The Saginaw Street bricks are arguably the city of Flint’s most recognizable landmark. That portion of Saginaw Street isn’t the only brick street in the nation, but it is a rarity for a street itself to be an official, protected historic district as historic district designations usually refer to buildings or neighborhoods.
“I don’t know of a lot of other streets that are historic districts,” said Kurt Neiswender, who is currently the vice chair of the Flint Historic District Commission.
As a result, when the city undertook a project to pull up and re-lay all the bricks and replace water lines underneath the street in 2023 and 2024, it was a complicated – and costly – process that required collaboration and approvals from the city and state as well as from the Flint Historic District Commission, which has to give the okay to any changes to officially recognized historic districts in the city. Portions of sidewalks were also replaced and new crosswalks to better meet accessibility guidelines were also installed as part of the project, which cost nearly $10 million from a mix of funding from the Michigan Department of Transportation, the city’s Major Roads Fund, and the federal Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act.
The bricks are a beloved part of Flint’s lore and Saginaw Street is home to several popular festivals throughout summers in the city, so there was immense local excitement about the project, since the bricks had not been re-laid since 1936. However, there were also costs beyond just what was spent on the project and controversies associated with it.
The project was overseen by Wade Trim, a consulting and engineering firm, with Michigan Paving as the contractor doing the work. A portion of the work, between Court and Third streets, had to be redone shortly after it was completed because the wrong sand was used as a base underneath the bricks. Ron Fonger of MLive reported at the time that the engineering firm agreed to pay to re-lay those portions of bricks.
The lengthy closure of portions of Saginaw Street – the project began in April of 2023 and the street didn’t fully reopen until all portions were complete in July of 2024 (about four blocks were completed in 2023 and two blocks in 2024) – caused complaints from small business owners, who said things like decreased parking and foot traffic during construction severely impacted revenue at their establishments. They also said communication was lacking to share timelines, what sections would be closed when, and other pertinent information. Kate Stockrahm, then reporting for Flint Beat, spoke to several business owners in the area who were impacted by construction.
But perhaps the biggest frustration has come after the project, as several portions of the newly laid bricks have not held up well in a short amount of time since the project was completed. Some areas of the bricks have sunk in, causing large dips in the road. There are other sections where the bricks have risen up and formed uneven spots. And other areas have bricks missing or coming loose completely from where they were installed.
Causes of the issue
Abdul A. Khandker, Ph.D., a city engineer, wasn’t in his role in city government until after the project was complete, so he wasn’t a part of the initial planning process. Now, he and his department are tasked with a long-term maintenance and repair plan, though.
“They were having the last walkthrough (when I started), and there were some problems with the bricks at that time,” Khandker said. “So they (the contractors) fixed that, and the project was accepted by MDOT and the city.”
Since that approval, issues have continued in large sections of the street. One easy to understand factor for any Michigander is the mix of precipitation and temperature changes during winter. In January, a representative from Wade Trim provided a statement about some of those challenges.
“Part of the road has now been exposed to two full Michigan winters and part has been exposed to one and is into a second,” the statement read. “As you know, roads, especially in cold climates like in Michigan require regular maintenance, often because the freeze/thaw cycle causes damage, like potholes. For brick roads, like in Flint, the freeze/thaw cycle can cause the bricks to heave. This year’s extended rains worsened that effect. The shifting you mention is also normal. This is caused by vehicular traffic and will not impact the integrity of the road or the quality of the ride. Regular maintenance will help alleviate the heaving and settlement issues. Wade Trim regularly works with the city and is already advising city engineers on the best approach to the necessary annual maintenance.”
Khandker agreed that the last two winters have caused significant issues, particularly because there isn’t the same amount of drainage beneath Saginaw Street as is standard on a modern non-brick street.
“Michigan has a very bad weather factor,” he said. “We have frost heave, the clay subgrade softens up with water getting in. When water gets in, during summer it softens up and goes down. During winter, that water becomes ice. The ice length increases every year, and it pulls up. And that’s why we have so many potholes. This force, the ice force, is tremendous. It can pull out anything. So designs are not normally good enough for that force. So engineers (in cold climates) have decided that pavement should be built on at least three and a half feet or four feet of granular material with good drainage outside. So water comes in, goes out, and doesn’t freeze (underneath).”
Khandker also noted that the weight and speed of modern vehicles on a road not designed to hold those weights is also a factor.
“We have a brick road which was supposed to carry carriages,” he said. “When it was designed a long time ago, there was not heavy traffic there. So the problem is the load. When you have a brick pavement for roads, most of the roads are designed for only light car traffic, so when the car goes slowly, it doesn’t have that much of a problem.”
