There’s a way for many summer travelers and busy delivery trucks to bypass Traverse City if they want to avoid the area’s busiest roads like Division, Grandview Parkway, and S. Airport Road. It’s a bypass that connects Chums Corner with the east side of Traverse City using Keystone and Beitner Roads.
Traffic is a hot issue in Traverse City, yet much of the debate focuses on how to move traffic from one area to another, rather than ways to actually reduce it. Unless we give visitors and workers more options for getting around, congestion will increase.
South Airport Road, the region’s main east-west route, is choked with industrial parks, strip-malls, fast food joints-and lots of cars. It’s a busy road for motorists, and dangerous for people who bus, bike or walk. But a series of small changes, like improving those inefficient traffic lights, could keep you moving.
There are a few ways to improve flow so the parkway can better handle traffic and, at the same time, become safer for those who want to cross between downtown and the lake.
Some major fixes to our local roads are on the way thanks to a state general fund surplus found earlier this year. The projects includes $500,000 for a Division Street study, $1 million to replace the aging Front Street bridge in downtown Traverse City, and money for street repairs in the villages of Kingsley and Fife Lake.
Improving Division is just one piece of a broad set of strategies to reduce congestion in the Traverse City area. Others strategies include improving Grandview Parkway and S. Airport Roads, upgrading Keystone and Beitner Roads; and making it easier for people to get around without a car.