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Newsletter Policy Safety & Education

End of the Year 2020

End of Year Donation

First, we want to thank everyone that generously donated to our Giving Tuesday fundraiser. These donations are a key funding source that keeps us at the table and advocating for better bike and trail investments across Detroit. We couldn’t do this without your help.

If you haven’t already done so there’s still time to donate on our website via PayPal. There’s an added incentive for donating before this year is over. Under the CARES Act, “taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions may take a charitable deduction of up to $300 for cash contributions made in 2020 to qualifying organizations”. The Detroit Greenways Coalition is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.


Legislative Updates

The current Michigan legislative session is wrapping up. Bills that didn’t pass the House and Senate are dead as everything starts over in the next session. Here are three bills we watched. None of them made it to the Governor:

  • HB 4733 — This is the Speed Limit bill which clarifies that local governments have  modest flexibility in setting speed limits besides basing them only on the 85th fastest motorist driving under ideal conditions. The original bill language was flawed and we successfully worked with the bill’s sponsor and others to fix it. We supported this new bill, which made its way out of the House Transportation Committee but died in the Ways and Means Committee. We expect this bill to be reintroduced next session.
  • SB 892 — We call this the Robots on Sidewalks bill and it was largely being pushed by FedEx and Amazon. We opposed this bill and felt it was very flawed not only from a sidewalk safety aspect, but it largely removed local governments’ ability to manage this disruptive transportation option. Nonetheless, the bill passed the Senate but was not not taken up by the House Transportation Committee. During this time, a similar Senate bill was introduced that would allow these robots on sidewalks at 10 MPH and in bike lanes at any speed! Both bills died in the session, but we expect them to be re-introduced — and we’ll be watching.
  • HB 5369 — This bill takes the local Detroit streetcar ordinances and makes them state law. The language is not clear how or even when bicyclists can safely ride on Woodward when the QLine is operating. As a local ordinance without proper signage, it was unenforceable for bicyclists. This bill would change that and be enforceable. As of this writing, it appears to have died on the Senate floor. 

Three Opportunities for Input

  • Michigan Avenue in Corktown — MDOT is still seeking input on how to redesign Michigan Avenue through Corktown. They are using Streetmix which lets you drag and drop various road design features. It’s an interesting way to visualize the road design you want to see in the no-so-distant future.
  • FerndaleMoves.com — The City of Ferndale has released draft recommendations for their Ferndale Moves mobility plan update. They are seeking feedback on those draft recommendations using this interactive webmap before January 9th. They have also posted the recording and slides from their December 9 public meeting.
  • Gratiot/7 Mile Framework Plan — If you missed the most recent neighborhood planning meeting, you can still take participate in the prioritization poll exercise.  This will be available until the end of the month. “Community input is essential to the success of creating a plan to improve your neighborhoods.”

Virtual Bike Tour Video

We previously wrote about Council members Scott Benson and Roy McAllister’s bike tour back in August. This tour went through Ferndale (with Mayor Melanie Piana) and Pleasant Ridge. SEMCOG has made this great video showing the highlights along the tour route.

Riding Livernois through Ferndale

Additional Reading

Categories
Complete Streets Policy Safety & Education

Every Month is Pedestrian Safety Month

October is Pedestrian Safety Month where safety groups roll out tepid safety messaging and do a modest amount of short-term traffic enforcement in a handful of Michigan cities. This approach certainly hasn’t led to reduced pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries, which have actually increased over the past decade

What is much more effective than education or enforcement? It’s engineering — building Complete Streets that can self-regulate motorists and reduce speeding 24 hours a day. This is critical since vehicle speed largely determines the degree of injury suffered by pedestrians and bicyclists in crashes. (Vehicle design is a significant determinant as well.)

If there is any doubt that Detroit has speeding problem, just consider Detroiters’ overwhelming demand for speed humps to slow motorists on residential streets. This demand has led Mayor Mike Duggan to shift $11.5 million in road funding to install significantly more speed humps in 2021 — perhaps more than any other major U.S. city.

I’m not sure there’s been any innovation in this city that has been received with more enthusiasm than the speed humps

Mayor Mike Duggan Press Conference, September 16, 2020
YearSpeed humps installedResident requests
201832
20195433,000
20201,2008,000
20214,500 (planned)

Of course speed humps only work on streets were speed limits are 25 MPH or less. Other streets require different Complete Street designs to reduce speeding, e.g. bike lanes, bumps outs, narrower travel lanes, street trees.

Reframing bike lanes as speed humps for bigger roads is invaluable. Bike lanes help reduce speeding and increase safety for everyone, not just bicyclists.

Speed Limits

Another issue we’re working on is how speed limits are set in Michigan.

One major reason the auto industry wrote the “Rules of the Road” in the 1920s was to have higher speed limits and restrict other users, predominantly pedestrians, from using these roads. Higher travel speeds gave motorist a clear advantage over other travel modes and helped sell more cars.

Michigan’s speed limit laws still reflect this history with minimums limits for speed limits and by having the 85th fastest motorist under ideal conditions determine the speed limit — not traffic experts or local governments. This leads to higher speed limits that don’t consider road design, crash history, local land use, and pedestrian and bicyclist use. What’s equally bad is that when roads are reconstructed, they are designed to accomodate the speed limit rather than what is appropriate and safe for the local community.

One local example of this is W. Fort Street near Schaefer. It used to have a 35 MPH speed limit. The Michigan State Police measured the 85th fastest motorist at a bit over 40 MPH, so they raised the speed limit to 45 MPH. They didn’t consider that the neighborhood to the south crossed the road to get to Kemeney Rec Center and park on the north. After the speed limit changed, 8-year-old Brandyn Starks was hit and killed while crossing the street to get to the park.

We’re part of a stakeholder group that’s helping shape current legislation (HB 4733) to provide a modest amount of flexibility in setting speed limits. This change is very much inline with recommendation from the NTSB and many other national organizations. We look forward to providing future updates on this bill.

What about 20 MPH speed limits?

There is a push in many cities around the world to reduce residential speed limits from 25 MPH to 20 MPH. This change is being promoted to help reduce pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries. Recent studies show that lower speed limits do reduce motorist speeds.

However, Michigan law prohibits setting Detroit’s residential speed limits below 25 MPH through January 2024. The Michigan State Police will be doing motorist speed studies on these local roads across the state. We anticipate they will more likely want to raise this 25 MPH minimum rather than lower it by 2024.

Of course, if the legislature takes no action before that time, residential speed limits could be set based on the 85th fastest motorist…