The Detroit Green Task Force gave its annual report to City Council on October 27, 2026. We presented the following as co-chair of the Transportation and Mobility committee:
Our committee covers a wide range of transportation topics, including the Gordie Howe International Bridge and the Joe Louis Greenway.
Road safety remains a major focus. Detroit continues to see over a hundred traffic fatalities annually. Last year, more than a third of those were pedestrians.
We’re still recovering from a spike in fatalities during COVID which is largely due to increased speeding.
Getting motorists to travel at safe speeds would significantly reduce these numbers by giving motorists more time to safely react to and avoid conflicts. And if a crash does occur, slower speeds reduce injury severity, especially for pedestrians and bicyclists.
One of the most effective ways to reduce speeding is through good infrastructure design, such as Complete Streets. These are streets designed for the safety of all users of all abilities.
The city of Detroit is doing great work in Complete Streets and we want this to continue. Administrations change and priorities can change with them. For that reason, we are asking for a Complete Streets ordinance that codifies the city’s existing work and gives council a role in making streets safer within their district.
Complete Street designs don’t always require major investment like the new Greektown Streetscape. Sometimes they can be as simple as building a midblock crossing between a church and its parking lot. [next slide]
Another hot safety topic is e-bikes. They’ve become very popular in Detroit. On some group rides, up to half of the bikes are now e-bikes, which allows more people to join in and keep up. It also helps Detroiters to travel longer distances and they don’t require expensive car insurance or gasoline.
However, retailers are selling devices that do not qualify as e-bikes. They have more power and more speed than what is legal under Michigan law, yet they are being marketed as e-bikes. Even Amazon is doing this.
California’s Attorney General successfully petitioned Amazon to stop these sales. New York is doing this for all retailers. We should do the same. If it’s not legal to use in Michigan, it shouldn’t be sold in Michigan.
The full Green Task Force presentation and Council discussion is available on our YouTube channel.