Latest / Talking Michigan Transportation / As the snow flies, why is driving to the conditions so difficult?

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As the snow flies, why is driving to the conditions so difficult? · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:10
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:12
  Jeff Cranson: Winter has officially arrived in Michigan.
• 0:17
  Jeff Cranson: While we've had some heavy snow in the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan for a couple of weeks now, we're getting hit much harder downstate.
• 0:26
  Jeff Cranson: As always, lake effect is a huge factor along the Lake Michigan shore, so some of the western counties are having a lot of severe weather that's, you know, having an impact on driving, of course.
• 0:40
  Jeff Cranson: So I wanted to take the opportunity to talk to MDOT Director Brad Wieferich, who before he was director and climbed the ladder, he was chief operations officer, but before that he ran the Bureau of Development and before that, within the Bureau of Development, he was the engineer of design and he's spent a lot of time, much of his career focused on how to balance the design of roads for maximum mobility and getting people where they want to get on time but also safely, and that can be a delicate balance sometimes.
• 1:13
  Jeff Cranson: He was very involved in a study that was performed after a 193 car pileup on I-94, again in southwest Michigan, actually near Galesburg, between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo.
• 1:25
  Jeff Cranson: The state police concluded that most of that pileup during a winter storm in January of 2015 was caused by people not driving for conditions.
• 1:36
  Jeff Cranson: In fact, they issued 58 citations for that.
• 1:39
  Jeff Cranson: So some of the things that came out of that study what can be done to human-proof the system, make it safer, knowing that people are prone to mistakes and that crashes are going to happen?
• 1:53
  Jeff Cranson: What can we do about that?
• 1:54
  Jeff Cranson: We're going to talk about that.
• 1:55
  Jeff Cranson: We'll talk about some other things going on in transportation as we approach the end of 2024.
• 2:05
  Jeff Cranson: So I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 2:07
  Jeff Cranson: So once again I'm with MDOT Director Brad Wieferich.
• 2:10
  Jeff Cranson: I mentioned in the introduction that we were going to talk a little bit about his background in design and how that's informed his thinking over the years as somebody who went to college, trained to be a civil engineer, got into transportation and is passionate about design and about building roads that both get people where they need to be as quickly as possible but also as safely as possible, and sometimes those things seem like they're in conflict.
• 2:34
  Jeff Cranson: So, director, thanks for being here.
• 2:36
  Jeff Cranson: Can you talk a little bit about how you balance that?
• 2:39
  Brad Wieferich: Yeah, sure, thanks, Jeff, for having me back.
• 2:41
  Brad Wieferich: I feel like it's been a little while since I've been on the podcast and happy to talk.
• 2:46
  Brad Wieferich: I do have a fairly rounded background.
• 2:51
  Brad Wieferich: I started my career as a consultant in construction, working out on the highways, working in work zones, some of the big freeways around the Chicago area, so I have that perspective.
• 3:04
  Brad Wieferich: You know you mentioned I was in design and you know geometrics and really the layout of the road and trying to figure out, through crash reviews and whatnot, what sorts of changes should be made.
• 3:17
  Brad Wieferich: You know that was a big part of what I've done and you know, obviously, as I've made my way through the administrative ranks here, it is a pretty broad perspective of a lot of the issues, especially when it comes to the operations of the roadway and how folks are using them.
• 3:37
  Brad Wieferich: That is a focus of the department right now.
• 3:42
  Brad Wieferich: You and others have heard me say before that we in the past had been very focused on the physical infrastructure itself, which is important.
• 3:51
  Brad Wieferich: We need good roads, we need good bridges that are safe, but potentially even more important is really how people use them, and I think that that's kind of creating a bit of a mind shift about how we go into project development.
• 4:08
  Brad Wieferich: It's not just you know the checkbox engineer going down the checklist on the standards.
• 4:14
  Brad Wieferich: You really need to take a look at what's going on out there and what the uses actually are in making sure that whatever project we roll out is really addressing the needs of all users kind of that holistic approach to making sure that we're addressing as many issues as possible.
