Water line work to close lanes on several Traverse City streets

Lane closures, lane shifts and sidewalk closures hit the 800 block of W. Front Street, the 400 and 600 blocks of E. State Street, the 100 and 200 blocks of Franklin Street, the 500 and 600 blocks of Washington Street and the 300 block of Wellington Street during the week of June 8. The work cut through Traverse City’s downtown core, where drivers, pedestrians, downtown workers and delivery crews all had to move through the same utility zone.

The city said the disruption was tied to its water service line replacement program, part of a broader effort under Michigan’s 2017 Lead and Copper Rule. Traverse City said a galvanized water service is treated as a lead service line if it is or ever was connected to a lead gooseneck, and the replacement effort is aimed at removing private galvanized service lines that meet that standard. The city says it has no known fully lead service lines.

That maintenance sits inside a five-year water and clean water investment plan totaling $48 million. Traverse City received a $3,510,500 DWSRF loan and a $1,504,500 DWI grant in 2022, along with a separate $2 million grant from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy to help pay for the work.

The city says roughly 750 galvanized lines meet replacement criteria. Since the program began, 554 service lines will have been replaced, including 121 in 2023, 218 in 2024 and 215 in 2025, with 162 more planned for 2026. The current round of street work is part of that larger push, which city officials say began in late April and has continued block by block through the summer construction season.

The impact is especially sharp downtown, where Traverse City’s core mixes shops, restaurants, galleries, public events and civic activity. The Downtown Traverse City district depends on steady foot traffic and deliveries, so even short sidewalk closures can spill into the customer experience for merchants along the corridor. City staff had also said residents and businesses would retain unrestricted access to their properties during the broader project, even as lane restrictions slowed traffic past the work sites.

The utility work also landed as water issues remained active elsewhere in Grand Traverse County. Grand Traverse County Public Works posted a boil-water notice for East Bay Township on June 9, another reminder that water infrastructure repairs and service alerts were still shaping daily life across the county.