US-127 to see repairs through Aug.

As lane closures began Tuesday on northbound US-127/I-496 between I-96 and Trowbridge Road, 58,000 commuters were forced to adjust their daily commutes.

The $7.4 million project, part of a five-year road and bridge program, will extend the life of bridges along the corridor and make smoother, safer roads for motorists, said Kari Arend, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Transportation, or MDOT.

One northbound lane was closed Tuesday, and a southbound lane is expected to be closed on Thursday. The single lane closures will be in effect until early July, Arend said. Both sides of the road will be reduced to one lane.

“The first couple of days are the worst,” Arend said. “But once the drivers establish their new routes, things should get better.”

Alternate routes will vary for the thousands of motorists who use the highway to commute to the MSU campus, downtown Lansing or to travel north and south through Lansing.

Suggested routes include major north-south surface streets, such as Cedar Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Lansing.

Commuters will encounter a more daunting closure on Sunday, when the west-to-northbound US-127 exit is closed. The exit, which is the main route to downtown Lansing for drivers heading west on I-96, will be closed for three weeks, Arend said.

Arend said the most expensive phase of the project will be the renovation of the Dunckel Road bridge, which will begin May 11. The bridge is expected to be closed until mid-August.

Bridges on Jolly and Forest roads in Lansing and Mount Hope Road also will be resurfaced, but the work will not cause any lane closures.

Aside from the Dunckel Road bridge project, all traffic delays should end by July 2, said Mark Dubay, a design engineer for MDOT.

“We set it up to be most convenient for drivers and it should be mostly wrapped up by the start of fall semester,” he said.

Most students said they had not yet been affected by the single lane closure yet.

“I have a few commuters in my classes and they already occasionally complained about rush-hour traffic,” English sophomore Nick Botz said. “But they haven’t said anything about that yet.”