MI Curious

How do you know if nursing homes and assisted living communities are treating you or your loved ones properly, and what do you do if they’re not?

This week, Governor Snyder is expected to sign a bill sending an extra $175 million in one-time funds to our state and local roads. That money supplements $2.3 billion in ongoing funds this year. 

Kirk Steudle, director of the Michigan Department of Transportation, joined Stateside again to answer one more MI Curious question about Michigan's roads. 

As part of Michigan Radio’s ongoing MI Curious project, Kirk Steudle, director of the Michigan Department of Transportation, has been answering your questions about our roads.

Today’s question comes from John Echelbarger from Belleville:

Why has Michigan not lowered the weight restrictions on semis compared to Ohio or Indiana? In Michigan, trucks can carry double the weight.

Kirk Steudle, director of the Michigan Department of Transportation recently joined Stateside to answer your questions about our roads.

It turns out, you had a lot of questions.

As Michiganders drove to work or school today, many were dodging potholes or rumbling along on cracking or crumbling pavement.

It’s the time of year when the condition of Michigan’s roads makes its way into conversation after conversation. Many wonder what it’s going to take to get Michigan’s roads and highways in better shape.

Two Japanese figure skaters who train in Metro Detroit have had their Olympic moment.

Japan's Miu Suzaki and Ryuichi Kihara finished 21st in the pair skating short program – unfortunately not good enough for them to make the finals. They also competed in the team event, where Japan finished fifth overall.

Michigan’s 10-cent bottle deposit law has been on the books since 1976. It covers can and bottles for carbonated beverages – soda, pop, beer, seltzer and so on.

Gov. Rick Snyder was in Dundee today talking about expanding recycling, which got us thinking: do you know what you can and can’t recycle in Michigan?

Something Michiganders talk about all the time? Roads. But do you know who’s in charge of our roads, or who owns them? Listener Phil Arbour was thinking along those lines.

He sent this question to our MI Curious team:

“How is road ownership broken down in Michigan?"

Arbour said he wanted to know how the roads are divvied up by federal, state, county, township, and village.

Stateside brought in Aarne Frobom with the Michigan Department of Transportation to explain.

Well... it's not an absolute "no."

It's more of a "probably not," given what we've learned about the Huron Mountain Club in reporting this story.

We'll get to the downright practical ways you might get into the club below. In the meantime, we'll just say it doesn't hurt your chances if you’re Channing Tatum, or related to Henry Ford (and even Ford had trouble getting in).

The scenes of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, including the Ku Klux Klan, led many to think about these groups in our state.

Michigan Radio listener Zachary Jones from Ypsilanti was ahead of the game. He submitted the following question to our MI Curious team back in June:

Why is Livingston County considered the KKK capital of Michigan?

Driving along the Michigan shoreline often means passing vineyard after vineyard.

That made listener Blake Trombley wonder, so he submitted this question to our MI Curious project:

"Why are so many of Michigan's vineyards located on the coast?"

Jim Curtis lives in Ahmeek, a village in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. That's right near the Douglass Houghton Falls.

Curtis said he's always wondered how the height of those falls compares to other waterfalls in Michigan. So he submitted this question to our MI Curious project:

"What is the tallest waterfall in Michigan, and how is that figured out?"

If you like bird watching, Pere Cheney is a great place to see the Kirtland Warbler. Other than that, there isn't much there.

It's what you might call a ghost town.

If you're wondering how that happened, you're not alone. Michigan Radio listener Olivia Cushway of Ypsilanti posed that very question to our MI Curious team. 

Brittany Riley is the general manager of a liquor store in Kalamazoo. Every three months, she prints out what she calls a "load of price changes" that sometimes seem "incredibly arbitrary."

So, she posed this question to our MI Curious team:

"How does the state come by its minimum liquor prices?"

To answer that question, Andy Deloney, chairman of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (LCC) joined Stateside today.

Michigan Radio's ongoing MI Curious series gives listeners a chance to ask a question. Then, we do our best to get an answer.

The next question comes from Daniel Moerman from Superior Township, near Ann Arbor. He won our last voting round.

Michigan Radio listener Ashley Lewis of Royal Oak posed this question to our MI Curious team:

When Dr. Rafaai Hamo was featured on the popular photography website Humans of New York in December of 2015, both he and the story he shared grabbed the attention and curiosity of people across the world. Hamo's wife, daughter and other family members were killed when their home in Syria was hit by a missile. He fled Syria with his surviving children, a son and three daughters, and arrived in Detroit at the end of 2015.

A listener recently asked Stateside the following question:

"What does the Environmental Protection Agency do in Michigan?"

Don Williams is from Holland, Mich., and recently, he posed this question to Michigan Radio’s MI Curious project:

Is it just his perception, or do mental health services vary widely in different parts of the state?

Ypsilanti's Sue Webster visited the Detroit Masonic Temple twice (once for the Theatre Bizarre masquerade, and once for a lecture). Her visits piqued her curiosity, so she posed her question to our MI Curious project.

“There must have been a huge presence at the Masonic Temple in Detroit at one time. What was it all about?”

Detroit's Masonic Temple is a gray stone building that towers over Cass Park.

Inside, it is decadent.

Amy Beth Edwards posed this question to our MI Curious team:

Why doesn't road kill get picked up on a timely basis in Michigan?

Edwards says she sees dead animals so often along her commutes to Chicago that she had to know why they're all there.

As part of our MI Curious project, Philip Zoutendam asked this question:

What's the story of the Mormon kingdom that was on Beaver Island in the 1800s, and how does it affect the island today?

Halloween is Saturday, but that won’t stop people from dressing up early.

Youmacon kicks off in Detroit today.

It’s the biggest anime, gaming, and comic convention in the state. The event is in its 11th year, and – along with a lot of other “cons” around the state – it continue to grow.

The popularity of these conventions piqued Lorraine Schleter’s curiosity, so she posted her question to MI Curious:

Comic and anime conventions are popping up all over the U.S. How are Michigan's comic and anime conventions faring?

There’s a lot of talk (though as of yet, no action) about a long-term solution for fixing Michigan’s crumbling roads.

One question that comes up a lot in the surrounding debate: What role do all those heavy trucks play, and what should we do about them?

That’s the question at the heart of this edition of MI Curious, Michigan Radio’s series investigating listener questions about our state.

Michigan Radio’s Sarah Cwiek looked into this question from Ethan Winter, who asked: “Why are all the weigh stations always closed?”

As part of our MI Curious project, Flint's Cody LaRue asked us the following question:

There is an old railroad bridge in Flint that has "grand funk railroad" on it. Did the band do this, or were they involved in some way?

The graffiti was painted over a “Grand Trunk Western Railroad” bridge in Flint. We checked in with the band to find out.