The End of Detroit... [Plan to widen I-94, I-75]

[Bham1982]

You are joking right

No, I am obviously serious. Improving a roadway used by hundreds of thousands of daily commuters will have a signficant economic multiplier effect.

[ghettopalmetto]

No, I am obviously serious. Improving a roadway used by hundreds of thousands of daily commuters will have a signficant economic multiplier effect.

Fuck yeah! More gas stations and Waffle Houses!

What do you mean by "signficant", Bham? Got data for us? And stop conflating "improvement" for "widening" [[among other oversimplified misconceptions).

Only in Detroit do people use meaningless bullshit words like "multiplier effect" to justify every stupid brainfart. To me, the word "multiplier" involves numbers. Without numbers, it's just propaganda.

[jaytheory]

metro Detroit does not ahve Traffic. I dont care how you slice it. rush hour here is cake walk.

Try DC the beltway is jammed almost 24 hours a day. heading into annadale from 395 to the beltway or heading across a bridge into the city is literally like the 14 Mile road stretch on i75 at its worst all the time

people of Michigan. unless you have lived somewhere else you dont know what traffic is

[jaytheory]

because relived congestion creates demand. if the freeways were jammed 247 the demand would peak at jammed. if a lane is added capacity is added so demand for alnes and usage could grow. there argument is that roads a re contained by widths and traffic, therfore more lanes will increases volume without congestion.

this is bad bad bad

[rb336]

There have been zero studies that show increased capacity is an effective long-term solution to congestion. There have been studies that show it is not and that any gains disappear within months of completion. Issues related to ingress and egress from the widened highway are major problems. To avoid those problems, any highway in a high-traffic area with three or more lanes needs at least two exit lanes and surface streets need to be re-engineered to handle increased outflow from the highways. increased accidents at the entry/exit ramp locations are also a bi-product of expansion.

The best answer to highway congestion is getting more cars OFF of the system via improved transit options. We'd be better served by replacing an existing lane with a BRT system.

the following gif should make it clear - even though it is a surface street

[professorscott]

This whole thread is collapsing into arguing details of individual trees when the entire subject is completely laughable as a forest. Make a list of the top twenty problems Detroit has, that we need to solve to make Detroit a better place to live [[or work, or go to school, or pray, or get laid, or drink, or whatever). If traffic congestion is on your list at all, you haven't given it much thought.

Go to New York or Chicago or D.C. or Atlanta or Los Angeles and drive around during rush hour if you actually want to see what real congestion looks like. We probably have better peak-hour traffic conditions in metro Detroit, with a couple of spot exceptions [[all outside the City proper), than almost any big city in North America. And anyhow, that's not the "problem" we should be working on right now or spending billions of dollars on.

The difficulty is that MDOT knows how to build wide roads and that is, for the most part, all it knows how to do. So when it has money, it builds wide roads. This is a bureaucratic culture problem, and has nothing to do with prioritization. The only tool I own is a hammer, so every problem looks like a nail.

[Gannon]

We also cannot forget the time-honored tradition of corruption in major roadbuilding projects. Kick-backs and graft sway a multitude of decisions. The oddest decisions always have some deeper motivator.

I studied what I could find on traffic when I lived in Los Angeles...their glossy "Hour"-type magazine had an excellent article on the matter in 2000-1. Their findings? If we could all leave that 'safe space' in front of us, that alone cushions enough to allow the flow to continue. Period. The ones who kill the flow of traffic are the lane-changers dashing for that next opening.

Same principle works with soda bottling plants...they just need to insure some 'negative space' between the solid objects so regular interruptions don't kill the whole flow.

Then again, they don't have any idiotic freeway interchanges which dump traffic onto the speed/passing lane. I would compromise on this whole ordeal if only they would correct that Lodge/I-94 interchange.

I think spending billions on all this is simply stupid. So there must be some corruption in the ranks somewhere...

[scottn55]

So long 4th Street... it was fun having you around all these years. The 94 widening also will spell the end of the house my grandfather was raised in. And while that may not mean much in the grand scheme of things it means a lot to me. So my objectivity on this subject may be colored by sentimentalism... but I can think of some much better uses for $3B than widening I-94.

