One Of Grand Rapids’ Busiest Bridges To Close Until November, Major Detours Expected

Construction season has begun here in Grand Rapids, and it's starting with one of the year's biggest projects. If you took US-131 to downtown this morning and were forced to take a detour, you'll want to get used to it because it's going to be like that all summer long.

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If you haven't read the LED signs along the highway for the past month, today marks the beginning of the Martin Luther King Jr. St. bridge partial reconstruction project, which will completely demolish and rebuild part of the bridge over the next 7 months.

MLK Jr St. Bridge Reconstruction Project

Getting to and from Downtown Grand Rapids via US-131 will be significantly slowed, as the bridge over 131 will be closed, with traffic detoured via Hall Street, Division Ave., and Century Ave. 

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These closures will only affect northbound on- and off-ramps, while southbound ramps will remain open as usual. It is only replacing the east portion of the bridge (700 feet) east of US-131, hence the southbound lanes are largely unaffected.

The bridge is nearly 100 years old, so it's due for a touch-up. It's one of two major overpass reconstructions happening around Grand Rapids this decade, with the notoriously congested Wealthy St. Bridge recently receiving funding to flip the current design.

The goal of Wealthy St. reconstruction is to lower the interchange to the street level and have the highway go over Wealthy St. rather than the other way around. The project has no start date and is likely still a few years out.