By our reckoning, the last national bicycle conference in Detroit was in 1891 with the League of American Wheelmen. We weren’t overlooked; we just never applied for these conferences.
We co-chaired an impressive planning committee along with the City of Detroit and SEMCOG. This committee put together the opening panel, chose the keynote speaker, selected the program, and developed numerous walking and biking tours.
Highlights included:
An opening “Welcome to Detroit” panel moderated by Council member Scott Benson with Karen Slaugher-DuPerry from the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, Leona Medley from the Joe Louis Greenway Partnership, District 2 manager Kim Tandy, and Bo Wilson from Grown Men on Bikes.
Detroit-raised Nina Idemudia from the Center for Neighborhood Technology of Chicago giving a keynote speech, including her DDOT bus experiences of trying to get to school.
The City of Windsor providing bus transportation, bikes, and lunches for a tour south of the border.
While APBP set a goal of 300 attendees from across North America, we were able to attract 350. This included designers, engineers, advocates and officials from various cities and states, as well as the Federal Highway Administration. There was notable participation from the City of Detroit and MDOT, too.
By all measures, this conference was a major success and we look forward to bringing more to Detroit.
People gathered to celebrate the opening of the UniRoyal Promenade in October 2023.
Back in 2017, we were made aware that trails within the city of Detroit were not included in the Michigan Trails Magazine — both the print publication and the website — which claims to include “more than 180 of Michigan’s best non-motorized biking, hiking, cross-country skiing, and water trails.”
We contacted the publisher and learned they were removed after they’d experienced an unfortunate smash-and-grab at a Detroit trailhead parking lot. The publisher told us they could no longer recommend Detroit trails to its readers.
They will simply become more easy prey for Detroit’s criminals. I would be doing Detroit’s criminals a big favor sending more easy money their way.
Email correspondence with the publisher, June 2017
We noted that a Macomb County trail had a murder, but that trail remained in the publication.
We shared this issue with the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance, which we are a member of. The compromise they reached was for the publisher to link to our website’s Detroit Riverfront Trail Network page. When we recently added context to that page explaining this exclusion, the link was removed.
Our Tweet goes Viral
When dropping off our new Detroit Bike and Trail Maps at the Michigan Welcome Center in Southwest Detroit, we saw the magazine and tweeted about this exclusion.
You can find Michigan Trails Magazine in Detroit at the Michigan Welcome Center, but you won't find any Detroit trails in it. The publisher considers all trails in the City of Detroit to be unsafe, including the Dequindre Cut & RiverWalk. @PureMichiganpic.twitter.com/1VUXBqGu33
— Detroit Greenways Coalition (@DetroitGreenway) May 31, 2024
It went viral with nearly 73K impressions in a week’s time, including a very thoughtful response from State Representative Laurie Pohutsky, who chairs the House Natural Resources, Environmental, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation committee.
In addition to just being horrendously racist, this omission tells me a couple of things: 1. The publisher has clearly not been to the RiverWalk or The Cut. These trails are not only safe, they’re some of the coolest ones I’ve been on (and I’ve been on a lot). 1/ https://t.co/VLLI1aL2yH
We’ve patiently waited for a permanent solution to this issue. Our tweet has unexpectedly rekindled discussions on how to move forward on this.
We’ve met with MTGA, MEDC (who manages the Pure Michigan brand), and others. The Detroit News published the article, Michigan’s ‘premier’ trails magazine omits Detroit walkways ($). More groups have plans to release statements. We wouldn’t be surprised if some of the publication’s sponsors weigh in on this as well.
But in the end, it’s a private publication that can choose what to include and what not to.
We will continue doing our best making more people aware of this.
Thanks to Craig Wood and others who brought this to our attention and offered their assistance in this matter.
There’s been some misinformation being shared on social media from bicyclists saying that motorists should be “adjacent to the curb, and sometimes that means entering what’s been striped as the ‘bike lane'”.
That’s not correct.
The cite Michigan Motor Vehicle Code, which says:
(1) The driver of a vehicle intending to turn at an intersection shall do so as follows:
(a) Both the approach for a right turn and a right turn shall be made as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway.
The law says the curb or the “edge of the roadway.” The Vehicle Code defines the “roadway” as that portion of a street that’s “improved, designed, or ordinarily used for vehicular travel.” Bikes are not vehicles in Michigan, therefore bike lanes are not part of the roadway. Neither are parking lanes, shoulders or striped buffer areas.
In fact, driving in the bike lane to make a turn is a misdemeanor under the Michigan State Police’s Uniform Traffic Code Rule 322, which most Michigan cities, townships, villages, and counties adopt as local ordinances.
