Tag: Mike Duggan

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Policy

Active People, Healthy Nation

The government of Detroit, Michigan recognizes the importance of providing access to safe and convenient places to be physically active for people regardless of age, race, income, socio-economic status, disability status, and geographic location

At the urging of the American Heart Association, we wrote a proclamation expressing Detroit’s support of the Centers for Disease Control’s Active People, Healthy Nation initiative. We submitted the proclamation to the Mayor’s Office, which was officially adopted.

While approved in a modified form without the resolutions, those resolutions were previously adopted in city plans.

Increasing Physical Activity Through Community Design: The City’s Streets for People Plan will help to make it safe and easy to walk, bicycle, or wheelchair roll for people of all ages and abilities by improving the design of Detroit  with Complete Streets that connect destinations such as public transit, grocery stores, schools, worksites, libraries, parks, and health care facilities. 

Access to Places for Physical Activity: The City’s Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan will create or enhance access to places for physical activity, including parks, greenways, recreation centers, and programs

According to the CDC website, Kent County is the only other Michigan community to have passed a similar proclamation. However, it’s unclear if the CDC is actively maintaining the list of communities that have

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Complete Streets

I-375 Project Changes

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.

Categories
Complete Streets

The Community decides on Complete Streets

Selected W. Michigan streetscape design

Photo from Alexis Wiley’s Twitter feed

Mayor Mike Duggan led a community meeting to discuss four streetscape options for W. McNichols just west of Livernois. The first was to rebuild what already existed, a two-lane road with on-street parking on both sides. The second and third options added landscaping and bumpouts. The fourth converted one side of the on-street parking into a two-way bicycle lane.

After a couple hours of community input and discussion, the group voted. It came down to options 3 and 4. While business owners preferred the additional parking in option 3, the city had created an off street parking lot for 88 vehicles — and could add more.

The vote was 39 to 12 in favor of adding the bike lanes. Project construction will begin later this year.

Approaches to Advocacy

Some bicycle and Complete Streets advocates take more adversarial approach (e.g. the War on Cars.). Some bring an intellectual elitism that is willing to belittle local decision making in communities they know little about. We don’t partner with these groups.

We have confidence that Complete Streets can help solve existing community issues like speeding, pedestrian safety, blight removal, access to parks, economic development, etc. The key is to bring all the information to a pragmatic discussion and let the community decide. They may not always support bike lanes and other Complete Streets designs — and advocates may have to live with that.

Certainly there are voices opposing Complete Street designs. While there are valid concerns, most aren’t well support by data. We’ve heard bike lanes emphatically called “the most dangerous thing in Detroit.” We’ve heard bike lanes blamed for causing one persons car crash. (They didn’t. We pulled the police report.) We heard our electronic bike counters on E. Jefferson were wrong because some only saw about three bicyclists in a month. We’ve heard that bike lanes being built for white suburbanites despite the very visible, growing Detroit #bikelife movement.

What have we not heard many say publicly (at least not directly)? That they want to continue driving faster than the speed limit and be able to pass traffic in the curb lane. Bike lanes help curb those unsafe practices. It’s one of the major benefits to bike lanes. They reduce speeding and reduce crashes among everyone: motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Bike lanes are not just for bicyclists’ benefit. They especially improve pedestrian safety in a city with one of the nation’s highest pedestrian fatality rates. They’re like speed humps for major roads.

There will nearly always be opposition any time changes are proposed. There was opposition to the Dequindre Cut before it was built. Once it was a success, the change was embraced, which helped open the door for future greenways in Detroit.

Successful Complete Streets can do the same.

Additional Reading

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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!

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Uncategorized

Bike to Work Day Recap

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Thanks to everyone who participated in the 2018 Detroit Bike to Work Day event sponsored by Henry Ford LiveWell.

It was a record turnout — and the weather wasn’t too bad at all!

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan addressed the crowd at Spirit Plaza this year and noted:

We want to have choices in the city, different ways to get around, different ways to get to work: to be able to walk, to be able to bike, to be able to take a bus, to be able to drive.

The Mayor mentioned this and you can see it in the photos. There were many city staff riding bikes to the event and of course Council member Scott Benson. As you might imagine, there  is no better way for staff to understand the bicyclist needs and perspectives than first hand.

Council member Benson also introduced a Resolution declaring May 18th, 2018 as Bike to Work Day and the month of May as Bicycle Awareness Month. The resolution was passed by City Council.

Thanks to our other event sponsors include the office of Detroit Council member Scott Benson, AECOM,  American Cycle and Fitness, Detroit Future City, Downtown Detroit Partnership, Giffels-Webster, HNTB, OHM Advisors, MoGo, SEMCOG, Tour de Troit, Wayne State University, and Wheelhouse Detroit.

 

Categories
Complete Streets Newsletter

News from the Trail – District 4 Meeting

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend our bike lanes meeting last week. Our goal was to get 30 people in the room and we had about 80. If you were unable to attend, John Gallagher of the Detroit Freep Press wrote this article about why the city should continue building a bike lane network.

Tonight is a Community Meeting with Mayor Duggan for District 4 residents. It’s from 7pm to 8:30pm at the Salvation Army offices, 3000 Conner Avenue just north of E. Jefferson.

If you live in District 4, please try to attend. (If you need a ride to the event, contact us.) Mayor Duggan wants to know whether or not District 4 residents support building better bike lanes within the district.

If you don’t live in District 4, don’t worry. These community meetings will come to every district. What we’re trying to avoid is having a large number of people from outside of District 4 speaking at tonight’s meeting about bike lanes. That could reinforce the thoughts of some residents that these are being built for others.

We recently captured these comments from Mayor Duggan where he emphasizes the bicycling benefits for those within the District.

Bike to Work Day

Another opportunity to influence the Mayor is Bike to Work Day on May 18th. He is scheduled to address the group at 8:15am that morning at Spirit Plaza/CAYMC.  A great turnout would show that Detroit bicycling is more than recreational. We will be emailing more information about the event soon.

Book Discount

Lastly, we have a 25% discount code to share for this new book from Island Press. As you may know, Copenhagenize has been involved in planning work for the Detroit’s Greater Downtown.

Copenhagenize: The Definitive Guide to Global Bicycle Urbanism by Mikael Colville-Andersen has been officially released by Island Press! Copenhagenizeoffers project descriptions and stories of best practices alongside informative visuals to illustrate how to make the bicycle an easy, preferred part of everyday urban life. Use 25% off discount code BIKES to order your copy from Island Press today.