From Monday, March 14 to Wednesday, March 16, DTE Energy is doing construction on Detroit and Fifth Street on the electrical poles and wires. Sidewalks will be closed to pedestrians. Bus routes will not be changed and will remain the same and cars will still be able to come through

“I was told that it would not impact buses or car traffic at all,” Bilsborrow said.

Community High school is also experiencing construction on the first floor. Due to this, some parking spaces are temporarily closed for machinery being stored in some spaces.

“We’ve lost 16 to 20 spaces that we would normally have for our use,” Bilsborrow said.
Bilsborrow wanted to save as many parking spaces as possible for student and teacher parking so without bilsborrow we could have lost more than just 16 to 20 spaces.

Bilsborrow stated that “It’s probably going to go at least into the fall.” Therefore the construction outside of Community High School will most likely not be finished by the end of the school year, and will continue until the end of summer break.

Q + A with Jefferson Bilsborrow

How long will the parking lot be shut down?

It’s probably going to go at least into the fall.

What do you see as the main reason for it [front lawn] shutting down?

They’ve taken over half of the field. There are shipping containers and that fence and they need that for construction staging. So sometimes they get construction materials dropped off, but they can’t use them yet inside so they have to sit outside. We also have the first four parking spaces in the very southeast corner of the lot, our staff spaces. But right now there’s fencing and they’re full of dumpsters. So we’ve lost four spaces there. There’s a small parking lot on the north side of the building with about 12 or 13 parking spaces for staff and they have a construction trailer out there and they use that for construction parking. So we lost about 12 spaces over there. So we’ve lost 16 to 20 spaces that we would normally have for our use just because of construction. And then we’ve lost half the field and that sort of thing.

Are the buses going to be impacted?

The buses are doing what they’ve always done so the buses have always driven up, pulled through on that lane and then driven out the other side. So the construction has not impacted the buses at all. It’s impacted walking around the school and staff parking. We didn’t want to take away any student parking spaces. So there’s about a dozen staff people that are parking five blocks away and walking. So students didn’t have to lose any spaces.

I was told that it would not impact buses or car traffic at all. So I don’t think that’s gonna be an issue for parking or buses.