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Bike to Everywhere 2023
Unlike previous years, we don’t have a formal event planned for Friday, May 19th, 2023 – Bike to Everywhere Day.
Since COVID and the corresponding reduction in work commutes, we’ve switched up the former Bike to Work Day ride into a day for riding everywhere rather than driving. That’s still the case this year. Unfortunately we don’t have socks to giveaway this year.
Please tag us (@DetroitGreeway) if you post a photo or video this Friday on Twitter or Instagram.
However, we are distributing free bikes on Friday, though they’re not for everyone. They’re for our Bikes 4 Employees program participants.
B4E is a program of the Detroit Greenways Coalition. Partnering employers in 2023 who recruit bike applicants from among their employees or clients include the City of Detroit’s Blight Remediation Division of GSD, Development Centers, Flex-N-Gate, The Greening of Detroit, Henry Ford Health, Live6 Alliance, Matrix Human Services, Wayne Metropolitan, and Wayne State University. Program funders include Flex-N-Gate, Henry Ford Health, Matrix Human Services, and the United Way of Southeast Michigan. Product donations and discounts have been offered by Detroit Bikes, Kali Protectives, Kryptonite, and Trek.
Bike recipients receive new high-quality bicycles and helmets, lights, locks, reflective vests, and bike pumps. The bikes are outfitted with fenders and rear racks with clip-on packs for carrying loads.
Look for coming exciting announcements about the expansion of this program later this year.
MoGo has partnered with Avalon Bakery for free small coffees to those with MoGo passes this Friday (from opening to 10am) at their three locations:
- Avalon Canfield inside Jolly Pumpkin
- Avalon Rivertown inside Meijer on East Jefferson/Larned
- Avalon Woodward
Our April 2023 newsletter is now online!
A 35-person study group from the Detroit Green Task Force recently spent three days in Seattle to learn about that city’s sustainability and climate action efforts. The Detroit group included four city councilmembers (Benson, Calloway, Santiago-Romero, Waters), many departments heads, and advocates, including us.
The City of Seattle was especially gracious in welcoming us and putting together a very thorough agenda. While there are many obvious differences between the two cities (e.g. average household income), there were also many similarities and opportunites to learn from their sustainability practices.
We heard presentations on many topics from energy to waste, water to solar, and our focus area, transportation. As for the latter, they recognize the need to reduce single-occupancy vehicle traffic through investments in public transit, walking, and biking. Electrifying the status quo is not enough to get to carbon neutrality in the transportation sector — and it’s also not an equitable approach, a leading priority across all their efforts.
Every morning we led a group run to see some of those investments in person. One highlight were Healthy Streets, which are similar to their neighborhood greenways but with fewer restrictions on neighborhood activities that would otherwise require street closures (e.g. basketball).
Healthy Streets are closed to pass through traffic, but open to people walking, rolling, biking, and playing. The goal of this program is to open up more space for people rather than cars—improving community and individual health.
Seattle’s Healthy Streets and neighborhood greenways include traffic calming, such as bump outs, speed humps, 20 MPH speed limits, and traffic circles.
These are similar to the Slow Streets described in Detroit’s Streets for People Design Guide, but not yet implemented.
Seattle has also invested in thousands of traffic circles. These are small gardens that fit within a residential intersection to slow vehicles. They are not roundabouts! These are also in the city’s Design Guide. Since returning from Seattle, we’ve submitted a grant application to pilot these in Detroit.
One thing we didn’t see in Seattle: broken and missing bike lane delineators. Theirs seem far more durable that those used in Detroit. We were told they rarely need replacing. We hope to try those as well with out traffic circle pilot.
A major takeaway for us was climate change. They’re feeling the effects of record temperatures, expanding forest fires, and risings seas, whereas Michigan hasn’t. We can’t help but think this is one reason why Seattle and the state of Washington are taking climate action much more seriously than Michigan.
Overall, it was an invaluable experience, not only to learn from Seattle, but to strengthen connections within our Detroit group. We look forward to implementing some of what we saw here at home.
Thanks to the Kresge Foundation, Amazon, and Visit Detroit for making this visit possible. We also would like to thank Washington DOT Traffic Engineer Dongho Chang and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Executive Director Gordon Padelford for helping us plan our group run routes and meeting with us during the event to share additional information.
Read all the latest updates in our online newsletter.
Giving input given during project planning is the most effective way for the public to improve them for walking and biking. It gets much more difficult to make changes once a project is under construction.
Below is a list of five major Detroit projects that will have planning in 2023. The first two have surveys you can take now to provide your input. The other three should have meetings later this year. While we’ll do our best letting you know when those occur, you might consider subscribing to get email updates.
Belle Isle Mobility
We’ve been raising safety issues for bicyclists and pedestrians on the island for over a decade. Little has been done, but that could be changing. There is a currently a mobility plan underway that could lead to real safety improvements on the park roads as well as the MacArthur Bridge. The first step is to take the survey which is open through February 19th. There will be additional engagement throughout the year.
ACTION: Take the Multimodal Mobility survey
MDOT Pedestrian Bridges
Pedestrian bridges over the freeways provide safe, critical community connections. However, MDOT doesn’t want to maintain these pedestrian bridges, and when the bridges are no longer safe, they want to permanently remove them. One of the recent closures is the Spruce Bridge that safely connected North Corktown to Downtown. MDOT has a survey to collect feedback on how people use the bridge and while pitching the much less safe alternative crossing at Temple — a bridge that doesn’t provide east-west crossing for bicyclists.
ACTION: Take the MDOT Spruce Bridge Survey
Later this year MDOT will be evaluate all the Detroit pedestrian bridges to determine which other ones they can remove. We asked that MDOT also evaluate where pedestrian bridges need to be installed, though it remains to be seen if they will do that. We really need the community voice to back us up and tell MDOT they can no longer disinvest in their Detroit infrastructure and disconnect communities.
I-375 Replacement
MDOT will be replacing the current I-375 freeway with an surface-level boulevard. While the basic framework for this project is set, there are still opportunities to get involved and provide feedback. For example, we’re continuing push for safer biking and walking along and across the boulevard so that it really does reconnect communities. Per MDOT, “there will be many more opportunities for community input and participation” but especially as it relates to excess property this project creates.
ACTION: Subscribe for MDOT Updates
Gratiot Avenue
Gratiot Avenue in Detroit is likely the most dangerous road in Michigan. By our estimates, 1.5% of all Michigan road fatalities occur on this stretch of road. MDOT has now started a PEL study to “identify and evaluate safety, multimodal mobility, transit needs, and proposed improvements.” We expect there will be community engagement this year and hope there’s a strong collective voice that demands a safer, saner street for all users.
ACTION: Sign up for MDOT Updates
A PEL Study was completed for Michigan Avenue. That helped attract $25 million in federal funding to rebuild that state road. We want to see the same happen for Gratiot.
Joe Louis Greenway
Planning and construction is happening quickly for the 27.5 mile trail. The City of Detroit is trying to keep everyone updated on this project as well as the public engagement opportunities. The best way to get “in the loop” is to subscribe to their newsletter.