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100th Street Bridge Over US-131 Struck – Again

Posted at 9:00 PM, Mar 22, 2018
and last updated 2018-03-22 21:01:11-04

BYRON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — For the fifth time this year, the 100th Street bridge over US-131 in southern Kent County has been struck.

The latest incident occurred at 5:51 p.m. Thursday, according to the Kent County dispatch. Troopers from the Michigan State Police responded to the crash.

FOX 17 file photo from January

Michigan Department of Transportation spokesman John Richard tells FOX 17 an open truck hauling wood chips struck the overpass.  He says no one was injured, but the right lane of southbound US-131 was closed for a while, as was eastbound 100th Street. The accident scene didn’t clear until about 8:10 p.m. Thursday. Westbound 100th Street already was closed in response to previous damage caused by strikes in January, and M-DOT doesn’t have it scheduled to reopen until this summer.

“This crash did not cause any additional damage,” says Richard, who remains baffled why the same bridge keeps getting hit. He says the weigh-master measurement shows the bottom of the bridge is 14-feet-5-1/2 inches above the freeway. And a sign on the bridge says the deck clearance is 14-feet-3 inches. Yet it keeps getting hit.

“The bridge has been there since 1957, so we don’t know why (motorists) keep hitting it.”

The bridge was closed for more than two weeks in January when two trucks carrying oversized shipping containers hit it, damaging the deck, some overpass beams and the railing. The deck reportedly was scraped again in late January by a mobile home.

 On March 5, a truck carrying a piece of road equipment struck the bridge.