The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is investing $43.9 million in the city of Portage to reconstruct nearly 2 miles of I-94. Included in the project:

• Widen I-94 from four to six lanes, three lanes in each direction.
• Reconstruct the Westnedge Avenue interchange with a more efficient Single Point Urban Interchange (SPUI) design.
• Install a new traffic signal on South Westnedge Avenue.
• Widen approximately 1,600 feet of South Westnedge Avenue to accommodate the new interchange and remove the traffic bottleneck posed by the existing bridge carrying I-94 traffic over South Westnedge Avenue.
• Rebuild four bridges.
• Provide screening walls.
• Upgrade existing freeway signing.
• Construction of two new detention basins to improve water quality discharged to the west branch of Portage Creek.

• 2009: Work will consist mostly of improvements to the existing roadway that are required prior to beginning major reconstruction of the South Westnedge Avenue interchange in 2010. Work also will begin on the bridge carrying I-94 over the Grand Elk Railroad and Portage Creek. This work will require closure of this segment of the Portage Bicentennial Park Trail Way through the fall of 2011. The work in 2009 will be accomplished using nighttime lane closures and will have little impact on traffic flow on South Westnedge Avenue or I-94.
• 2010: Construction will begin on the eastbound lanes of I-94, as well as on the new bridges carrying I-94 over South Westnedge Avenue and the Grand Elk Railroad. This work will require all lanes of traffic to be shifted onto the existing westbound I-94 roadway. More info
• 2011: When construction begins on the final phase of the project, westbound I-94 traffic will be shifted onto the new eastbound I-94 roadway and work will begin on the new westbound lanes and the new bridges carrying I-94 over South Westnedge Avebue and the Grand Elk Railroad. More info