West Branch DDA approves LED lighting for pathway project

West Branch Downtown Development Authority's upcoming pathway project is closer to becoming reality after the DDA approved a motion to add 84 energy-efficient LED lights to the pathway at a March 7 meeting.According to DDA Administrator Steve Steinhauser, the lights will be installed along a pathway from "Hamburger Hill" to the M-55 intersection, giving people in West Branch a safe and lighted area to walk on along that stretch of road.Steinhauser said the lighting and pathway construction portion of the project is currently estimated to cost just over $700,000, but a start date is still up in the air.
"We're hoping to get the project started in late summer or early fall of this year," Steinhauser said. "We're going to push to get it done this year."The project has been held up while the DDA was trying to convince the Michigan Department of Transportation to let them complete the project alongside MDOT's 2012 West Branch Business Loop Improvement Project, which will make improvements along the majority of the I-75 business loop from exit 212 to exit 215.
Steinhauser said MDOT told the DDA that the project likely wouldn't be able to be completed in conjunction with the improvement project.While the lighting and pathway construction may be completed down the line, the DDA will be able to complete the proposed addition of two wooden bridges for the pathway during MDOT's project this spring."We voted in February to approve putting in two bridges, one across the Rifle River near the Team Hodges dealership and one across Eddy Creek at the railroad track," Steinhauser said.
Steinhauser said the project has already been contracted to York Bridge Concepts, of Florida, and will begin this spring.With the bridges, Steinhauser said the total estimated cost of the entire pathway project will top $1.2 million."We haven't contracted the lighting and pathway construction out yet, but we will at least be able to get the bridges put in this spring," Steinhauser said. "It really depends on how the MDOT project goes if we're going to get the lights and pathway put in this year. We're optimistic that the entire project can be completed before next winter, but there are still many things we have to get worked out before that happens."By a vote of 6-2, with Jack Benson abstaining, the city council approved the purchase of some 27,000 new LED and induction street lights."It's gonna go from the orange haze that you see, to a daylight color," Lepard says. "And, it'll make it easier on the eyes to see objects and to see people and it should make a big difference."