CLICK TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH DAN WEINGARTEN, M-DOT SPOKESMAN
Most roadside parks operated by the Michigan Department of Transportation will be closed for the season on Thursday.
Some parks in Lower Michigan will remain open until late November.
M-DOT maintains 85 roadside parks around the state, with nearly all of them closing annually in late October and reopening in late April.
There are 32 of those roadside parks in the Upper Peninsula, and all will be closing this week.
M-DOT sp0okesman Dan Weingarten in Ishpeming tells RRN News that these rustic facilities with pit toilets, picnic tables, barbeque grills, and basic traveler information displays cannot stay open all year round.
He says that’s because the pit toilets would eventually freeze, and heavy snow would be difficult to remove in these parks. Weingarten added that the parks are maintained by county road commissions under contract from M-DOT, and an “end date” is needed for those contracts every year.
Weingarten noted that these closures only effect the rustic parks. The handful of modern rest areas, with indoor facilities, modern plumbing, and other basic amenities, remain open year-round. In our area, those rest areas are alomg US-2 near Garden Corners and Naubinway, and along M-28 beat Seney.
Also in our area, the Michigan Welcome Centers, in Marquette, Menominee, and Iron Mountain, will remain open year-round.
A map of all MDOT roadside parks is available on MDOT’s website.
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