The Michigan Department of Transportation will begin a roughly three-month chip sealing operation on several roads throughout Southwest Michigan next week.
MDOT’s Nick Schirripa tells us they’ll be working on I-196 and the I-196 Business Loop in Van Buren County and on M-63 in Berrien County and Van Buren County. He says chip sealing is a way to keep a road in good condition.
“That essentially repairs the surface of the road and extends the life of the road without having to do something more dramatic, like a mill and drill, grinding off an inch of the road and adding new pavement,” Schirripa said.
So, how does chip sealing work?
“They will fill the individual cracks and kind of seal them first, and then they go back and they add a layer of tar. And on top of that layer of sticky tar, they add a layer of pea gravel. And then over the course of a week, that pea gravel is literally ground into the road by traffic. It just kind of seals itself and levels itself out.”
That results in a layer of loose gravel that might be present on the road for a few days after the work.
“The most annoying part, as we all know, the chip seal is that little bit of gravel that gets off onto the shoulders and kind of bounces around and really works its way off the roadway pretty quickly. One of the steps they’ll take in some of this is called a fog coat or a fog seal, which is going back over that pea gravel and adding another layer of tar over the top of that so it seals that down as well.”
The $2.9 million chip sealing project begins Monday and will run through September 3. It will result in some single lane closures, but Schirripa doesn’t expect any major traffic delays.
Schirripa reminds drivers to give the work crews plenty of space and to slow down in work zones.
The chip sealing will take place on roughly 27 miles of road. They are
Northbound I-196 from I-94 to M-140 Exit 18.
Southbound I-196 from I-94 to north of Coloma Road.
I-196 Business Loop (BL) from 15th Avenue to south of Alyworth Avenue.
