LANSING – The Michigan Department of Transportation is reaching out to businesses interested in creating a public-private partnership for two rest areas, highway lighting, bridge work and timber management.

In a release sent on Thursday it says the department is accepting letters of interest until mid-August from interested businesses, and Jeff Cranson, spokesperson for the department, said restaurants and food vendors are welcome to send letters of interest for the rest areas.

“This is an information-gathering stage, the first step to starting a conversation about what’s possible in financing and building infrastructure,” said Transportation Director Kirk Steudle in a statement. “We’re looking for innovations that will save taxpayer dollars, improve service and efficiency, and enhance public safety.”

After the department receives the letters of interest, the next steps are requests for qualifications and requests for approvals.

The two rest areas proposed for partnership projects are the Higgins Lake and Houghton Lake facilities along U.S. 127 in Roscommon County. The department is seeking feedback from entities that would be interested in providing improvements or services at one or both of the rest areas.

Freeway lighting projects could include the entire state freeway lighting system, around 18,400 lights, excluding rest areas and facility lighting; lighting in Detroit and Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and St. Clair counties, which covers about 80 percent of the state freeway lighting system; or the tunnel lighting on I-696 in Oakland County and on M-10 underneath Cobo Center in Detroit.

Two bridge projects include replacing the I-75 bridge decks over Fort Street and the Rouge River in Detroit, and reconstructing bridges in four highway corridors:

I-94, from I-96 to Conner Avenue in Detroit;

I-75, from M-102 to M-59 in Oakland County;

I-94, from Elm Road to U.S. 127 in Jackson County; and

I-94, from Euclid Avenue to U.S. 31 in Berrien County.

For the bridge projects, a private sector developer would have a long-term contract to finance, design, construct and maintain the bridges. The new bridges would be expected to last 100 years by using innovative technologies and materials.

The timber management projects would thin out certain forested areas along four highway corridors to sustain and improve forest conditions. They include:

128 miles on U.S. 2 in the Upper Peninsula;

134 miles on I-75 in the northern Lower Peninsula;

78 miles on U.S. 127 in Clare, Gratiot and Isabella counties; and

51 miles on U.S. 131 in Kent, Mecosta and Montcalm counties.

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