The Detroit Greenways Coalition is joining communities around the world in observing the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, taking place on November 17th, 2024. This annual observance serves as an opportunity to honor the lives lost and affected by road traffic crashes, raise awareness about road safety, and advocate for safer, more sustainable transportation systems for all.
The Detroit Greenways Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to the expansion and improvement of the city’s network of safe walking, biking, and rolling pathways, recognizes the vital need for systemic change to prevent road traffic fatalities and injuries in Detroit and beyond. This day serves as a reminder of the human cost of unsafe roadways and underscores the importance of a holistic approach to transportation that prioritizes safety, equity, and environmental sustainability.
“We mourn the lives lost on our streets, and we stand with the families, friends, and communities who are affected by traffic violence,” said Todd Scott, Executive Director of the Detroit Greenways Coalition. “In Detroit, too many people are impacted by preventable crashes, and we are committed to advocating for policies and infrastructure that protect the most vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and people with disabilities.”
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, which began in 1995, is observed in over 50 countries and calls for action on issues of road safety, justice for victims, and accountability for those who contribute to the epidemic of road traffic injuries and fatalities. In Detroit, the Coalition is amplifying its efforts to support Vision Zero goals—an initiative aimed at reducing all traffic fatalities to zero.
“We must work together to create safe streets that are designed for people, not just cars. We’re optimistic that the $62.5 million Detroit has received in Safe Streets for All funding will help address the most dangerous streets and intersections,” said Scott. “However, Detroit’s 1,285 road fatalities during the past decade (with nearly one-third being vulnerable road users) is a stark reminder that this work is far from done.”
MDOT completed a planning study in 2022 that recommends a significantly improved Complete Streets design for two miles of Michigan Avenue in Corktown.
This “Locally Acceptable Alternative” includes dedicated transit lanes, sidewalk-level bike lanes, shortened crosswalks, and a plan for reusing the historic bricks.
With construction about to start, some are opposing this improved design through a “Save the Bricks” petition.
CALL TO ACTION!Add you voice at MDOT’s community meeting on Thursday, September 12th, 4:30-7pm at the Gaelic League of Detroit, 2068 Michigan Ave in Corktown. A presentation is scheduled for 5:30pm.
PEL Study
From 2019 to 2022, MDOT completed a Planning and Environmental Linkages study for redesigning Michigan Avenue in Corktown. This study included four community meetings, four meetings with local businesses & stakeholders, and three with the State Historical Preservation Office (SHPO). It also invited public submissions for a redesigned Michigan Avenue using the Streetmix tool. Through this community engagement, the PEL produced a Purpose and Need Statement.
To create a corridor that promotes safe and equitable access to all forms of mobility and emerging technology along Michigan Avenue, while preserving the area’s unique character.
The study considered many street design alternatives that were then evaluated based on how well they met this statement. The evaluations along with additional community input led to a “Locally Acceptable Alternative” design.
All of this information is included in the study’s PEL report.
Completing this amount of community and stakeholder engagement and study makes projects more appealing for federal funding, which proved to be case here. Michigan Avenue was awarded a $25 million BUILD construction grant in 2022.
Save the Bricks?
This year, a Save the Bricks petition was promoted by the Corktown Business Association. “Join us in protecting our community’s heritage and ensuring transparency and proper planning.”
However, it was properly planned. Not only that, according to the PEL, MDOT met with the Cortown Business Association to discuss many of the issues raised in the petition, including saving the bricks.
Corktown Business Association (CBA) Meeting notes from PEL
The CBA shared particular concerns with the practical alternatives around removing mid-block left turns, maintaining brick street pavers, maintaining street parking, maintaining cultural events, and financial support to businesses during construction. These concerns were addressed through additional meetings. The mid-block left-turn removal concern was addressed through allowing for passenger vehicle u-turn movements at the signalized intersections. These u-turn movements are used in other center-running transit corridors across the country. The maintaining brick street pavers was not fully addressed through the placement of the new concrete brick pavers. CBA preference was for increased use of brick pavers in the roadway from Sixth Street all the way to Fourteenth Street. MDOT would not be able to fund and maintain the increased use of brick pavers in the roadway but would consider additional limits if the City of Detroit and a third party were willing to fund the construction and long-term maintenance of these additional improvements. Maintaining street parking was addressed through lane refinements that increased parking along the north side of the corridor and would keep the overall number of street parking spaces similar to existing. The concern about maintaining cultural events was addressed through the use of removable barriers between the dedicated transit lane and vehicle travel lanes. Cavnue would support temporary removal and replacement of the barriers so the entire eastbound direction of the corridor could be used for parades. The concern about financial support to businesses during construction was addressed by the City of Detroit through education on opportunities for self-funding solutions to support affected businesses and future support from the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. on best practices learned from recent city streetscape projects.
MDOT also met with the Corktown Historial Society to discuss the brick pavers.