[313WX]

I drive 94 to 696 to Mound everyday for work from 23 and Gratiot. For the most part, I have no difficulty with traffic, and when I take 94 or 75 into and out of Detroit, it's rarely bad enough where I think "Man we need 8 lanes each way."

Widening the freeways is dumb in my opinion because the only time any congestion exists is for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. The other 22 hours of the day you can literally do 95mph if you wanted to and have no problems.

Agreed.

I also take I-94 everyday from Conner/Chalmers to Addison/Ford Road.

What will piss me off more is if the only crosstown route that will get me to work at a reasonable time is closed off for several years just to add an additional lane.

[That Great Guy]

The money used to build these comes from public bus service. The SMART Property Tax is a tax shIft to be renewed next August 2014.

[Detroitnerd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlTM4INe-5A

[Bham1982]

There have been zero studies that show increased capacity is an effective long-term solution to congestion.

Could you show me even one study that argues the inverse?

Only on DYes would people argue that increased capacity isn't at least part of a remedy for congestion. I hope this means the Toonerville Trolley on Woodward will be single-track, with one tiny trolley car. No need to increase capacity when it's irrelevant to dealing with congestion.

[Detroitnerd]

"Maybe if I intentionally misunderstand everything they say ..."

[ghettopalmetto]

Could you show me even one study that argues the inverse?

Only on DYes would people argue that increased capacity isn't at least part of a remedy for congestion. I hope this means the Toonerville Trolley on Woodward will be single-track, with one tiny trolley car. No need to increase capacity when it's irrelevant to dealing with congestion.

Here is a short scholarly piece that explains the concept in economic principles. There is a nice bibliography at the end.

http://www.worldbank.org/transport/r...s/apbinduc.pdf

AASHTO, publishers of the "Green Book" [[the cookbook used by highway engineers) acknowledged the existence of induced demand back in 1957. Stated another way, MDOT engineers are ignoring the governing body of their own profession.

[KJ5]

My only hangup is the 4 year delay on this part of the project.

That's my favorite thing about it! 4 years for people to come to their senses! Turn Mound Rd into a freeway instead. Invest in and promote public transportation

[Huggybear]

Big picture, guys. Assume the truth of every argument against removing freeways and for connectivity, walkability, and induced demand. If you do, then it's hard to argue against adding two lanes to I-94 if it meant you could surface [[a) I-75 south of I-94 plus I-375 and [[b) the part of I-75 that loops north of downtown. MDOT is already trying to unload the maintenance costs of the first one, and the second one is part of a redundant freeway system. If induced demand works, then the bigger and badder I-94 naturally will pull traffic from those two legs of I-75.

You want to talk about cutting through communities? I-94 in the stretch affected by this expansion [[the impact that is feared for the future) has nothing on what happened when the Chrysler went in [[I-75 south of I-94 plus I-375) and I-75 cut across the top of the CBD. That wiped out two stretches of walkable commercial street and bisected Corktown. Using I-94 as a stepping stone to bring back Vernor Highway [[running almost all the way from Mexicantown to GP) and Hastings Street [[running almost the entire length of Midtown) as surface streets seems like much more of a "connectivity" project than fighting about the width of a freeway that MDOT is now committed to. If I hated freeways, I'd be happy to snip the top of Midtown if it meant connecting a much larger area.

This I-94 expansion is a project whose neighborhood impact mostly comes from huge service drives - the part of this project most susceptible to modification and the easiest part to modify or reverse. The extra freeway lanes in the pit may not have a point,* but those are not the things carving out little bits and pieces of Midtown.

HB

*By the way, I understand the economic arguments WRT induced demand, but someone can please explain why the Davison now has double the width and half the traffic?

[Gannon]

Big picture, guys...

*By the way, I understand the economic arguments WRT induced demand, but someone can please explain why the Davison now has double the width and half the traffic?

Interstate-696

[Sharnelle]

When this bit of news spreads it will confirm to the world that priorities in SE MI continue to be backwards.

