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UPDATE (5/6/13): The Road Commission said today that the project is expected to be completed before the end of June. The stretch of Grace between Forrester and M-22 will be closed until then.

By Emily Votruba    Photographs by Jennifer Wilkins

We got a call from a concerned citizen yesterday saying she’d heard the Road Commission would be widening Grace Road in May and, in the process, cutting down Joe Oliver’s historic century-old maple trees.

Carl “Pud” Ness, Gilmore Township Cemetery sexton, reached last night by phone, said the Commission had planned to widen the road last year, but the work was postponed, he figured because of the retirement of two commission members.

Road Commission engineer and manager Heather Jamison said today that the road will be widened to replace the current 11-foot lanes with 12-foot lanes, plus 6 feet of shoulder.

“Each side from the center line is going to be paved out 18 feet, and then there’s going to be a little gravel outside of that to support the asphalt,” Jamison said. “There’s a total of 18 trees along the Gilmore Township Cemetery frontage that will be cut. One of them is already gone, all that’s left is a stump”—that tree was not cut; it had already fallen. “The trees that are being cut are the ones that are about 20 feet off the pavement right now, so they would be right at the edge of the road when we’re done, and we can’t have that. But the great great great big trees? Those are not the ones being cut. The ones we’re cutting are all 20 inches in diameter or smaller. As far as I know, the ones closest to 22 are the historical ones, and we’re not touching those.”

The project begins May 6.