• 4:36
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, so I think that you know what brought this up and I mentioned this in the intro is that we've had our first real blast of winter in southern Michigan and, as always, the lakeshore counties get the lake effect, snow and that has a huge impact on driving in the roads.
• 4:52
  Jeff Cranson: And I know it makes you bristle and makes me bristle when I see headlines about black ice or about you know how snow or weather caused the crash takes humans off the hook and we talk about you can't human proof the system where we're.
• 5:08
  Jeff Cranson: We're flawed beings, we're going to make mistakes, but how do you I mean coming out of that, that that study that was done after the I-94 pile up in 2015, 193 cars, 58 citations.
• 5:28
  Jeff Cranson: The state police cited those people for not driving to conditions.
• 5:33
  Jeff Cranson: What do you do to drive that home for people that you know it's snowing, y ou can't salt every inch of pavement every minute.
• 5:36
  Jeff Cranson: There's going to be ice, there's going to be slippery conditions and you've got to drive for conditions.
• 5:38
  Jeff Cranson: I just I wonder if that just goes in one ear and out the other.
• 5:42
  Brad Wieferich: It seems like it.
• 5:43
  Brad Wieferich: There are things that we can do.
• 5:46
  Brad Wieferich: You mentioned the 2015 study we did after the big pile up there between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek.
• 5:52
  Brad Wieferich: There are things that we can consider, and that was actually a worthwhile effort.
• 5:59
  Brad Wieferich: We do that with every project, though, too, we're continually looking at what more can we do.
• 6:06
  Brad Wieferich: At the end of the day, we can't drive people's cars for them.
• 6:09
  Brad Wieferich: There are personal choices that are made that can lead to, you know, catastrophic incidents, and if I could drive home a message, if I knew how to do this exactly, I think we would have done it by now.
• 6:30
  Brad Wieferich: But if you could drive home a message to folks, to me it's really give yourself the time to plan ahead.
• 6:37
  Brad Wieferich: Don't assume that every day you're going to be able to drive that same speed on that same route.
• 6:46
  Brad Wieferich: It's just not practical, it's not realistic, whether it's a hard driving, rain or other weather issues, but especially during winter issues.
• 7:01
  Brad Wieferich: But especially during winter, most of us around here we've lived here a long time we know what snow is, we know what ice is.
• 7:04
  Brad Wieferich: We need to be able to plan for that.
• 7:06
  Brad Wieferich: I mean, we have fantastic maintenance crews the women and men that you know drive the snow plows, the people that are, you know, diligently, the mechanics that are working on the snow plows and making sure that we have everything out there possible that we can to fight these storms, innovative in materials and methods.
• 7:28
  Brad Wieferich: We do everything we can on that perspective as well, but, again, we don't control the weather.
• 7:33
  Brad Wieferich: Lake effect, I think, is something that's unique to Michigan and other folks that have western shores along the Great Lakes.
• 7:42
  Brad Wieferich: It creates those whiteout bands and you know we heard earlier some MDOT folks from southwest region talking about that how you can be driving down the road and it can be bright and sunny and because of lake effect, the way it comes in, you can hit a whiteout.
• 8:02
  Brad Wieferich: It's just a wall and it's something that folks need to be aware of.
• 8:07
  Brad Wieferich: Can we work on technology and alerting, you know, using our dynamic message signs and whatnot?
• 8:13
  Brad Wieferich: Yeah, we can and we will, but at the end of the day, it really is up to the driver to to understand what the potential issues might be and to make those smart decisions.
• 8:27
  Jeff Cranson: You know there's, there was talk after 2015 and there's something to this.
• 8:31
  Jeff Cranson: And again, this isn't anything that MDOT can't control the weather, but there are microclimates and you can.
• 8:37
  Jeff Cranson: Your elevation goes up just 30 or 40 feet and that doesn't seem like much, but it makes a difference.
