Berrien County Road Department reveals plans to fix county roads

BENTON HARBOR, Mich – The Berrien County Road Department revealed their 3 year $21-million plan to improve county roads.  

“I think it’s a lot of money but our roads are in desperate need of repair,” Berrien County resident Tracy Fortune said.  

Currently of the approximately 1,500 miles of roads in the county are rated as poor, but the Berrien County Road Department Director Jason Latham plans to flip that to 75-percent of roads rated in good condition by 2029. 

“We’re gonna perform a mix of fixes, we’re going to reconstruct roads, we’ll resurface roads we’ll do seal coats on roads these different types of fixes in such a way to make sure that we get the best road condition possible with the funding that we have available to us,” Latham said. 

Berrien County resident Manoj Chigal said the project is needed.  

“I think it’s a very good idea because I’ve been in the area about three and a half years and especially last week I was driving down the road and I saw a lot of potholes in the road and I’ve lived most of my life in Asia and we don’t tend to have great roads out there and so I was surprised to see the condition of the roads here,” Chigal said  

The road department plans to fix the roads rated as in good or fair condition first then repairing the roads in poor condition next. 

The $21-million dollars of funding will be split evenly over the three years and will be provided through the gas tax, which Governor Whitmer plans on increasing to fix roads statewide and through license and registration fees. 

The road department keeps its residents informed about the state of the roads through many social media networks.

Construction is set to begin April, and last through 2021.