LANSING — It’s time to start planning your workarounds for this year’s leg of the long-running U.S. 127 corridor improvement project, which shifts to the north after two years of reconstruction between Interstates 496 and 96 in Ingham County.
Up this season, the fourth year of the six-year slate of projects, is the roughly four-mile stretch of freeway between Interstate 69 in Clinton County south to a point just south of Lake Lansing Road in Ingham County.
Crews will lay asphalt over crushed concrete, upgrade five bridges and do drainage and signage work. They’ll also improve some interchange ramps and install a couple of sound walls on the west side of the freeway.
Work will kick off March 16 and wrap up at the end of the year, the Michigan Department of Transportation said. In 2027 and 2028, MDOT plans to rebuild the remaining 2.3-mile piece of the crumbling old freeway between the stretch being redone this year and I-496.
During a community open house on March 4, Michael Meyer, construction engineer for MDOT’s Lansing region, said the agency opted to pave the section of freeway between I-69 and Lake Lansing Road before redoing the section to the south because the latter project is more technically complex and requires more planning time.
What’s included in this year’s slate of freeway improvements?
This year’s work is estimated to cost about $46 million and is not a full reconstruction, MDOT said.
Crews will start by building crossover lanes so traffic can be shifted to either the northbound or southbound lanes while the other side is being redone, MDOT said. The repaving work will start on the northbound side, with traffic shifted to the southbound side. The agency said it plans to maintain two lanes of northbound traffic and one lane of southbound traffic.
There will be ramp closures at the Lake Lansing Road and I-69 interchanges and some minor work on the Lake Lansing and State Road bridges that will require short closures. Those two bridges will not be closed at the same time, MDOT said.
The agency plans to redo the ramps from eastbound I-69 to southbound U.S. 127 and northbound U.S. 127 to eastbound I-69. Also, two sound walls will go in along the west side of U.S. 127, one north and one south of State Road. That location is near the Michigan State University Federal Credit Union headquarters.
During the first part of the construction season, crews will complete a few tasks left over from last year’s piece of the highway reconstruction between the two interstates, including barrier wall and epoxy work, an MDOT official said during a virtual meeting in early February. Some brief, intermittent ramp closures are likely, he said.
What else is MDOT doing this year in the Lansing area?
The U.S. 127 project is by far the largest of about nine MDOT projects planned for 2026 in Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties.
Drivers affected by the U.S. 127 work might also be impacted by concrete repair planned for I-69 between U.S. 127 and the Shiawassee County line.
The other jobs include resurfacing of M-100 between Doane Road and Strange Highway, as well as parts of M-50, M-79 and M-78 in Eaton County. There also will be work on Old U.S. 27 over the Sperry Irish & Stevens Drain for a culvert replacement, MDOT said.
Also on the schedule are improvements to the Lansing Road/Millett Highway intersection and a high-friction surface treatment on the ramp from westbound I-96 to southbound I-69.
What’s already been done?
This year’s U.S. 127 work is part of a corridor improvement project estimated to cost $205 million. The work began in late 2022 and is expected to continue through 2028.
The project began with resurfacing and other improvements from the Jackson County line to just north of Mason. The state also rebuilt bridges at the U.S. 127/I-496 interchange.
The northbound side of U.S. 127 between Interstates 96 to the south and 496 to the north was torn out and rebuilt in 2024, and the southbound side was rebuilt in 2025. That work required routing all traffic to one side or the other, and drivers had to navigate their way around a number of ramp closures as the work progressed.
Some finishing touches on that phase of the project were expected to be done early in the 2026 road season.
What’s next?
In 2027 and 2028, MDOT will rebuild and realign about 2.3 miles of freeway between I-496 to just south of Lake Lansing Road.
That part of the project is estimated to cost $110 million and will include work on about a dozen bridges.
Additional details have yet to be released.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Year 4 of U.S. 127 rebuild will snarl traffic north of Lansing this year
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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