said.