Tag: bike lanes

Categories
Complete Streets Greenways Newsletter Policy

News from the Trail – March 2019

Streetscape Projects

Many streetscape improvement projects will be under construction this year as part of Detroit’s $80 million Commercial Corridor Program. Per the City, “These streetscape improvements support the City’s neighborhood planning efforts to improve safety and quality of life for Detroit residents. Streetscape improvements might include a variety of amenities including expanded sidewalks, bicycle lanes, improved lighting, plantings, neighborhood branding, and more.” (More on Crain’s Detroit)

Prior emails have encouraged everyone to attend community meetings for Grand River. Those are ongoing with additional information on the city website. As a result of previous meetings and feedback, the preferred design is for a vastly improved pedestrian, bike, and transit experience along this state trunkline while retaining onstreet parking (see below). The city recognizes the need for motorist and bicyclist education with a 2-way cycletrack. Construction is scheduled to begin this year.

There is a community meeting on Tuesday, March 19th from 6-8pm for the Kercheval Avenue Street Design between E. Grand Boulevard and Parker Street. The meeting is at the Solanus Casey Center, 1780 Mt. Elliott Street. (flyer)

Also this month is the East Jefferson Corridor Improvements Community Meeting. It will be held Thursday, March 21st from 6-7:30pm at the Hope Community Church, 14456 E. Jefferson. (flyer)

This Crain’s Detroit Business article covers many of the other exciting projects.

FCA Community Benefits Agreement

The City of Detroit is moving quickly to try landing a new Fiat Chrysler plant near the the existing E. Jefferson plant. There are already bike lanes on all four sides of that facility, including the Conner Creek Greenway and Iron Belle Trail along the St. Jean. Mayor Mike Duggan has proposed vacating St. Jean to gain the needed acreage for the plant. An initial community benefits meeting is this Wednesday, March 13th from 6:30-8pm at the UAW, 2600 Conner Avenue. We’ll be there to ensure the bike lanes and trails remain and propose that they get improved.

Bike Lane Ordinance

Council President Brenda Jones has asked the Law Department to draft an ordinance that requires all new bike lanes to be approved by City Council. We strongly oppose this. As we said recently in public comment before Council, bike lanes are a safety design that improves mobility for bicyclists, pedestrians, scooter users, and those in motorized mobility devices. Current city ordinance gives the Department of Public Works the ability to design safe roads based on national standards. City Council has approved the non-motorized plan that calls for these bike lanes. As one might imagine, there is a wide variety of opinions among city council members as this video from a recent Public Health & Safety Committee meeting shows.

We will keep everyone updated on this proposal and how you can share your thoughts with City Council.

Upcoming Events

Additional Reading & Listening

Ambassador Opportunities

  • MoGo Neighborhood Ambassador applications are due this Friday, March 15th
  • The Detroit Health Department is hiring temporary Safe Routes Ambassadors “to work on safety education with school children and community groups with an emphasis on the recent and upcoming Complete Streets work and Safe Routes to School efforts.”

For the most recent news, follow us on Twitter and Facebook

Categories
Uncategorized

Looking Back at 2018

We made quite a bit of progress towards our vision for a citywide network of safe, convenient, and fun bike pathways, Complete Streets, and trails. We also took some heat as these changes stirred up some “bikelash” from both motorists and bicyclists.

Here are some of the top projects and issues we were a part of in 2018.

East Jefferson

The East Jefferson bike lane project certainly caused the most outcry as it was rolled out rather haphazardly while limiting motorists ability to speed. It led to Mayor Mike Duggan pressing pause on new bike lanes and requiring more community input up front. That happened at a meeting we hosted as well as at the Mayor’s District 4 meeting.

E. Jefferson got it’s bike lanes, the longest separated bike lane project of its kind in the U.S. We measured their use and counted 154 bicyclists per day near Conner Avenue and 373 per day just west of the E. Grand Boulevard. These counts were taken just days after the bike lanes opened.

These lanes are still preliminary and a transportation study is underway for the final road design.

One highlight of the summer was using these lanes for group rides such as the Nifty 50 miler. They’re wide enough to allow side-by-side riding. We’ve heard near unanimous support from bicyclists, scooter users, and even those using motorized wheelchairs.

