Wren Road shut a second week for M-21 tile work, still no end date

If you use Wren Road to get south to Serr Road, you have been turning around for more than a week now. The Shiawassee County Road Commission has closed the stretch between M-21 and Serr Road day after day while crews replace shoulder tile on M-21 between Escott and Wren roads, and each notice covers exactly one workday — 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. — with no detour route posted and no date when the work ends.

The most recent notice, published Sept. 3 by the road commission's Julie McCloskey, closed Wren Road for Thursday, Sept. 3. A notice published Sept. 2 closed it for the day before. The M-21 side of the job is being advertised the same way: a single lane closed eastbound between Escott and Wren, then westbound, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., posted one day at a time.

The Current reported Sept. 5 that the road commission has been reposting these same closures daily with no posted finish date, cost or contractor. Nothing in the notices published since has changed that.

Two more county roads have since joined the list. Copas Road between Durand Road and New Lothrop Road was closed for berming, and Byron Road north of Easton Road to the dead end was closed for ditching — both 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., both posted Sept. 2, and neither with a detour route. Those are the kind of two-lane connectors school buses and farm traffic use precisely because there is no other way around.

The notices do not say who is doing the work or who is paying for it. Shoulder tile carries water off the roadbed and out from under the pavement, and M-21 is a state trunkline — which normally means the Michigan Department of Transportation, not the county, owns the road — but the advisories are being issued by the road commission and say nothing about the arrangement. The Current has not been able to establish from the notices whether this is county or MDOT work, what the contract is worth, or which contractor is on site.

There is also a typo problem worth flagging for anyone planning around these. One Sept. 2 notice for Wren Road is dated \"Wednesday, September s, 2026.\" The eastbound M-21 lane closure notice from the same day reads \"Wednesday, September 12 2026\" — Sept. 12 is a Saturday. Drivers relying on the website to know which day a road is shut are relying on dates the site itself has gotten wrong.

The road commission asks that time-sensitive comments or complaints go by phone rather than email, at 989-743-2228. Its office is at 701 W. Corunna Ave. in Corunna, open 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday through Oct. 15.

What happens next

The Current has asked the road commission for the project cost, the funding source, the contractor and a date when M-21 reopens unrestricted between Escott and Wren roads, and whether Wren Road will be closed again this week. We will publish those answers when we have them. Until then, assume Wren Road can be shut on any weekday between 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. and plan another route south.