• 8:43
  Jeff Cranson: You know, you're I see it on 131 north of Grand Rapids there's spots where all of a sudden there's snow and then there's not.
• 8:49
  Jeff Cranson: And why is that?
• 8:49
  Jeff Cranson: And it's because of because of elevation, right.
• 8:53
  Brad Wieferich: Yeah, it's elevation, it's, it's, it's you know, overall topography when it comes to the lake effect, it's distance from the lake, it's wind direction.
• 9:02
  Brad Wieferich: An interesting part of that study we looked at hotspots, you know.
• 9:09
  Brad Wieferich: We looked at hotspots for crashes, we looked at hotspots for snow and we looked for where those kind of connections might be, those those kind of connections might be.
• 9:23
  Brad Wieferich: And it was.
• 9:24
  Brad Wieferich: It was pretty evident in certain locations along the route where you were very likely to have these sorts of events.
• 9:28
  Brad Wieferich: And again, you can't pinpoint it and you can't forecast it out.
• 9:34
  Brad Wieferich: You know hours ahead, but we have a better understanding, I think, of what the issues are out there and perhaps we can do a little bit better job of communicating that.
• 9:49
  Jeff Cranson: So when we wrote that study out in Kalamazoo I remember a retired Michigan State police trooper was in the audience and about the third time somebody came to the microphone and asked you know what could be done about it.
• 10:04
  Jeff Cranson: He just jumped out of his chair and said people aren't driving for conditions.
• 10:08
  Jeff Cranson: That's the problem, and that is the problem.
• 10:10
  Jeff Cranson: But we still feel an obligation I know you especially, to try to mitigate as much as possible.
• 10:17
  Jeff Cranson: Understanding that people are going to not drive for conditions and drive too fast and think that they should always be able to drive the speed limit and basically not build in enough time, because you know we all expect our 30-minute commute to always be 30 minutes, right.
• 10:32
  Jeff Cranson: So I don't know, in talking to other states and other safety officials, maybe it is all about messaging and coming up with something creative, but I don't know that what people see on the message boards sinks in enough to change behavior.
• 10:48
  Brad Wieferich: I wish it did, and you kind of mentioned something that I think you're right EOT employees, whether it's the, you know, the engineers and technical folks that do the designs or it's the folks in maintenance, we take things very personal, we have a lot of ownership of this and we want very much to be able to find some, you know, silver bullet that's going to fix these issues, and it's frustrating.
• 11:20
  Brad Wieferich: It gets frustrating when we know we're doing everything we can and we're still having these issues.
• 11:27
  Brad Wieferich: So you know we're not going to stop.
• 11:30
  Brad Wieferich: I mean, we're going to continue to keep looking for solutions as technology advances, you know.
• 11:37
  Brad Wieferich: As you know, vehicle connectivity advances, yeah, maybe there's going to be more availability of, you know, some technical solutions we may be able to employ that can help with this.
• 11:50
  Brad Wieferich: So I think you know, as far as our folks, it can get frustrating, but we need to keep plugging at it and we need to keep looking for what's next and what else.
• 12:02
  Brad Wieferich: That's on kind of the engineering and maintenance side.
• 12:07
  Brad Wieferich: To your other point, though, I do think we need to figure out how we message this and how we get it through to people what you said, and that you just can't expect that every day.
• 12:16
  Brad Wieferich: It's a half-hour commute.
• 12:18
  Brad Wieferich: There could be construction, there could be another crash, there could be other weather events, and you just need to be prepared for that.
• 12:28
  Brad Wieferich: I tell you what.
• 12:29
  Brad Wieferich: I'm on the road obviously a lot Detroit and back especially.
• 12:33
  Brad Wieferich: I'm always using Waze and or one of the other Apple Maps or Google Maps.
• 12:38
  Brad Wieferich: I'm constantly looking at our MyDrive site as well.