Bike Lane Maintenance

Detroit’s separated bike lanes were rolled out more quickly than the maintenance plan for sweeping and snow removal. This led to many complaints from bicyclists, some who felt the city shouldn’t build bike lanes if they could not maintain them.

At our E. Jefferson meeting in April, Department of Public Works (DPW) Director Ron Brundidge heard this firsthand and made the commitment to do a better job.

It apparently worked. The city implemented a regular sweeping schedule, and while certainly not perfect (especially in areas near construction) it was an improvement.

The city has also done a better job with parking enforcement for vehicles in bike lanes. The ImproveDetroit app was updated so bicyclists could report all of these issues.

City Staff Changes

There were a couple major changes within the city structure that will affect bike and trail work moving forward.

First, Caitlin Marcon is now the Deputy DPW for Complete Streets. She formerly led mobility planning with the Planning and Development Department (PDD.) She’s now in position to better oversee the city’s $80 million commercial corridor Complete Streets program. We’ve come quite a ways from 10 years ago when we started our push for Complete Streets.

The other big change is greenways planning was moved from PDD to the General Services Department (GSD), home of parks planning. Planner Christina Peltier now works in GSD and oversees the Joe Louis Greenway project.

Scooters!

The seemingly overnight arrival of motorized scooters really disrupted the transportation status quo. They were very well received by users based on how many trips they took. But at the same time, they caused consternation as scooters blocked sidewalks and inexperienced users operated too quickly among pedestrians.

Unlike most of U.S. cities, scooter use was legal since they appeared to be covered by Michigan’s electric skateboard laws. Those laws were recently updated to more clearly reference scooters.

The city has convened a motorized scooter committee, which we’re a part of. There may be local ordinances introduced to address some conflicts in 2019. At the same time, the scooter technology is changing and that may lead to different solutions (e.g. automatically reduced scooter speeds in high-pedestrian areas.)

The city of Detroit is fairly open to this new transportation mode but they also want to make sure it’s available in areas outside of the Greater Downtown. Each operator is required to place some scooters in the neighborhoods if they wish to expand beyond the current 300 scooter limit.

Streetlights saving lives

We noticed a major drop in Detroit pedestrian deaths starting in 2016 and wanted to know why. We noticed that the drop largely occurred in areas that were “dark and unlighted.”

We requested the 2017 crash data from the Michigan State Police, wrote software to translate it into a usable format, and found the trend continuing. That trend was not occurring in nearby cities like Hamtramck or in the state of Michigan.

We published our analysis and shared it with the media. It was apparent that the city’s new streetlights were saving dozens of lives each year. Detroit no longer had the highest pedestrian fatality rate among U.S. cities. We thought this was big news, but most others didn’t. We’ll pull in the 2018 numbers soon and see what they look like.

Bike Club News

Detroit’s bike club culture continues to grow. It’s now growing beyond Detroit as the clubs set up sister clubs in cities around the U.S. (and Belgium!) Our list of clubs passed 70 this year, thought admittedly this includes some less active clubs.

We also brought some bike club leadership to Lansing to help us get a Senate Resolution passed in support of the Joe Louis Greenway. That was very successful and the resolution passed unanimously!

The sad news is we lost a number of club leaders in 2018, including DeAngelo “Dee” Smith Sr. (D-West Riderz), Jerome “Jigga” Caldwell (Hood 2 Hood Riderz), and Reggie Spratling (313 Metro Cyclones & Metro Detroit Cycling Club.) These losses were not due to bicycle crashes, though Detroit had a couple of those in 2018.

2019 should be a pretty amazing year to be a bicyclist or trail user in Detroit. Our next post will highlight some of the major stories that will get you excited for all that is coming!

Categories
Complete Streets

NoMo-vember: Detroit Bike & Trail Project updates

  • Bike lanes were removed from recent safety funding projects: Warren & Mack
  • Downtown Bike Network implementation on hold due to downtown construction. Focusing on east-west connectors now.
  • Equipment breakdowns have affected bike lane maintenance
  • Caitlin Marcon is the Deputy DPW Director of Complete Streets

Detroit’s quarterly non-motorized facilities meeting was last week and there were many updates we want to pass along.

