LANSING -As residents of Michigan know, when the weather gets warmer, construction season is on the way.

In Bay City, the biggest project currently ongoing is a 30-month project to replace the Lafayette Bridge with an expected completion date of spring 2027.

“They’re putting metal sheeting to isolate and demolish the concrete support,” said Caitlyn French, the Department of Transportation Bay Region communication representative.

“This will allow them to rebuild the structure over the roadway,” she said.

French said the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Act helps by funding $73 million of the $112 million needed for the project.

“Typically the normal budget for our road and bridge program combined runs around $100 million per year,” said Annette Shelton, the MDOT Bay Region development engineer, “This extra money doubles what we would normally do.”

The Lafayette Bridge is only one of several notable projects in the Bay Region, which covers 15 counties in the eastern part of the state.

Around $85 million is being used for work on the Zilwaukee Bridge, M-20, and other state and interstate projects.

That doesn’t include the I-475 North segment reconstruction in Flint because of a $300 million investment from the Rebuilding Michigan Bond program.

When regional development engineers like Shelton are looking for more projects, they add them to their five-year plan proposal based on urgency.

The proposal is then sent to a committee in Lansing for approval, and once approved the region can start the planning for the projects.

French compared replacing roads and bridges to changing the oil in a car.

“If you don’t get your oil changed, you’re going to be hurt down the road,” French said.”This is important to keep things up and running.”

When it comes to funding, organizations like Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association keep an eye on it.

“We follow the state budget very closely, ” said Lance Binoniemi, the vice president of government affairs for the association.

“If we run out of revenues and nothing is done to pass a long-term road funding plan, it would create job loss in the state,” he said.

Binoniemi and the association create their models through annual reports by the Transportation Asset Management Council.

The reports contain information about trends across the state, project details, how federally aided roads are holding up and predictions of their conditions in the next five to 10 years.

“We monitor all that you see in the funding gap,” Binoniemi said. “We follow the revenues that the state gets for its transportation out of the gas tax and registration fees.”

Binoniemi said the state infrastructure needs to improve, but state spending also needs to be watched and managed carefully.

“We invested a significant amount of money into our roads and bridges from the infrastructure investment that Congress passed in 2020, and those investments run out in 2026,” he said.