Detroit Public Transportation: 2014 and beyond.

[RO_Resident]

It costs money. Nothing is free. It will cost one hell of a lot less to put up half a dozen or even a dozen pedestrian bridges than to replace one of the vehicular bridges they are removing. The live load on the pedestrian bridges isn't that much, you are pretty much designing around the dead load.

No, not really.

Bridges have huge costs for mobilization, abutments, and piers. The average cost of building a pedestrian bridge is typically 50 to 70 percent higher per square foot of deck area compared to the 'standard' bridge.

Bridges, in general, are expensive to build and maintain. Pedestrian bridges are surprisingly expensive to build.

[professorscott]

Bridges, in general, are expensive to build and maintain. Pedestrian bridges are surprisingly expensive to build.

I think, in the context of the overall project, pedestrian bridges aren't a major factor in the total expense, but the detail misses the larger and more important point.

You can design a city for people, or you can design it for cars. There does not seem to be any excellent "balance point" at which a city functions well for both people and cars. Detroit has gone full tilt, for a hundred and more years, in the "designing city for cars" direction. So there are lots of cars in Detroit - a great many, at any given time, simply driving through it - but there are only a bit more than a third as many people as there used to be.

And yet, here we are, deciding that what Detroit needs is to be a better city for cars than it already is. Astonishing. I would think, if you have touched the hot stove and hurt your hand enough times, eventually you would stop doing that. But I'd be wrong.

[Detroitnerd]

I think, in the context of the overall project, pedestrian bridges aren't a major factor in the total expense, but the detail misses the larger and more important point.

You can design a city for people, or you can design it for cars. There does not seem to be any excellent "balance point" at which a city functions well for both people and cars. Detroit has gone full tilt, for a hundred and more years, in the "designing city for cars" direction. So there are lots of cars in Detroit - a great many, at any given time, simply driving through it - but there are only a bit more than a third as many people as there used to be.

And yet, here we are, deciding that what Detroit needs is to be a better city for cars than it already is. Astonishing. I would think, if you have touched the hot stove and hurt your hand enough times, eventually you would stop doing that. But I'd be wrong.

"When you seek to solve a problem by deepening and expanding the problem, you can tell a deep-seated process is at work." -Lewis Mumford

[Wesley Mouch]

I think, in the context of the overall project, pedestrian bridges aren't a major factor in the total expense, but the detail misses the larger and more important point.

You can design a city for people, or you can design it for cars. There does not seem to be any excellent "balance point" at which a city functions well for both people and cars. Detroit has gone full tilt, for a hundred and more years, in the "designing city for cars" direction. So there are lots of cars in Detroit - a great many, at any given time, simply driving through it - but there are only a bit more than a third as many people as there used to be.

And yet, here we are, deciding that what Detroit needs is to be a better city for cars than it already is. Astonishing. I would think, if you have touched the hot stove and hurt your hand enough times, eventually you would stop doing that. But I'd be wrong.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

We did focus too much on automobiles. We need to include pedestrians and public transit in our future. That doesn't mean we should stop maintenance and improvements to roads.

Moderation in all things.

[Detroitnerd]

The two are not mutually exclusive.

We did focus too much on automobiles. We need to include pedestrians and public transit in our future. That doesn't mean we should stop maintenance and improvements to roads.

Moderation in all things.

Nobody is saying stop maintenance to roads. What many are saying is that the "improvement" is unnecessary, expensive and, contrary to your first sentence, diametrically opposed to the mobility of pedestrians and cyclists.

You know what I hate these days more than anything else? Glibness. What you posted is precisely the kind of glib nonsense that infuriates me. You propose "moderation" even as you apparently line up behind a plan costing hundreds of millions of dollars that would mean some rather extreme changes.

Like, whatever, I'm going to say one thing and totally mean another and expect everybody to take me very seriously...

Pfftttt...

[professorscott]

Nobody is saying stop maintenance to roads. What many are saying is that the "improvement" is unnecessary, expensive and, contrary to your first sentence, diametrically opposed to the mobility of pedestrians and cyclists.

Spot on. I agree that a lot of the highways and bridges are in bad shape and ought to be repaired and maintained, and I have no problem with money spent on that. It's the widening that is unnecessary and a bad misuse of money. And, as 'nerd points out, a wider freeway is bad for everybody except the motorists using the freeway... and only good for them for a short time, if at all.

Meanwhile, while this is happening, nobody could come up with a couple million dollars so John Hertel could hire a fucking staff.

[That Great Guy]

Meanwhile, while this is happening, nobody could come up with a couple million dollars so John Hertel could hire a fucking staff.

Maybe he should Get SMART and oppose the freeways in their present form ?