Safety Projects

Grant funding is available in the federal transportation bill to redesign streets with high crash rates. Detroit has many high crash roads and has been successfully receiving this funding through MDOT. Traffic Engineering does Complete Streets designs on these high crash roads, which always includes better walking facilities (e.g. crosswalks, countdown Walk/Don’t Walk timers) and often bike facilities (e.g. bike lanes). These projects typically receive minimal community engagement — usually a public meeting.

In 2017, Warren Avenue from the city of Dearborn (near Central) to Dequindre received funding. The plan included protected bike lanes. Given Mayor Duggan’s concern about removing vehicle lanes to add bike lanes without more public discussion, these have been pulled from the project. The two-way conversion of Warren in Woodbridge was completed. We are advocating that the city does add quality bike lanes on Warren from Trumbull to Dequindre. They would be a great connection between Woodbridge, Wayne State, and Eastern Market.

In 2018, Mack Avenue from the Dequindre Cut to Alter was funded. Bike lanes were not included except for the bridge between St. Aubin and Conner Avenue.

Harper Avenue was selected for 2019. With more community engagement, bike lanes can and should be included in these projects as they are a key design element for building safer streets.

Downtown Bike Lane Network

An earlier revision of the Downtown Bike Network Plan

Downtown has long lacked bike lanes. With MoGo and now motorized scooters, the need for a good bike network is greater than ever. The Downtown Detroit Partnership (DDP) has been working on a plan, received funding from MDOT and the Erb Family Foundation, but didn’t have enough. With the added mobility staff in both the planning and public works departments, the city has taken a large role in the project.

We learned at the recent meeting that with all of the ongoing downtown construction, it wasn’t realistic to build the entire network now. What the DDP and City are looking to do is build two major east-west connectors through downtown. Those are Adams from Beacon Park to Brush and Michigan Avenue-to-E. Lafayette connector.

Bike Lane Maintenance

Recent equipment breakdowns have affected the city’s ability to sweep the bike lanes. They have been using blowers until they can get the sweepers repaired, or better still, get specialized bike lane maintenance equipment. The latter really is the best solution in the long run and we’re pushing city to make this happen.

Detroit’s Complete Streets Deputy Director

Caitlin Marcon had been leading  mobility planning within the Planning and Development Department. She’s now a Deputy Director at the Public Works Department and in charge of Complete Streets. This is a big deal and should help build collaboration between the two city departments.

It’s a bit hard to believe this has happened. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we started pushing the city to consider building Complete Streets.

Congratulations, Caitlin.

Categories
Complete Streets History In the Media

Say hello to the Mobility City

Recently there have been prominent editorials and comments about the loss of “our culture” because of changes in road safety and accessibility. In a recent Op-Ed, Keith Crain of Crain’s Detroit Business said that bicyclists “must have a powerful lobby.” We agree.

The Detroit Greenways Coalition and its coalition member organizations and the city have been honing their skills for well over fifteen years. Our organization has garnered significant support from the public to support the State of Michigan efforts to build Complete Streets that balance the needs for everyone who uses and pays for our public roads. It is important to note that these efforts do not diminish vehicle access but improve them for everyone’s use, to save lives and spur neighborhood growth and economic development. Our organization does not derive our support and lobby power from big bucks, we get it from the thousands of grassroots voices that say we can make our public roadways work better for everyone.

To the assertion that we should say “good-bye to the Motor City”, that’s just not true. Even Ford Motor Company accepts the fact that transportation is changing and every type of choice made by a Detroit resident is important. To further dispel what made Detroit transportation hub is that in 1868 the first person rode a bicycle in Detroit on East Jefferson – nearly 28 years before the first motorized vehicle.

Now 150 years later, the city of Detroit is making East Jefferson safer for everyone, bicyclists, pedestrians as well as motorists. The goal is to make it a neighborhood road where driving the speed limit feels right, where pedestrians can safely cross the road and where bicycling is a viable option for residents to shop, visit neighbors, shop and eat Downtown, picnic on Belle Isle, enjoy the RiverWalk and live the urban lifestyle of everyone strives for.   Jefferson can no longer be a “speedway” designed only to accommodate and encourage high-speed automobile traffic. Studies show that changes like this are important and impactful to revitalizing commercial corridors – something East Jefferson can certainly benefit from.

