Detroit Greenways Coalition
When we started this work over 18 years ago, the pace of improvements for biking, walking and rolling was no where near as impressive as it is today. Where we used to have to scrape for news to share, we now have too much to report — and this is a good thing. So, if we were to put together a 2025 double-record greatest hits album, below are the tracks!
Despite rumors of its eminent death, the I-375 replacement project is continuing to move forward albeit with changes.
In August, the Governor paused the project ($) primarily due to its increasing costs and local business concerns about disruptions during construction. In September, Eric Larson, CEO of the Downtown Detroit Partnership offered the “only viable solutions” in an opinion piece ($): Break the project into two phases or just rebuild it as is. Needless to say, we didn’t support the latter solution. (Surprisingly, Mayor Duggan did appear to support an I-375 rebuild when we asked him.)
We continued our conversations with MDOT, DDP, and Kresge Foundation. In the end, we felt we could support a two-phase approach. It was better than what we had.
The first phase would replace I-375 south of Gratiot with a boulevard as previously envisioned. It would remove the “Jefferson Curve” and address the three failing bridges (Jefferson, Lafayette and Larned). It would also address the failing Gratiot bridge over the Dequindre Cut. It would include a two-way cycletrack from Gratiot to the RiverWalk, which we really like.
The second phase would be a redesign of the I-75 interchange and the removal of the Fisher Freeway stub connection to Gratiot. This gives MDOT more time to work with major stakeholders in that area, specifically Eastern Market businesses, and develop better strategies for limiting negative impacts during construction. Unfortunately, the Montcalm cycletrack between Ford Field and Eastern Market would get pushed back to this later phase. We didn’t like hearing that this could be pushed back by 10 years or so.
Will the USDOT support this? We’ll find out. Their grant covers a large portion of the costs.
If you missed the November 2025 community meeting that discussed much of the above, there is a livestream recording available. The presentation and displays will eventually be added to MDOT’s I-375 Detroit webpage.
A new report compares Michigan with five other Midwestern states.
Walking, accessibility, biking, and transit saw considerable improvements in policy and funding with the adoption of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. An often overlooked piece of those legislative changes was the creation of a new document: the Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment (VRUSA, also pronounced Ver-roo-suh, for short).
The VRUSA is a tool to evaluate how a state Department of Transportation (DOT) understands the issue of traffic violence among people who walk, roll, and bike. It also documents what state DOTs are doing to address and improve the safety of vulnerable road users.
While every state is supposed to follow the same guidance from the Federal Highway Administration with developing their own VRUSA, that does not always look the same in practice. These documents are essentially self assessments — the onus is on states to evaluate themselves and their efforts.
In creating their VRUSAs, each state needed to detail their efforts to protect vulnerable road users in five key areas:
The first major deadline for states to complete and submit their VRUSA was November 2023. After that, states are expected to update the document as part of their Strategic Highway Safety Plan update, which must be completed every five years.
Thanks to funding from the RE-AMP Network, we were able to study this further in partnership with BikeWalkKC, 1000 Friends of Iowa, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, Bike Cleveland and Transportation Riders United. We analyzed and compared the VRUSAs of Michigan and five other states and compiled our work into the findings below:
Click here to read the report: Comparing Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessments in the Midwest
The report covers three key areas:
Additionally, the report makes recommendations for how each state DOT can do more to support the needs of vulnerable road users. What did this look like for Michigan?
In light of these points, the question becomes: “How can advocates in other states use this approach to push their state DOTs to do more for Vulnerable Road Users?” Examples include:
In publishing this report, we hope to demystify the Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment for active transportation advocates across the country. The goal is to make it easier for people to understand what their state DOT is (or is not) doing for its most vulnerable road users. It serves as a tool to help people push their state DOTs to do better.
The fact that 54% of pedestrian fatalities occur on state-owned roads, according to the group Smart Growth America, means the VRUSA comes at a critical time in the fight for safer streets.
Streetsblog has also covered this report in Everything You Need to Know About Keeping Pedestrians and Bicyclists Safe In Your State, in One Document. It includes an interview with Michael Kelley of BikeWalkKC, who helped lead this project.
We submitted the below comments on MDOT’s 2025-2029 Five-Year Transportation Plan. This year we did not have any comments specific to Detroit projects within the plan. However, we did ask how this plan supports and helps meet MDOT’s Toward Zero Deaths goal and Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Carbon Neutrality pledge. We’d note that the plan’s cover includes a photo of 14th Street construction in Corktopwn that removed the bike lanes.
The MDOT trunkline safety goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050 will not be met by reliance on “several safety initiatives and strategies.” (Page 23) We ask for a more sober assessment that this goal will not be achieved without fundamental changes in how MDOT prioritizes, funds and designs its trunklines while also making investments that encourage modeshift to public transit and active transportation. The latter is critically necessary for MDOT to reach its safety goal, yet we don’t see this mentioned in the plan, even in Public Transportation Program Impacts. (Page 19).
We ask that you show the required annual performance targets to get MDOT to zero by 2050. If you can project pavement and bridge condition through 2040 then there’s no reason why safety can’t be given this similar forward looking graph.
MDOT’s prioritization of safety is not apparent from the provided project list, including the proposed HSIP list. Is MDOT prioritizing safety projects in the high-injury network? By far, Wayne County has more trunkline fatalities and serious injuries than any other Michigan county, yet no proposed HSIP projects are listed for it.
This plan has a modest mention of MDOT’s Carbon Reduction Strategy (using a broken hyperlink) but doesn’t show how these strategies affect the provided project list. Do these projects reduce carbon emissions and will they get the state to carbon neutrality by 2050?
Similar to our safety comments, we want to see carbon emissions performance targets through 2050. We want to know where we are at today and what changes need to be made to get us to zero.
And as we noted earlier, modeshift to public transit and active transportation must be clearly called out in the plan as a fundamental safety and carbon neutrality strategy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
By our reckoning, the last national bicycle conference in Detroit was in 1891 with the League of American Wheelmen. We weren’t overlooked; we just never applied for these conferences.
So, last year we submitted an application to bring the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals conference to Motown. There’s obviously a lot happening here with greenways, Complete Streets and Bike Life — and APBP agreed.
We co-chaired an impressive planning committee along with the City of Detroit and SEMCOG. This committee put together the opening panel, chose the keynote speaker, selected the program, and developed numerous walking and biking tours.
Highlights included:
While APBP set a goal of 300 attendees from across North America, we were able to attract 350. This included designers, engineers, advocates and officials from various cities and states, as well as the Federal Highway Administration. There was notable participation from the City of Detroit and MDOT, too.
By all measures, this conference was a major success and we look forward to bringing more to Detroit.
This time we won’t wait 133 years.