Corktown Historical Society Meeting notes from PEL
The Corktown Historical Society was presented the locally acceptable alternative with additional context on public feedback from the community meetings and SHPO meetings related to the historic brick pavers. The reuse of the historic brick pavers outside the roadway was agreeable with suggestion of a potential continuous ribbon of brick behind the back of curb and potential reuse of broken bricks for local artists to use. The group preferred the use of more new brick pavers in the roadway throughout Corktown. There was comment that the approach to use in the historic districts near the east and west sides of the neighborhood would fragment the community. MDOT has limited resources to build and maintain the expensive brick infrastructure and will need to be strategic in where new pavers are placed in the roadway. The locations provide the historic look and feel at both ends of the neighborhood where the historic frontages remain mostly intact. Additional limits of brick pavers in the roadway would not be funded by the project but would be considered if there is city and stakeholder support to fund additional construction and long-term maintenance costs associated with the improvements.
Based on this feedback, the Locally Acceptable Alternative includes “new concrete brick road pavers in the historic districts, and historic brick pavers reused in extra sidewalk space throughout the corridor.”
This makes us wonder if this petition more about keeping vehicle four lanes. The petition incorrectly states that “Local businesses and residents were not consulted about reducing traffic lanes.”
We would note that the Avenue of Fashion underwent a similar and very successful road diet despite having 10,000 more daily vehicle trips than Michigan Avenue.
While some have expressed concerns about increased traffic, especially with the proposed soccer stadium, we ask how do we want to accommodate that traffic? Through better transit, biking, and walking or by just getting more people in cars?
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.
This was a seriously good year for making biking, walking, and rolling better in the City of Detroit. Here are some of the highlights.
Greenway Openings
Southwest Greenway – This 0.6-mile rail-trail sibling of the Dequindre Cut opened in May and provides a very convenient connection between Corktown and the RiverWalk. This also includes the 15th Street pedestrian/bicycle connection to renovated Michigan Central and Roosevelt Park.
RiverWalk Uniroyal Site – The long anticipated segment between the Mt. Elliott and Gabriel Richard Parks opened in October. Thousands of people came out for the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy‘s celebration. This closed the biggest gap on the East RiverWalk.
Joe Louis Greenway – The City of Detroit officially opened the Warren Gateway trailhead on Halloween. Calling it a trailhead doesn’t do it justice. It’s a great community gathering and play space. It’ll be a major destination along the JLG. The Meade Cut-Thru north of Hamtramck opened this year as well and provides another neighborhood connection to the greenway.
Complete Streets
East Warren saw some of its separated bike lanes upgraded with concrete curbs, landscaping, and much more from 3 Mile Drive to Cadieux. We’re advocating for extending the East Warren separated bike lanes west of St. Jean to the (future) Joe Louis Greenway, WSU, Woodbridge and more — especially since we expect this to be part of the Iron Belle Trail route.
Rosa Parks streetscape is a newly opened cycletrack from West Grand Boulevard (near the Motown Museum) to Gordon Park (near the Congregration). This project also removed a couple unnecessary vehicle lanes, which reduces stormwater runoff and nearly doubles the size of the adjacent MLK Jr. Memorial Park.
Road Safety
Safe Streets for All funding – In February, the City of Detroit received $24.8 million in federal funding to improve its most unsafe streets. The city reapplied for additional funding from the same program and received another $24.8 million grant to address 56 high-crash intersections served by DDOT. This latter grant will also “conduct a Level of Traffic Stress analysis to address gaps in bicyclist/pedestrian networks, update the City’s Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, and pilot training for DDOT bus operators to ensure safe operations around people walking and biking.” This funding will lead to some community meetings and major street improvements in 2024.
Under state law, nearly all residential streets in Detroit have a default 25 MPH speed limit. No speed limit signs are required. During an earlier state legislative session, changes were made to this section of state law that would remove this default on January 1st, 2024. We supported a bill to keep the current residential speed limits, and when it got held up in the House, we worked to get it unstuck. It passed the Senate and was signed by the Governor.
(Dis)connecting Communities
Pedestrian Bridges – Freeways divide Detroit neighborhoods, so when they were first constructed, pedestrian bridges were added to help reduce this disconnection. Through the years, MDOT has not maintained these bridges and many of them are now closed. We’re involved at the local, state, and federal levels to address the lack of maintenance, non-compliant ADA designs, and their outright closures, most recently with the Canfield Bridge. We are expect to have more updates in 2024 as we stay on top of this.
I-375 Reconnecting Communities – We are pleasantly surprised that there’s been more vocal opposition to the overbuilt replacement boulevard than the freeway removal itself this year. This continued pressure along with new post-COVID traffic counts could lead to a tighter boulevard design that’s better for bicyclists and pedestrians. It’s much less expensive to do a road diet before you build it. Stay tuned for updates and more public meetings in 2024.
Miles of Bike Infrastructure (Centerline)
New for 2023
Total
Trails
1.3
24.8
Bike Routes (sharrows)
0
42.4
Bike Lanes (includes 0.25 miles removed on 14th Street in Corktown)
2.5
93.2
Detroit Greenways Coalition infrastructure database