• 12:43
  Brad Wieferich: I use that a lot, whether I'm driving for work or for pleasure, heading north just to see you know what's going on up ahead and looking for incidents and whatnot.
• 12:56
  Brad Wieferich: So again, I can plan my trip and have a better expectation and not just have one expectation that it's going to be the same every time.
• 13:06
  Jeff Cranson: Stay with us.
• 13:07
  Jeff Cranson: We'll have more on the other side of this important message.
• 13:13
  MDOT Message: Michigan law requires drivers to maintain at least 200 feet behind a snowplow when crews are plowing or treating roads and have their lights on.
• 13:21
  MDOT Message: This does not apply when passing the snowplow.
• 13:23
  MDOT Message: In addition, stay at least 20 feet away when the plow is stopped or at an intersection.
• 13:28
  MDOT Message: Failure to do so can result in a fine of $100.
• 13:32
  MDOT Message: The law is meant to ensure snowplow operators have the proper space and time to clear the roads.
• 13:37
  MDOT Message: This makes Michigan's roads and neighborhoods safer to drive on and walk around throughout the winter.
• 13:42
  MDOT Message: Always remember snowplows need room to groom.
• 13:48
  Jeff Cranson: So a similar but related issue would be wrong-way crashes.
• 13:53
  Jeff Cranson: We know almost always they're somebody who was either super drunk most of the time that involves that substance abuse of some kind or somebody that's this very elderly, and I credit the MDOT traffic safety people for not throwing up their hands and saying, hey, we can't do anything about that because that's, you know, that's human behavior making bad decisions and trying to come up with some things, which they've introduced, most recently around Grand Rapids.
• 14:19
  Jeff Cranson: I think it's too early to say you know what's going to succeed and what isn't, but some other states have tried some things with beacons and flashing lights.
• 14:26
  Jeff Cranson: It's the same kind of thing, right?
• 14:28
  Jeff Cranson: You probably feel like, look, we can talk about this all we want.
• 14:32
  Jeff Cranson: Can we keep doing things that make somebody who should never probably be behind the wheel anyway then not get on the freeway, going in the wrong direction?
• 14:40
  Brad Wieferich: Right, there's only so much we can do from a technology and engineering standpoint.
• 14:46
  Brad Wieferich: There's plenty of other societal issues that are often the root cause of some of these things.
• 14:53
  Brad Wieferich: But again, that's not going to stop us for looking for new and innovative ways.
• 15:00
  Brad Wieferich: I kind of brought up the vehicle-to-vehicle or the vehicle-to-infrastructure type of connectivity connected autonomous vehicles right issues.
• 15:22
  Brad Wieferich: One of the things that we're really trying to shift our focus on is not just on introducing some shiny new toy.
• 15:24
  Brad Wieferich: You know, hey, this is really a whiz-bang technology idea.
• 15:28
  Brad Wieferich: Let's do this.
• 15:29
  Brad Wieferich: But instead let's pull back and say let's define what our problems are.
• 15:34
  Brad Wieferich: First let's define problem statements and then let's go out to the market, let's go out to industry and say what can you do?
• 15:44
  Brad Wieferich: You know, here's the problems we're having.
• 15:46
  Brad Wieferich: How can your technology provide a solution to our issues?
• 15:51
  Brad Wieferich: So I think if we really become that, you know, solution-based, take that solution-based approach, I think we're going to be far better off, because I think that way may even help frame where folks go with their technology.
• 16:08
  Brad Wieferich: If they really know exactly what we're trying to fix, there might be a more appropriate application that could actually move the needle.
• 16:16
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, actually, you know you think about it.
• 16:19
  Jeff Cranson: Now, modern vehicles tell you not just what the temperature is, but that it's probably going to be icy right.
• 16:26
  Jeff Cranson: You've got auto braking and lane assist and all the things you're talking about.
• 16:31
  Jeff Cranson: As those things become more prevalent, it's got to make a huge difference.
