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Oak Parkers will need detours across I-696
while MDOT completes drainage repairs.
Dalia Drissman, 6, walks
home every school day
through Victoria Park
with her babysitter.
Louis Finkelman | Contributing Writer
T
he Michigan Department of
Transportation plans extensive
repairs to the I-696 overpass in
Oak Park. From March to November,
MDOT intends to divert Church Street and
the walking paths through Victoria Park,
as workers remove more than 4 feet of soil
and other materials to redesign the drain-
age system of the plaza.
Steve Minton, MDOT project manager,
says the repair work to correct drain-
age problems includes a waterproofing
membrane, a robust drain tile system and
a special soil mix developed to enhance
drainability. MDOT expects the repairs to
cost $4 million.
If you drive on
I-696 in Oak Park this
time of year and look
up, you can see huge
icicles hanging from the
underside of the bridge.
During a thaw, the icicles
can come crashing down,
threatening to damage
Erik Tungate
any vehicle below. Oak
Park City Manager Erik Tungate explains
the repairs are needed to divert water from
its current path and prevent a buildup of
icicles.
The first step of the work has already
begun. In December 2015, workers
destroyed dozens of trees on the overpass
plaza.
“My first reaction was sadness about the
MDOT Explains Plans
Thirty years ago, Michigan used new tech-
nology to build a broad plaza over I-696 in
Oak Park. Now the Michigan Department of
Transportation has decided the plaza needs
extensive repairs, including updating materi-
als.
During this work, the project will feature
clearly marked detours for pedestrian and
vehicular traffic.
A delegation of engineers from MDOT
presented plans at the Feb. 1 Oak Park City
Council meeting.
Raja Jildeh, bridge designer and project
manager, says in the current configuration,
water leaks through the overpass and freezes
in huge icicles. Smaller repairs to block each
16 February 18 • 2016
trees,” said Sharon Brown, whose house
looks out on Victoria Park. “I am a tree
person, and it is sad to see them cut down
so many trees.”
MDOT says it had to remove the trees in
the winter, when no bats would be nesting
there so when the migratory bats arrive in
the spring, they safely roost in the remain-
ing trees. Local bat colonies need protec-
tion because huge numbers have been lost
to white nose disease, a devastating fungus
infection.
Tungate recognizes these repairs will
inconvenience the Orthodox Jewish popu-
lation of Oak Park. He notes that more
than 25 years ago, when planners first
designed the extension of I-696 through
Oak Park, the city successfully fought to
include a wide plaza over the highway,
allowing foot traffic along with ballfields,
playgrounds and parkland.
The city manager observes that “the
Orthodox Jewish community is a walking
community.” Observant Jews, who do not
drive on the Sabbath, attend synagogues or
visit friends on the other side of Oak Park;
some cross the plaza several times in the
course of a single Shabbat.
For example, Hadassah Werner lives in
Oak Park just east of the plaza. Her family
attends Bais Chabad of North Oak Park,
west of the plaza. When work on the plaza
begins, they will have to use a detour to
get to synagogue and back.
“The work will present a challenge while
leak would just move the water to another
pathway.
“It is difficult to get ahead of the problem a
bit at a time,” Jildeh said. MDOT plans to clear
away material down to the bridge structure,
and replace each layer with up-to-date
materials. “We have learned a great deal
about this kind of structure in the past
decades. If we knew then what we know
now, it would be a totally different structure.”
The waterproof membrane spread over
the bridge structure amounted to new tech-
nology 30 years ago. Jildeh explained these
early membranes were primitive, and work-
ers did not always understand how to install
them. In fact, repair workers now have
found that early versions of the membrane
they are doing it, but they need to do it for
“The playground will be installed by
safety’s sake,” she said. “It is an inconve-
the city of Oak Park and will most likely
nience, but I can’t complain. I am happy
be somewhat different than the current
they are taking care of our safety.”
design,” said Steve Minton, MDOT project
Her neighbor Ezra Drissman has a simi- manager.
lar attitude.
Sheyna Wexelberg-Clouser lives just east
“It is necessary; let’s do it if it makes the of Victoria Park. “It is a treasure to have the
road stronger and better,” he said. Every
park right out my front window,” she said.
Shabbat morning, he walks across Victoria
“I hope they will replace everything as
Park from east to west to get to Young
it is now: the playground, the baseball dia-
Israel of Oak Park, and later home from
mond, the paths for walking and biking,
west to east. He sees the projected detour
and the sledding hill. This feel like a real
as “a minor inconvenience.”
community. It is lovely. It would be a detri-
The plaza has value as a path across Oak ment if they do not rebuild it as it is now
Park, but it also has value as a destination. because it is vital for our community.
“My kids love the park,” Werner said.
“I trust Oak Park,” she said. “The city
“They like to play there all the time,
will do the right thing.”
spring, summer and fall.
The whole neighborhood
comes out to play in the
park, especially in spring.”
Drissman says he and
his daughter, Dalia, 6,
will need to find another
place to play when the
playground in the park is
closed.
The city of Oak Park
constructed that new play-
ground recently at consid-
erable expense. Drissman
hopes the state and city
have coordinated efforts to
restore the playground as
Victoria Park was built over I-696 to bridge the community;
part of the repairs.
upcoming work will create detours for many residents.
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were sometimes installed upside down.
Nanette Alton, landscape architect, clari-
fied plans for replacing everything on the
plaza “in kind,” amounting to an upgrade
for each component. The mulch floor of the
current playground holds too much water;
the new poured floor will drain more effec-
tively, and require less maintenance. The
current soil stresses trees; the new layer of
structural soil will provide a better medium
for tree roots. The recently destroyed trees,
according to Alton, “managed to survive”
in shallow soil, but they will be replaced by
more than 175 trees of species more likely
to thrive.
Alton says the completed plaza will have
all the features of the current plaza, includ-
ing walkways, benches, ballfields, overhead
lighting and playground. The current con-
figuration has eight benches; the finished
project will have 14.
Mayor Marion McClellan noted the impor-
tance of having shade trees behind the
benches for the comfort of mothers watch-
ing their children play on hot days. Alton
assured her the plans took this need into
account.
Steve Minton, MDOT project manager,
said it will take an aggressive effort to finish
the structural parts of this project in seven
months, so landscaping and planting can
begin in the spring of 2017.
For details, go to 1.usa.gov/1LjTV6V.
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— Louis Finkelman
Photos by Brandon Schwartz
Plaza Update