[Gistok]

A lot of good points.

One thing that some forget is that I-94 is the ONLY continuous 2 way street in Detroit that traverses the city east/west, and has more than 1 continuous traffic lane in each direction.... south of the 8 Mile Rd. city limits.

When it comes to east/west roads... Detroit sucks big time...

All the traffic studies ad nauseum, don't make up for this fact...

[rb336]

Could you show me even one study that argues the inverse?

Yes, I could. There was one released just last month. Well, technically it doesn't argue that more lanes makes traffic worse, it just shows that within months any gains from road widening projects essentially vanishes. i'd point you to it, but you wouldn't read it so why bother?

[Wesley Mouch]

Yes, I could. There was one released just last month. Well, technically it doesn't argue that more lanes makes traffic worse, it just shows that within months any gains from road widening projects essentially vanishes. i'd point you to it, but you wouldn't read it so why bother?

RB, you and the anti-freeway brigade pull out 'induced demand' as an argument against freeway improvements. You are 100% right that adding lanes induces demand.

But when congestion returns, four [[4) congested lanes have 33% more capacity than three [[3) congested lanes.

That's the goal. Throughput. Not congestion removal.

Demand is what you want. Thus, induced demand is exactly what you want. People who want to be in Detroit. More of them.

Sorry to destroy this argument, but holding up induced demand as a bad thing is induced ignorance of the goals of highways.

[Scottathew]

[Sarcasm]If we build mass transit it will induce demand. Land near mass transit lines becomes more desirable. Building an office near a mass transit line is more desirable.

Mass transit has induced demand, it's evil![/Sarcasm]

We need to implement mass transit. We're starting to dabble in it, it's going to take baby steps, but if we can make it work on Woodward and see the benefits of the demand it will induce, people will start to see the light.

We also need to invest in our freeways. Love it or hate it, most professionals that work in Detroit do not live there. If you make decent money you want to live in a safe neighborhood with good schools.

Detroit needs to fix itself before people will be able to take advantage of housing located near their Detroit-based jobs.

[ghettopalmetto]

RB, you and the anti-freeway brigade pull out 'induced demand' as an argument against freeway improvements. You are 100% right that adding lanes induces demand.

But when congestion returns, four [[4) congested lanes have 33% more capacity than three [[3) congested lanes.

That's the goal. Throughput. Not congestion removal.

Except MDOT has formally stated that its motivation for these projects is Congestion Relief.

The roadway capacity is already in existence, if not on I-94 and I-75, then on alternate roadways. If the freeway is too congested, people *will* seek other routes. The studies regarding induced demand show that more trips are actually *created* when freeway capacity is added.

But this "goal" of Throughput is exactly the problem with roadway engineering as practiced by MDOT--it's nothing more than plug-and-chug engineering, with no regard to context in which the roadway exists. To state the goal simply as "Throughput" means you're only concerned about moving as many cars as you can, without regard for the larger context in which they exist. Broadway in Manhattan has more throughput than I-94 or I-75, but it's not 18 lanes wide.

The goals of freeway expansion and reinvestment in Detroit are diametrically opposed to each other, and cannot coexist. Two billion dollars is a lot of money to spend to create more lanes of congestion and stifle reinvestment in Detroit.

[aoife]

They should dump there 3 billion into improving surface streets. More people would take alternative routes in through the city and skip the freeways altogether if they knew that the streets/potholes were not going to eat their car.

[313WX]

They should dump there 3 billion into improving surface streets. More people would take alternative routes in through the city and skip the freeways altogether if they knew that the streets/potholes were not going to eat their car.

Well even then, as someone stated earlier, you will still have the folks who are deathly afraid of driving down streets such as Gratiot and Van Dyke [[both of which have recently been repaved) with the fear that the crime and poverty in the neighborhoods will leap out of nowhere and suck onto their moving vehicles like a giant amoeba.

[[this is the real goal behind of the project BTW, not to generate investment IN Detroit or relieve congestion, but to get people who go in/out of the "good" parts of Detroit through the big bad scary parts fasters)