• 16:36
  Jeff Cranson: But it also seems like, as you know, you and I've discussed, the more we do to make the car safer, the more distractions we create for the driver.
• 16:44
  Brad Wieferich: I know that's a big catch 22.
• 16:46
  Brad Wieferich: My newest car is about five years old right now and I see some of the displays in-dash displays in some of these vehicles now and they're almost as big as my computer screen that I'm looking at and I think for every second that you're looking at, that screen versus the road is obviously a bit of an issue.
• 17:10
  Brad Wieferich: You know all of those things that you were mentioning the lane assist, brake assist, whatnot.
• 17:13
  Brad Wieferich: In my opinion those are steps towards more autonomous type vehicles.
• 17:20
  Brad Wieferich: You know, I think full autonomy is obviously a ways off, but the more things we can put in there to help people to, you know, maybe minimize the mistakes and the errors has to be helpful, but at the end of the day I'm sorry every time you get in your car and you turn the key on.
• 17:41
  Brad Wieferich: You have a responsibility and it's an important responsibility to be able to understand just how important driving is and how quickly things can blink or change in the blink of an eye.
• 18:00
  Brad Wieferich: Most of us that have worked for the department have had the unfortunate opportunity to have to see aftermath of what happened, maybe not personally right away, but through some of the crash reviews and whatnot, and you kind of shake your head sometimes and think, oh gosh, if just for this one thing this crash wouldn't have happened.
• 18:22
  Brad Wieferich: So at the end of the day, I really do think it comes down to a lot of personal responsibility, and if we can figure out how we can message that and really get through to people, we'll all be better off.
• 18:37
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, wonder if uh the the drivers that programs how much they focus on on winter driving.
• 18:42
  Jeff Cranson: That's something that uh could also help, because I don't remember I remember, you know, when I took drivers a long time ago it was during the summer and yeah, you know, maybe, maybe every program should be in the winter time mine too.
• 18:57
  Brad Wieferich: Um, and you know I have three boys that are all well into driving age now and I can remember going out with them.
• 19:06
  Brad Wieferich: You know the boys pretty.
• 19:08
  Brad Wieferich: I think I guess the oldest got his driver's license in the winter, so we made it a point to go out onto the roads hopefully lower risk roads, lower volume roads and we would, we'd go out and just have, you know, have a drive, just so they can get used to it.
• 19:27
  Brad Wieferich: And it is something that you really need to learn and it seems like every year, first snow in Michigan, there's a lot of people that need to relearn it.
• 19:37
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, and our kids never had to learn to pump the brakes.
• 19:42
  Brad Wieferich: Nope or downshift, yeah, yeah.
• 19:45
  Jeff Cranson: So let's touch quickly.
• 19:47
  Jeff Cranson: As you mentioned, you haven't been on the podcast in a while, so a couple other things while you're here.
• 19:52
  Jeff Cranson: The House concurred quickly with the Senate after the work zone safety camera legislation made it there.
• 19:59
  Jeff Cranson: That's a good thing.
• 20:01
  Jeff Cranson: We know that not everybody's crazy about this concept, but overall I know you think this will be a good thing and will make for safer work zones.
• 20:10
  Brad Wieferich: Absolutely.
• 20:11
  Brad Wieferich: That one was a big one for us and for industry and for the folks that are, you know, in our work zones.
• 20:21
  Brad Wieferich: I've talked about this before.
• 20:24
  Brad Wieferich: It's not about us wanting to write a bunch of tickets.
• 20:29
  Brad Wieferich: This is really about trying to affect behavior you know what I was talking about before and trying to ensure compliance.
• 20:40
  Brad Wieferich: This won't be a gotcha.
• 20:43
  Brad Wieferich: You know we're required to have pre-signing that says, hey, there's speed camera enforcement ahead.
• 20:49
  Brad Wieferich: It's going to be very obvious.
• 20:53
  Brad Wieferich: It's not like we're going to be hiding cameras behind bushes and trees and you know barriers.
