Many communities nationwide face the challenge of balancing maintenance of their infrastructure and implementation of capital improvements with limited funding and staffing. To expand their resources, municipalities often employ continuing services contracts with consultants to help implement prioritized projects. Wade Trim has assisted Traverse City, MI, with other infrastructure improvements for the past 10 years and is currently working as a consultant of record under the City’s Civil and Traffic Engineering Continuing Services contract.

Working as an extension of Traverse City’s staff, our project team is conducting various bridge assessments and a range of traffic and signalization studies throughout the community—two major components of the year-long contract. Seven vehicular bridges over the Boardman River in the downtown area have been evaluated by our team. Scour inspections were conducted on all downtown bridges and beam end inspections were performed on the North Union Street bridge to assess and measure section loss. Reports were prepared detailing the current conditions, including engineering sketches, photographs, and repair recommendations.

A full signal optimization study for all of the City’s signalized intersections is underway to provide recommendations for traffic signal timing adjustments to improve traffic flow, reduce delays, and minimize stops. Traffic count analyses will be used to determine rate, frequency, and type of travel on various roadways and intersections. These studies are necessary to support future intersection and road reconfiguration improvements for the City.