Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

The month of March will kickoff MDOT's construction season, with several projects in the works across Metro Detroit. That includes preliminary work getting underway Monday for the next phase of the I-96/Grand River interchange project in Brighton.

"What we're going to be doing is shifting the westbound I-96 traffic to the outside shoulder in anticipation of eastbound I-96 traffic coming onto westbound I-96 March 7," said George Seif, assistant operations engineer for MDOT.

"We're going to take a single lane on westbound, but there's also going to be pavement marking crews laying all the new markings and stuff like that, so it might get congested at times. After that is done, eastbound and westbound I-96 will be down to two lanes in each direction, and really will stay like that all year."

The big traffic shift is scheduled to go into effect Saturday, March 7, along with a ramp closure from eastbound Grand River to eastbound I-96.

"When that ramp closes on the seventh, people heading eastbound on Grand River will have to take the Hilton detour, which is Hilton to Old US 23, to Spencer and hop onto eastbound I-96 there," Seif said.

That detour will remain in place through early November.