More than a quarter of the 29.5-mile Joe Louis Greenway is complete with the opening of the first new construction in a Detroit neighborhood.
The Warren Gateway, the first new trailhead or park providing access to the greenway, opened Tuesday.
It includes about two miles of connected pathways that bring the total completed tracts to 8.2 miles, the city said.
Other parts of the larger greenway that are open include the recently completed east Riverwalk, the Southwest Greenway, which opened in May, connecting Southwest Detroit to the riverfront, and the Dequindre Cut which opened in 2009, giving bikers and pedestrians a path from the riverfront to Detroit's Eastern Market.
Bike lanes along Joseph Campau and West Grand Boulevard and a former Conrail rail corridor from West Warren to Joy Road are also part of the completed spans, said Raquel Harrington, communications and marketing manager for the City of Detroit General Services Department.
https://s3-rd-prod.crainsdetroit.com...enway-01_i.jpg
The City of Detroit and Joe Louis Greenway Partnership opened the $6 million Warren Gateway, the first trailhead to the larger path, on Tuesday, after two years of construction.
Located at West Warren Avenue and McDonald Street, on the border of Detroit and Dearborn. The trailhead is a four-acre park that connects to three parks in east Dearborn.
Supported by a $3 million grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, the trailhead park includes a playscape, a pavilion with flexible community space, fitness equipment, green infrastructure and a parking area.
When complete, the Joe Louis Greenway will connect 23 Detroit neighborhoods and the nearby cities of Highland Park, Dearborn and Hamtramck to the riverfront.
"This is a great day for Detroit," Mayor Mike Duggan said in a release. "What used to be abandoned railroad tracks, overgrowth and tons of illegal dumping is now going to be a signature entry point to the Joe Louis Greenway for thousands of people each year."
The Warren Gateway marks the completion of the first newly constructed path in the neighborhoods, said Leona Medley, executive director of the Joe Louis Greenway Partnership.
"That's notable because it is environmental cleanup, new projects in a neighborhood that hasn't had new projects in decades. It's a new trailhead park ... and public space and green space in a neighborhood... adjacent to where people live so they can walk to the greenway," she said.
"As the city continues to build this project....how [[we can) think about more spaces like that along the way...those things have to be a part of the discussion."