Over the past decades, the approach to East Jefferson and the neighborhoods along its route has not changed. And admittedly any change can be difficult to adjust to. Unfortunately it is even harder for those that think their time “behind the wheel” and their hurry to get to their next destination is more important that quality of life, safety or the economics of the neighborhood corridors through which they speed by.

The following are common refrains and misconceptions, along with the clarifications needed to educate those unwilling to recognize the importance of these changes or even to have the patience to accept the improvements that come over time.

“Bike lanes came without notice.”

Detroit started its citywide bicycle planning in 2005 with a non-motorized transportation master plan. There have been hundreds of public meetings since then for bike lane projects. Public feedback at these meetings has helped shape what the city is installing. East Jefferson in particular has seen significant non-motorized planning and meetings, including the “2012 Visions of Greenways” plan, the Detroit East Riverfront Framework Plan, and countless neighborhood and business meetings along the corridor.

“No one bikes in Detroit.”

This has not been true for over 150 years. While no city has exact numbers on bicyclists, we do know that there are at least 68 bike clubs in Detroit, each with many members who regularly ride throughout the city.  Slow Roll is the largest weekly bike ride in the United States with many rides topping well over a thousand participants. On an average day over 1,200 people use the Dequindre Cut, both pedestrian and bicyclists. The very popular MoGo bike share program hit its annual 100,000 trip goal in under 5 months and has shown non-motorized transportation is needed by both residents and visitors. Few cities in the country can make similar boasts.

“Bicyclists don’t pay their fair share.”

There is an unfortunately universal misconception that State and Federal taxes on motorist fuel and vehicle registrations fees cover Michigan’s road costs. They don’t. In 2014, those collected fees only covered 62.1% of the state road costs. The balance comes from the general fund and property taxes, which every Michigander pays, those with or without motor vehicles. The cost of bicycle and pedestrian facilities are just a fraction of the transportation costs in this state. If anything, bicyclists and pedestrians subsidize motorists.

“Bicyclists don’t follow the rules.”

Nationwide studies show this is not true.  It is simply that motorists notice others breaking the law more than they notice themselves. There is more severe and permanent danger to pedestrians and bicyclists from motor vehicles than the other way around.

It is worth remembering that the rules of the road were birthed by the auto industry to gain a competitive mobility advantage over other modes of transportation, be it bike, horse, cart or tram. The speed limit on East Jefferson used to be 12 MPH and everyone using it had to yield at every intersection. The industry pushed for higher speeds, stop signs, traffic lights, one way streets and later freeways so the convenience of motor cars over other modes would help sales. They coined the term “jaywalking” and restricted the pedestrian rights to the roadways. Cities nationwide are re-evaluating these archaic rules to bring more balance to the public rights-of-way. Having rules that make sense for pedestrians, bicyclists and motor vehicles will lead to greater safety in our neighborhoods.

Even on East Jefferson.

 

Categories
Complete Streets Greenways Newsletter

News from the Trail – April 2018

Joe Louis Greenway

The City of Detroit is very close to signing off on the acquisition of 8 miles of abandoned rail corridor. Once that is complete, the city will begin Framework Planning for the greenway corridor. Unfortunately Detroit was not awarded a TIGER grant for construction, which is still a ways off.

In the meantime, we’ve update our Joe Louis Greenway map brochure with funding from the Doppelt Family Fund. We’ve updated the greenway’s web page on our site and included a link to a PDF of the map.

We’ve also been attending events to distribute the printed version.

Important Bike Lanes Meeting

We are hosting a public meeting on April 18th from 6pm to 8pm at the Northeast Guidance Center (2900 Conner St, Detroit, MI 48215) to discuss bike lanes in Detroit.

WE REALLY NEED DETROIT BICYCLISTS HERE!