(1) A person shall not operate a vehicle on or across a bicycle lane, except to enter or leave adjacent property. (2) A person shall not park a vehicle on a bicycle lane, except where parking is permitted by official signs. (3) A person who violates this rule is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Update: Shortly after this post was published, the Governor signed HB 4012.
We’re involved in many different challenges at the city, state, and federal levels. We’ve been on a hot streak since late last year and we wanted to share the highlights of what we helped accomplish.
Restoring Bike Lanes ✅
We had heard that General Motors wanted the bike lanes removed on East Grand Boulevard primarily between their Factory Zero plant and I-75. There were concerns about truck traffic around bicyclists, though if that was correct, we would prefer seeing them advocate for separated infrastructure. People are going to bike on East Grand regardless and bike lanes are a proven safety countermeasure.
The City was planning a public meeting to discuss options before anything happened. However, we got an email from a bicyclist in January that the bike lanes had been removed early.
We brought this issue up with Council member Scott Benson. When former Council President Brenda Jones had introduced an ordinance to require communtiy engagement before bike lanes went in, Benson got wording included so that engagement would be also required when they were removed. This was largely driven by the bike lanes inexplictably being removed from East Grand between I-75 and Woodward.
This is a safety win for everyone, including the truck drivers. Long term, we’re advocating for the city to create safe bike infrastructure along all of East and West Grand Boulevard, connecting both ends of the RiverWalk, and creating a loop within the Joe Louis Greenway.
Keeping Downtown Sidewalks ✅
It’s not uncommon for residents and corporations to request that city vacate part of the public right-of-way. Engineering analyzes the impact on utilities and sends the petition to city council.
In late Novemeber we reviewed a request from the Detroit Athletic Club to vacate 60 feet of John R between Adams and Madison. Our concern was this included losing the sidewalk – a bad precedent, but especially in Downtown. We contacted Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero’s office since she chairs the Public Health and Safety Committee where this request flowed through. We stated our opposition to the city “giving sidewalks to a private landowner and reducing walkability, especially within the Downtown.” We reached out to our disability advocates who shared our concern.
We met with the DAC and the Council member Santiago-Romero about the vacation, and to their credit, the DAC came up with an alternative that keeps the sidewalks on both sides of John R. The road itself will go from three lanes to two. We support this.
The biggest issue remains: Council received this vacation request without any information regarding the sidewalk removal, only the impacts on utilities within the right-of-way. We are looking at changing the city ordinance to require Engineering to analyze the impacts these requests have on non-motorized transportation.
Maintaining Residential Speed Limits ✅
Michigan law allows cities to use default speed limits in specific situations. They don’t require speed limit signs since motorists should know the defaults. For most residential streets in Detroit, the default is 25 MPH.
That default was set to expire on January 1, 2024. Why? The expiration had been added to gain the support of the Michigan State Police for some other legislation. MSP wanted to study whether they could raise this default. Apparently the effects of this on Detroit neighborhoods and many older suburbs wasn’t considered. We alerted the Michigan Municipal League of this issue.
Last year, House Bill 4126 was introduced to keep the 25 MPH default. Unfortunately it got “stuck” in the House throughout the summer. We reached out to House Speaker Joe Tate to help get the bill moving — and it did. From the House to the Senate, we worked with committee leaders to keep this bill progressing along. It was signed by the Governor Gretchen Whitmer in late November.
Setting Lower Speed Limits ✅
We’ve worked with State Representative Bradley Slagh for three sessions, but it seems we’ve finally helped push his speed limit bill onto the Governor’s desk.
Speed limits are commonly set based on the 85th fastest motorist when they aren’t using the default speed limits mentioned above. However, if the 85th fastest motorist was at 43 MPH, current law requires the limit to be rounded up to 45 MPH. Rep. Slaugh first introduced a bill to give road agencies the ability to round down to 40 MPH. However, it also unintentionally removed the ability of counties to set speed limits based on an engineering study, so we got involved.
We helped improved the text to clarify that all speed limits can be set based on engineering studies. We also got a resolution of support from city council thanks to Council member Benson.
The bill, House Bill 4012, also got slowed up and Speaker Tate got it moving to the Senate. We gave testimony in Lansing at the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The example we shared was of MDOT/MSP raising the speed limit by 10 MPH on Fort Street in Detroit despite it being between a neighborhood and Kemeny Rec Center/Park. After the change, a young boy was killed walking to the park. That was in Senator Stephanie Chang’s district, but after redistricting, was now in Senator Erika Geiss’, both of whom were on the committee with Geiss as chair.
The bill was unanimously moved to the Senate floor with a recommendation for approval. It’s now on the Governor’s desk.
