Originally Posted by
Atticus
At a previous meeting MDOT had with one of my neighborhood groups, many of these same traffic question were asked. Here is the long and short of what was said:
-In order for the Federal Highway Administration [[FHWA) to approve the design [[which is needed because I-75 is an interstate), one non-negotiable item by FHWA was that traffic exiting from I-75 to the new Blvd must not back up onto the through lanes of I-75.
-Put more simply, the boulevard and interchange design at the north end had to be able to push a lot of vehicles through to make that happen. This is why the original design from a few years ago looked more like a traditional freeway interchange [[big interchange= push vehicles through). After really sharpening their pencils, this was the most urban-like design that could be created which could still maintain the necessary throughput to get necessary FHWA approvals.
-Also remember the existing I-75 configuration has “two exits”: 1) I-375, and 2) Gratiot connector. Both of these are currently mini-freeways, and the traffic from both are being combined into one exit [[the new boulevard). So there will be a lot more traffic on the northern part of the boulevard than what uses I-375 today.
-The long and short of it is I think we have a pretty good compromise with this design. Like all of you, I would like less lanes and even more of an urban feel. But given the requirements placed on the MDOT by FHWA, I think MDOT did about as good of a job as can be expected. Honestly, I give them a lot of credit for reworking some of their designs to meet the restrictions put on them, and to also address many of the comments our neighborhood group made.