HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM, Aug. 13, 2026) – We are learning more about what led to the closing of I-196 near West Michigan Regional Airport.
On Tuesday night, state Department of Transportation crews had the westbound/southbound lanes of the freeway blocked off at the Lincoln Road (M-40) exit. This was due to what officials say were a number of small sinkholes that had developed near the 45 mile marker, east of 60th Street, with the largest being about six feet by six feet wide, and eight feet deep.
They had cropped up in the median and along the road shoulders, and apparently came from a culvert failure underneath. No motorists were injured, and there were no reports of any vehicle damage as a result of these sinkholes.
MDOT crews will use small, bundled pipes to create a single pipe in the damaged culvert, much as surgeons would implant a stent to blocked arteries around a human heart. This short-term fix should be completed by next Tuesday, with future plans for completely replacing the culvert, which has been in place since the freeway was built about 60 years ago.
A posted detour has traffic heading towards Saugatuck exiting at M-40, following that routing to US-31, and then heading south to reenter the freeway. Eastbound/northbound traffic should not be affected by this closure.
The culvert was not part of a $2.3 million resurfacing project done five years ago along that stretch of highway.
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