We’ll be presenting on our vision — that the city build and maintain bike lanes, that it prioritizes creating safe connections, that it provides enforcement so that we’re not dealing with vehicles parking in the bike lanes, event barriers, or other obstructions, and that we don’t have standing water in the lanes.  

The Planning and Development Department will present on the new E. Jefferson bike lanes. The Public Works Department will be there to talk about their maintenance plans for these and other Detroit bike lanes. The Department of Neighborhoods will be on hand. We have asked that the Detroit Police Department and Municipal Parking have representatives present as well.

This is a great opportunity for bicyclists to show the city that this is more than just more plastic posts and paint. We need quality, safe infrastructure that will continue to encourage more Detroiters to ride more often.

Other Meetings this Week

Categories
Complete Streets Greenways History Newsletter Policy

News from the Trail – December 2017

Happy 149th Anniversary!

The first bicycle was ridden in Detroit 149 years ago. Ben Fletcher brought a 100-pound Hanlon bicycle to Detroit. It was mostly made of wood and iron — bicyclists hadn’t invented inflatable rubber tires yet. Fletcher crashed often as he tried riding it along Jefferson according to the Detroit Free Press. As much as the newspaper mocked the rider, they did believe bicycles would eventually be “as plenty as carriages in the streets.”

Year end donation

While it’s fun to look back, we need to keep focusing on moving things forward. To help us do that, we rely heavily on donations both big and small to cover our operating costs. It’s not too late to make a tax-deductible donation to the Detroit Greenways Coalition. We also have a montly support option if that’s more convenient. We appreciate any and all support!

Protected Bike Lanes (and Snow!)

People for Bikes just announced America’s best ten bikeways for 2017.  Though outside the top ten, Detroit did get honorable mention.

Every year, a handful of good projects narrowly miss our list.

One that stood out this year: the 3.5-mile protected bike lanes in Detroit’s Michigan Avenue, the latest in a series of massive projects that show the Motor City’s potential but have, so far, struggled with maintenance and poorly parked cars.

The City and MDOT have made rapid increases in new protected bike lanes — more than nearly all other U.S. cities — and there’s a learning curve for motorists and maintainence staff. The recent snow storm was a major challenge. The city has told us they are committed to maintaining them as well as the vehicle lanes. Once that happens, we can expect to see Detroit projects in that top ten.

Joe Louis Greenway Updates

  • Our new Joe Louis Greenway map is nearly complete. We should have copies to hand out by early next year.
  • Michigan Senator David Knezek has introduced Senate Resolution 115 “to support the city of Detroit’s efforts in the creation of the proposed Joe Louis Greenway.” We help craft this resolution with the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance.
  • We wrote supported three recent grants that would add bike lanes to Joseph Campau in Hamtramck, acquire land that would nearly double the length of the Dequindre Cut, and build much of the greenway with an $18.3 million TIGER grant. We also worked with 25 Detroit bike clubs and they agreed to sign on in support. We hope to hear the results of all these grants in early 2018.

Local Bicycle Ordinances

You may have heard about a recently passed state law that increased speed limits on some Michigan roads. Earlier this month we noticed an inadvertent mistake in the bill’s language that makes all local bicycle ordinances enforceable. It effectively removes the need for governments to post signs indicating what local bicycle ordinances exist. We are now working to get this corrected. (The mistake also makes local truck routes largely unenforceable.)

This is not a major concern in the city of Detroit since we’ve been working to clean up and remove outdated bicycle ordinances since 2008. However, we still have work to do in other cities such as Hamtramck.

Bicycle Network Strategy

If you’ve attended our recent Bike Trails & Cocktails event, you already know that Detroit is close to finishing a Bicycle Network Strategy with the Copenhagenize design firm. The latter recently mentioned in on their web site saying it is “… a forward-thinking protected bicycle network strategy for the greater downtown area, helping to set a standard for many American cities to follow.” We’re really looking forward to this becoming finalized and help standardize what our bicycle facilities look like.

Michigan Trails Summit

We’ve been working closely with mParks on their 2018 Michigan Trails Summit. This year it’s in Detroit on February 6th at the DNR Outdoor Adventure Center. Registration and conference details are now online.

Maybe we’ll see you there.

Until then, have a safe and happy holiday season!