What is with the East/West streets in midtown??

one of my biggest problems with midtown is the east/west streets going through it.

currently there are 2 [[read: TWO) streets that you can drive on without turning that will connect you from West of the Lodge to East of I-75 [[Warren and Mack/MLK). Who the hell thought this would be a good idea?

on top of that MANY of the east/west streets within midtown constantly are shifting north and south, and there is no flow from block to block

here are just a few examples of Canfield and Selden streets

Attachment 24715


Attachment 24716


A big problem is the DMC campus. They don't allow a single street to cut through it and it made basically a giant mega-block on the east side of midtown

Another problem on the east side of midtown seems to be those giant suburb-esque developments near brush park and the DMC

If midtown wants to be fully walkable it would be nice to get some four-way intersections and not all these awkward 3 way ones where you're shifting north and south just to go east or west.

rant over.

Cass was the dividing line between landowners about a billion years ago. Okay maybe about 200 years ago. To the West was Lewis Cass' ribbon farm to the E were the homesteads of the Gentry. What you are seeing is the result of historic land divisions from long ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Fa...rty_Submission

It is nothing worth ranting over.

Sort of a by-product of planning streets and developing along the edges of the old ribbon farms and partly because most people were traveling north-south anyway. There's wasn't really enough traffic traveling east-west to bother aligning the streets.

This is what the area looked like in 1876.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty...image&size=400

Yeah I agree, there are so many little spots like that. I feel like if the city government was stronger they would be able to deal with these situations. The roads, not only in midtown and downtown, but throughout the city, make no sense. There are also a bunch of peculiar spots where you could tell some planner in the 50s half implemented a half baked idea.

Especially with so much empty space it would be possible to fix many of them and make everything much more coherent and effective.

The effect is amplified when you want to reach the Lodge freeway if you're in Midtown

God forbid you are anywhere on woodward north of Mack because since Forest is a one way leading AWAY from the freeway [[WHICH NEEDS TO CHANGE [please make it a two-way!!!), you have to loop all the way down to mack just to reach the damn service drive of the lodge to enter at forest!

If forest was a two-way leading to the lodge i honestly wouldn't have noticed this problem midtown has. But if i ever want to take the lodge I end up having to either go through a god damn maze of left turn/right turn/ north/ south/ to reach the lodge service drive

or now-a-days i just go south to mack and take a right, and go back north on the lodge service drive to get to the frickin freeway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SpartanDawg

The effect is amplified when you want to reach the Lodge freeway if you're in Midtown

God forbid you are anywhere on woodward north of Mack because since Forest is a one way leading AWAY from the freeway [[WHICH NEEDS TO CHANGE [please make it a two-way!!!), you have to loop all the way down to mack just to reach the damn service drive of the lodge to enter at forest!

---

Why would you go all the down to Mack? You can just go up to Warren and make a left at the Lodge and loop around the service drive. All left-turns.

Maybe they can add another freeway to get to the freeway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jason

Yeah I agree, there are so many little spots like that. I feel like if the city government was stronger they would be able to deal with these situations. The roads, not only in midtown and downtown, but throughout the city, make no sense. There are also a bunch of peculiar spots where you could tell some planner in the 50s half implemented a half baked idea.

Especially with so much empty space it would be possible to fix many of them and make everything much more coherent and effective.

---

I would be surprised that when platted there was even a City out that far.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Cass was the dividing line between landowners about a billion years ago. Okay maybe about 200 years ago. To the West was Lewis Cass' ribbon farm to the E were the homesteads of the Gentry. What you are seeing is the result of historic land divisions from long ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Fa...rty_Submission

It is nothing worth ranting over.

---

Agreed.

On a list of things in Detroit to whine about, this has to be like 158,097 on the list...

Like DetroitPlanner said, the unevenness of streets running across Woodward, Cass, etc. is an artifact of our local history. As you may know, Detroit was originally laid out in a series of long narrow "ribbon" farms that ran northward from the river. And the echo of that pattern can still be seen today in the southern portion of the city.

Outside of the center of downtown [[the Woodward Plan), the main "spoke" arterials, and boundary streets like Grand Blvd and Outer Dr., the street pattern in most of the rest of the city is not the result of planning, but is a relic of hundreds of subdivisions cut out of farmland and laid out by real estate speculators as the city's population grew. This is why the street layout can seem to "make no sense" in spots [[as Jason says above), streets often don't quite meet or "jog" at intersections, and sometimes you'll run into a neighborhood with streets on a different orientation from adjacent neighborhoods. So, the answer to SpartanDawg's question in the original post is that the street layout was no one's "idea."