• 20:59
  Brad Wieferich: It's going to be very obvious.
• 21:01
  Brad Wieferich: And again, not at all trying to.
• 21:05
  Brad Wieferich: You know this isn't a moneymaker.
• 21:07
  Brad Wieferich: This isn't, you know, a gotcha at all.
• 21:10
  Brad Wieferich: It's really about ensuring that folks see that, understand it and, hopefully, that their behaviors will be what we think they should be when they're driving through work zones.
• 21:23
  Jeff Cranson: So what do you, as you look to 2025 and you think about, you know challenges you've been.
• 21:29
  Jeff Cranson: Let's say, you were made interim director, acting director, in 2022.
• 21:34
  Jeff Cranson: A few months later you became director.
• 21:36
  Jeff Cranson: So you've been at it for really two years now as director.
• 21:41
  Jeff Cranson: What do you see as the big challenges in the year ahead?
• 21:45
  Brad Wieferich: First of all, two years has gone by very quickly.
• 21:48
  Brad Wieferich: It's hard to believe that that was two years ago already.
• 21:52
  Brad Wieferich: I was brought into this position, which I'm very honored and very humbled to be able to lead the department.
• 22:03
  Brad Wieferich: It's actually been great, largely because of the people you know that we work with internally, and industry folks have been great as well.
• 22:13
  Brad Wieferich: Obviously, one of the big things that we're going to face in 25, and it's not a new one is funding.
• 22:22
  Brad Wieferich: You know, I mentioned before that we're trying to go from a focus on the infrastructure to more about how people use it and how different people use it, how all people use it.
• 22:33
  Brad Wieferich: That has the potential to require more resources to do the things that we want to do.
• 22:40
  Brad Wieferich: I think we're going to have to prioritize, we're going to have to balance.
• 22:46
  Brad Wieferich: I don't think that we're ever going to be an agency that is so flush with resources that we can do everything for everyone.
• 22:57
  Brad Wieferich: But now that we've kind of broadened our focus a little bit, we're going to have to really think about how we prioritize, whether it's, you know, the physical infrastructure, whether it's, you know, active transportation, non-motorized, whether it's transit and public transportation or the other modes.
• 23:18
  Brad Wieferich: Those are all things that are going to kind of add to the challenge that we have overall with funding, and I don't want to say that negatively.
• 23:31
  Brad Wieferich: It adds to the challenge.
• 23:32
  Brad Wieferich: It's really trying to add opportunity to make sure that we're able to deliver a very comprehensive transportation system.
• 23:42
  Brad Wieferich: So, who knows, we'll see what happens here in the, you know, within the next month and obviously in the coming year.
• 23:51
  Brad Wieferich: I'm very optimistic.
• 23:53
  Brad Wieferich: I know that the governor is obviously ran on a platform originally of fixing the damn roads.
• 24:00
  Brad Wieferich: I know that she is very committed still to infrastructure and to the roads.
• 24:05
  Brad Wieferich: So, hey, I'm going to remain optimistic that we're going to be able to work together with the legislators and the governor's office in order to get to a solution.
• 24:17
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, sounds good.
• 24:18
  Jeff Cranson: I think it'll be interesting to watch both the next few weeks and then again as we go into the new year.
• 24:23
  Jeff Cranson: Well, thank you for taking time to do this.
• 24:26
  Jeff Cranson: I appreciate it.
• 24:27
  Jeff Cranson: I know that the people that are out on the roads, either supervising the local agencies that do some snow plowing and winter maintenance for MDOT or those direct forces, they'll be happy to hear that you're so proud of their work, so thanks.
• 24:47
  Brad Wieferich: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 24:48
  Brad Wieferich: I don't think enough can be said for those folks.
• 24:51
  Brad Wieferich: That makes for an interesting winter for those people and just so thankful that we have people that are committed to do that.
• 24:58
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, absolutely.
• 24:59
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation.
• 25:03
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout.
• 25:07
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jacke Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.