The Detroit Green Task Force visited Philadelphia earlier this year to learn from that city’s sustainability efforts. The group included city councilmembers, department directors, sustainability advocates and others. As co-chair of the GTF Transportation and Mobility committee (and executive director of the Detroit Greenways Coalition), my focus was learning what they did best in helping people use green travel modes.
One big takeaway was Philly had a very decent bike network in their Center City — a sharp contrast with Downtown Detroit, which only has the Cass bike lanes and RiverWalk.
It got us to thinking what would a bike network look like in Detroit?
We came up with this vision map. The solid lines are existing bike lanes, though we did fudge things to include the forthcoming bike lanes on Michigan Avenue east of Cass. We also could have made Wilkins and Grand River solid but those bike lanes need some improvement.All of the dashed lines are proposed bike lanes. Some could get built in the near-term, too:
MDOT will be constructing Hastings and Montcalm as part of the I-375 Reconnecting Communities project.
MDOT has initial designs for Gratiot Avenue.
DDP has plans to build an Adams cycletrack.
A portion of the Second Avenue is getting built with the Water Square and Huntington Place improvement project.
What about Woodward? It should have bike lanes, but of course the curb-running Q Line makes that much more difficult.
What are your thoughts? Would building out this bike lane network help you get around Downtown Detroit?
This video about Detroit — our history and bike infrastructrure — is really one of the best and we’re not saying that just because we’re in it. Nic Laporte created a well-balanced overview of where we’ve been and where we’re heading.
The video also has us talking about the history of stop streets and stop signs, which is something we plan to write more about. We believe this is an important perspective, especially when it comes to bicycling and Idaho stop laws.
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?
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.
