parking – Detroit Greenways Coalition

News from the Trail – June 2020

Unity Ride 4 Justice

We want to thank the Detroit Saints Bike Club for hosting the Unity Ride 4 Justice ride last week. It was inspiring, uplifting, and positive event that reinforced that we are all one family and supporting each other when we ride together.

Virtual Project Meetings

Given the panademic, all public project meetings are now online. Here are some June meetings you may want to check out and provide feedback —

State Long-range Transportation Plan on June 16th at 7 PM and June 17th at 10 AM – Want to help shape how the state of Michigan invests in transportation? MDOT is hosting two telephone town halls to get your input. You must register 3 hours in advance. There’s more information online for this statewide planning project.
Old Redford Neighborhood Link on June 17th at 5:30 PM – This meeting is for sharing your thoughts on community-led activation of public space in Old Redford. This includes public art and cultural programming. Zoom or call in 312 626-6799 with meeting ID 528 771 3400.
Parkland Park on June 18th – Wayne County Parks is hosting two public meetings to discuss improvements at Parkland Park in Dearborn Heights, neslted between Rouge Park and Hines Drive: 11 AM – 12 PM (password 630206) and 4 PM – 5 PM (password 003784). The park provides a key connection for the Rouge River Greenway. Please consider joining one of these meetings!
Kercheval Streetscape on June 18th from 5:30 PM – The City of Detroit is hosting this meeting to give contruction updates. This project runs from E. Grand Boulevard to Parker and includes improvements for walking and biking. Zoom or call 231 338-8477.
Lenox Center/A.B. Ford Park on June 30th at 5:30 PM – The City of Detroit is having a kickoff community meeting for a redesigning project. Zoom, or call 267-831-0333 with meeting ID: 918 1582 7787. They are also gathering input using this survey.

Other Updates

Joseph Campau in Detroit is being resurfaced between E. Davison and Carpenter this year. It will be receiving a two-way cycletrack as well since this is a segment of the Joe Louis Greenway.
The City of Detroit received the entry-level Bicycle Friendly Community award from the League of American Bicyclists. Like other national awards, it assumes the Census Bureau’s bike to work numbers accurately reflect the amount of bicycling in all cities. That’s not a good assumption in Detroit where bicycling is growing ever popular while its bike to work numbers have dropped significantly.
Similarly, People for Bikes ranked Detroit as 22nd among U.S. cities, jumping over a couple hundred other municipalities. Last year Detroit fell over 100 spots in the rankings despite adding more protected bike lane miles than any U.S. city. We don’t place much value in this either since it also makes assumptions with Census data.
The planned overhaul of the Detroit zoning ordinances continues, this includes possibly reducing or eliminating parking requirements — something that could lead to denser development that is more walkable and bikeable. We would welcome this.
The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, Eastern Market, Belle Isle Conservancy, Downtown Detroit Partnership and City of Detroit have developed this Detroit Parks Coloring Book. Download the pages for free and start coloring!

Livernois Bike Shop

We want to extend our condolences to the family and friends of Sam Awada, owner of the Livernois Bike Shop, located at the east end of the new Fitzgerald Greenway. Sam’s family says the shop will continue to be open and honor his memory.

A memorial gathering occured shortly after his passing where many in the community shared their stories of how Sam helped them and others. His nephew mentioned Sam’s adoration of MLK Jr. and how he would play his speeches as the younger kids sat on the floor and listened. Read more about Sam and the shop

MDOT to add protected bike lanes to Grand River Project

MDOT recently held an open house on August 10th, 2017 open house to discuss their Grand River Avenue reconstruction project.

Although this project is already under construction, the re-striping will be changed before it is completed in September. The seven-lane road between Cass Avenue and I-94 will be road-dieted to five lanes and (mostly) protected bike lanes. On-street parking will be removed except in locations where it is needed by small businesses. In those limited locations, bicyclists will loss the protected bike lane and have to share a 14-foot vehicle travel lane.

That is not certainly not ideal. However, the MDOT project team was unwilling to remove another lane of travel at this time, especially given the uncertainty of the new arena and its new traffic patterns. City planning did propose an alternative pavement marking where the protection drops that would alert motorists and encourage them to stay left.

Some small businesses did attend and affirm their need for on-street parking since they did not have off-street options. There seemed to be a respectful acknowledgement from both bicyclists and these owners that the road design wasn’t ideal but a fair compromise to benefit both parties.

Bicyclists also raised concerns about the maintenance of existing protected bike lanes. The city confirmed that they now have specialized equipment to sweep these lanes that are too narrow for standard width sweepers.

These Grand River bike lanes provide a key connection between many destinations, including Downtown, Woodbridge, Beacon Park, RiverWalk and more. East of Cass Avenue, a two-way cycletrack is planned to connect through downtown. It is anticipated that they will eventually get extended for the entirety of the Grand River.

With the completion of this year’s E. Jefferson, Cass, Warren, and Grand River Avenue projects, Detroit appears to be one of the top five U.S. cities for miles of protected bike lanes, up from 76th in 2015.

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