MANY of you wrote in to say that the reason the roads are seemingly always in terrible shape in Michigan is because of truck weights - and the fact that Michigan often doubles truck weight limits from those of federal guidelines. Today we're hearing and feeling your anger, and talking to an engineer about what heavy trucks do to roads, and why it's only one part of the equation for road conditions.

GUEST ON TODAY'S EPISODE:

Craig Atwood, managing director of Allegan County Road Commission

 

Want to submit a question to On Hand? Do it here:

• Online Submission Form
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• Email us: [email protected]

If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work: michiganpublic.org/podfund

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Are Michigan's roads really so bad that we need to be repairing them all the time? What's really going on with our orange-barrel forests? For this episode of On Hand, we tackle a listener's question about road repairs by talking to two actual road engineers. We'll also get externally-verified facts about road quality, and hear some real talk about road politics in Lansing. We even bump into someone who started her own guerilla road crew. 

Guests:

• Hamtramck resident Maritza Garibay

• Brent Schlack, Director of Engineering, Washtenaw Road Commission

• Adam Lape, Director of Operations, Washtenaw Road Commission

• Lauren Gibbons, Bridge Michigan reporter
• Adrian Hemond, CEO, Grassroots Midwest

 

Want to submit a question to On Hand? Do it here:

• Online Submission Form
• Call us: 734-764-7840
• Email us: [email protected]

If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work: michiganpublic.org/podfund

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For many Michiganders, Up North begins at the north end of the Mackinac Bridge. One listener defends the Upper Peninsula as true north. And another listener says the southern border of the mitten is also Up North for many people.

GUESTS ON THIS EPISODE:

Ken Raisanen, retired teacher and lifelong Upper Peninsula Michigander

Keith Baker, City Manger of Coldwater

Want to submit your own story or question to On Hand? Do it here!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a great Michigan debate; what is the line or the place that marks the end of the southern part of the state and the beginning of that mystical land we call Up North?

The answers vary from emotional to philosophical. But there's also an ecological answer that helps us better understand why we feel different when we go Up North. 

Check out the Michigan Natural Features Inventory website for a ton of cool stuff about our natural world.

GUESTS ON TODAY'S EPISODE:

• Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan
• Joshua Cohen, lead ecologist with the Michigan Natural Features Inventory at MSU Extension

Got a question you'd like to have answered on On Hand? Submit your questions about Michigan here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many of us have a road that's more than a line on a map—it's a memory. Maybe it’s the street you grew up on or the dirt road that leads you to a cottage Up North. 

For listener Tom Topolski, it’s Lake Michigan Drive.

GUEST: 

• Thomas Topolski, Hudsonville resident

Want to submit a question to On Hand? Do it here:

• Online Submission Form

• Call us: 734-764-7840

• Email us: [email protected]

If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work: michiganpublic.org/podfund

PHOTO CREDIT: City of Grand Rapids Archives and Records Center

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If you’ve ever gotten directions from a metro-Detroiter, you have probably heard a ‘9 Mile’ or a ‘10 Mile Road’ mentioned. Or maybe even the most famous of them all: 8 Mile. But where did all these boring road names come from? And how did they become a kind of cultural shorthand in the region? 

GUESTS: 

Paul Sewick, amateur Detroit historian and part-time Lyft driver. Check out his blog Detroit Urbanism here.

Jeff Horner, professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State University

Jamon Jordan, Detroit historian and lecturer in history at the University of Michigan Residential College. 

Cover photo courtesy of the Archives of Michigan 

Want to submit a question to On Hand? Do it here:

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• Call us: 734-764-7840

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If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work: michiganpublic.org/podfund

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We recently weighed the costs and benefits of Michigan's bottle bill. Today, a listener shares just how much the 10-cent bottle deposit meant to Central Michigan University students in the 70s.

GUESTS:

• Andrea Haupt, listener

• Michael Lehnert, listener

Want to submit a question to On Hand? Do it here:

• Online Submission Form
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If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work: michiganpublic.org/podfund

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Is it really worth our time to haul returnables to the store for just 10 cents each? And is it worth it for Michigan's recycling industry to maintain a bottle deposit system when we already have curbside recycling?

• See Shelie Miller's "Comprehensive Ealuation of MIchigan's Bottle Deposit System" here
• Read more from the Container Recycling Institute here
• See a Reloop and CRI study about the impact of bottle deposits on beverage sales here

GUESTS:

• Susan Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute
• Shelie Miller, Jonathan W. Bulkley Collegiate Professor of Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan; co-director, Center for Sustainable Systems

Cover photo by April Van Buren

Want to submit a question to On Hand? Do it here:

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• Call us: 734-764-7840

• Email us: [email protected]

If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work: michiganpublic.org/podfund

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In last week's episode, we dug into the history of euchre and whether the quintessential Michigan game was actually created in the mitten. Turns out, not quite. The trick-taking game came to the Midwest — including Michigan — through farmers who visited New Orleans and Pennsylvania and came in contact with Alsatian immigrants, from a region along the Rhine River where France and Germany meet. The Civil War also helped spread the game across the country.

 

From the 1700s to today, the way we play euchre has evolved in countless ways and we heard from some of you on how you've managed to make the game your own.

Today, we’re sharing your euchre stories.

GUESTS:

• Keith Kim, an Ann Arbor resident who in college managed to skip doing the dishes countless of times by winning a few rounds of euchre

• Eric Farnum from Grand Ledge is one of the masterminds behind what he and his friends liked to call "Bastard Euchre"

Want to submit a question to On Hand? Do it here:

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For many Michiganders, euchre (pronounced yoo-kur) feels like a quintessentially Michigan game—but was it actually created here? Long story short, no. But the story of how the trick-taking game made its way to the Mitten state and became one of its most popular card game is an interesting one.

GUESTS ON THIS EPISODE:

Jamie and Becky DeVries, hosts of monthly euchre tournament at Oakestown Brewery in Grandville, Michigan
Steven Zink, retired IT professor at the University of Nevada and unofficial euchre historian

Want to submit a question to On Hand or a story about a game of euchre? Here’s how:

• Online Submission Form

• Call us: 734-764-7840

• Email us: [email protected]

If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work: michiganpublic.org/podfund

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