Saginaw Street, however, is the main thoroughfare of downtown, with heavy traffic throughout the week. There are also large semis making deliveries along the street and parking in the turn lane during business hours.
The city announced a plan to address the weight issue this week. Beginning August 5, Flint will begin stricter enforcement of weight restrictions on the street. An existing ordinance prohibits vehicles weighing more than 5 tons/10,000 pounds from traveling on the historic, brick section of Saginaw Street.
Although the weight restriction won’t apply to most passenger vehicles, pickups, SUVs, vans, and small commercial vehicles, it will impact these common vehicles that do exceed the restriction: semis and tractor-trailers, concrete mixers, dump trucks, garbage trucks, large box trucks or moving trucks, construction vehicles, equipment transport trucks, and fully loaded delivery trucks. In its news release, the city advises drivers of these vehicles to use alternative routes into downtown and notes that there is signage posted reminding drivers of the ordinance.
Khandker said earlier this year that there are plans to repair some of the damaged sections this summer.
The historic designation creates challenges in addressing some of the changes that engineers would implement in a modern road design. During initial proposals for the project, there had been discussion about eliminating large sections of the bricks to make the road more stable. The Historic District Commission ultimately approved replacing the bricks in the intersections with stamped concrete to prevent brick slippage that used to occur in those portions of Saginaw Street. However, a proposal to also eliminate bricks in the areas that are currently parking spaces along the street was rejected because it would’ve dramatically altered the historic nature and look of the road.
“Anytime you touch a landmark, you’ve gotta come to the HDC to get either a certificate of appropriateness or a notice to proceed,” Neiswender said. “It has to go through the review process. When the first plans came through, they were removing a great deal of the brick and turning it into concrete. We pushed back on that, because it would significantly alter the characteristics of the road. The approved solution was where they paved the intersections in concrete with a stamped brick pattern and then we relaid the brick road in between each intersection with as many of the existing bricks as possible and then matching or salvaging to make up any differences if the brick was broken or damaged. We tried to restore it with as close a match as possible. There was a lot of discussion about it because it was a pretty big change since previously the intersections were all brick.”
Khandekar said that the mix of winter and historic constraints likely caused design challenges that are the reason the road is having issues, but ultimately there were multiple levels of government providing oversight of the project and approving the work that was done throughout the construction process.
“MDOT was looking over the construction,” Khandekar said. “They’re a very good organization with good oversight. So I could not find anything in the project that we can really blame. It was just everything together.”
Imagining a Different Future for Saginaw Street
Khandker said the biggest issue with Saginaw Street remains that it is nearly impossible to design a brick road to historic requirements that can also meet the needs of heavy, modern traffic.
However, he does believe there are alternative ways to ensure proper preservation of Saginaw Street with some lower cost design and use changes that quiet or even get rid of vehicle traffic on the street.
As one example, he mentioned a brick street in Lansing that has angled parking in the center of the road. The angled center parking creates smaller lanes for through traffic with a reduced speed limit and no heavy duty vehicles.
Another idea he shared that has been adopted in other downtowns is removing street parking and instead converting those areas into outdoor seating or other public space for businesses to use. He also mentioned examples of cities that have closed streets entirely to traffic and made them into strictly pedestrian spaces, which would be possible to do with the brick portion of Saginaw Street since there are many other access points off of Saginaw for deliveries, parking, and other vehicular needs.
Khandekar noted there are no definitive plans to make any changes like that to Saginaw Street at the moment, but he has asked the city’s engineering consultants to study the feasibility of quieting traffic on the street and making it more walkable.
“I think we could promote the businesses much better (with a design concept like the examples above),” he said. “Making it a completely commercial area where only cars can go down there, no trucks allowed to make it better for pedestrians and making the speed limit very slow, 15 or 20 miles per hour, that’s my dream for this.”
Quieting and reducing the heavy traffic on Saginaw Street would preserve the bricks longer and require less maintenance and upkeep while also truly making them a centerpiece of downtown rather than the heaviest vehicle traffic portion of downtown.
Neiswender reiterated that any major changes to Saginaw Street would need approval from the Historic District Commission in addition to getting City Council approval, but if future traffic-calming efforts maintain the original brick work in the design, the commission likely wouldn’t have issues with them.
“To the Historic District Commission, it doesn’t matter if it is trucks or pedestrians on the road, as long as the public-facing character and look of the road stays as it is now,” Neiswender said. “If they were to narrow Saginaw Street, or propose taking away portions of the brick road, that would need to be discussed with the HDC to see if that’s appropriate or not. But if any traffic calming changes resulted in the dimensions of Saginaw Street remaining the same as far as the amount of brick that exists now, then the HDC likely wouldn’t have a problem with that.”
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