WAYNE COUNTY, Michigan. – A section of Merriman Road in Westland was closed for bridge construction in January 2023 and is still closed.
The closure of Merriman Road at Edward N Hines Drive has been frustrating for motorists and businesses in the area. The closure should have been completed months ago, but construction was delayed.
Road Commission explains delay
Construction was delayed because the bridge had to be redesigned in the middle of the project.
According to the Wayne County Road Commission, “difficulties arose during the installation of the cofferdam for the bridge abutments due to a nearby sewer line that runs parallel to Merriman Road, which meant that additional engineering and planning work was required to ensure the bridge could be built safely. Essentially, the bridge had to be re-engineered in the middle of the project.”
The highway authority apologized for the delay.
Status of repairs
The road resurfacing portion of the project has been completed on Merriman Road between James Avenue and Warren Road. The bridge over the Rouge River now needs to be completed.
Unless further problems arise, construction should be completed by the end of the year. However, the highway authority does not expect any further problems to arise.
Companies suffer from closures
Jeff Kassab manages the Handy Mart across the street from where the store closed and said business has dropped sharply.
“I know that day as ‘the day they ruined my business,'” Kassab said. “There is no customer traffic other than my regular customers. Thank God for them, but there are no new faces because there is no traffic here. It’s just dead.”
Kassab said that when Merriman Road was still open, the Handy Mart would see new customers every day stopping by for a quick bite to eat.
“There’s a lot more airport traffic, just people you’ve never seen before coming through here, but everyone avoids this area,” Kassab said.
Motorists told Local 4 that because of the Merriman closure, it could take up to half an hour to get to the other side of the Rouge River, instead of the quick two minutes.
“It’s pretty inconvenient, you know, because you have a lot of time to shoot yourself in Merriman, and if you can’t do it, it hurts local business here. There’s a guy over here with a restaurant in Merriman, you know, it almost killed him,” said Frank Psaila, a Livonia resident.
“Everything will be OK at some point, because every Monday in winter when I came to work on the old bridge, there were seven cars in my parking lot with their tires bursting from the potholes. It was that bad,” said Kassab.
Kassab said he expects his business to recover. He said Handy Mart has been around for 28 years and there are still some.
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