The streets that now do run straight across Woodward north of downtown are mostly the result of 20th century planning attempts to ease automobile travel across the city. The model for this was Vernor Highway, which was cobbled together as a crosstown auto route out of several different streets in the 1920s [[the downtown portion is now under I-75). Warren and Forest were turned into one-way crosstown through streets [[Warren westbound, and Forest eastbound) for auto traffic in the 1930s. Warren was later widened into a boulevard through that area in the 1970s, leaving Forest alone as one way. The Mack - MLK [[formerly Myrtle) crosstown boulevard was linked together out of several streets through the '60s and '70s.

The superblocks of the Med Center, Lafayette Park, Wayne State, and several other such areas, are of course the result of 1950s, 60s, and 70s planning ideas about the undesirability of urbanism, congestion, and density that left similar dead areas in cities throughout the country.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

Why would you go all the down to Mack? You can just go up to Warren and make a left at the Lodge and loop around the service drive. All left-turns.

---

well to be honest, i'm dumb and never thought of that...

but still it is a bit unnecessary, i'm sure they could workout the logistics and just make forest a two way street starting at the service drive to make it easier on people..

really appreciate the feedback too i actually didn't realize why they were like this, i figured it was some artifact of old urban planning..

the super blocks thing though.. man i reaaallllyyy wish they would cut down on those. the one that irks me the most in midtown [[as i have said before) is the John R, Alexandrine, Mack, and Woodward bounded one... there is no point to it and it can be VERY easily broken up by having selden continue through from woodward to John R. they just have to go through a giant parking lot ...

really wish some higher-ups would consider it, although i'm sure the situation is muddied by people owning that land, etc.

but it would make that area so much more desirable for development, rather than just massive parking behind some stand-alone towers..

one can only dream.

really if there is ANY time to continue selden through it would be now.. while the construction of the new wayne state physician group building is going up... i'm praying it's in their plans to have a street cut through that block

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 313WX

Agreed.

On a list of things in Detroit to whine about, this has to be like 158,097 on the list...

---

Other than the fact stupid DMC won't allow a road through its lobby.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SpartanDawg

really if there is ANY time to continue selden through it would be now.. while the construction of the new wayne state physician group building is going up... i'm praying it's in their plans to have a street cut through that block

---

I don't think there's a need for Selden to go through. Maybe have a pedestrian pathway, but I'm sure most people don't have any trouble reaching DMC from other routes by car.

I would be in favor of breaking up all the superblocks with garden apartments, however. Like having Canfield and Prentis reconnected to the Lodge and realigning those apartments to the street.

Check out one of the pre 1956 DTE aerials of the Mt Elliott/Harper intersection. The jog in Mt Elliot was taken out when the Edsel Ford was cut through.

Streets are the same way between Canton and Plymouth. Sheldon, Lilly and Morton Taylor all have an aligner in them at the border. Lilly and Morton Taylor also change names in Plymouth.

The jog at Michigan Ave between Belleville Rd and Canton Center was taken out when an aligner was put in around a dozen years ago.

You can start on Parkview Ave on the west side of Kalamazoo, hit an aligner, and you are on White's Rd. Another aligner and you are on Cork St.

As others have suggested, it's a lack of planning between local authorities that leads to this mess. The worst I have seen is on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. Streets go all over the place, start and stop, and take off at odd angles, as the city has overrun a number of small villages and townships over the years.

1. Look at a detailed street map of the city. Detroit has four different street grids:

a. The Woodward Plan in downtown.

b. The streets oriented on the ribbon farms along the Detroit River.

c. The streets oriented on the ribbon farms along Lake St Clair.

d. The streets oriented on the township and section lines of the Northwest Survey.

2. Even in the east-west/north-south roads of the NW Survey, you will have "jogs" at intersections which are "grid corrections" from a combination of chain and compass surveying inaccuracies and the fact that townships/sections are trying to impose a flat system on a spherical earth.

3. Through East-west corridors [[and streetcar and bus routes) have always been suboptimal in Detroit. This was one of the "drivers" of the Davison Xpwy and the Edsel Ford Xpwy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Steve203

As others have suggested, it's a lack of planning between local authorities that leads to this mess. The worst I have seen is on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. Streets go all over the place, start and stop, and take off at odd angles, as the city has overrun a number of small villages and townships over the years.

---

This subdivision of land predates City planning by probably a century. Might as well complain about the areas where the Woodward Plan stops then the grid begins, or when the old French ribbon farm system meets the rigorous Jefferson Survey system.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

"rigorous" Jefferson Survey system.

---

Rigorous in concept, but executed with quite a bit less precision. Survey was by chain and compass through often impassible woods and swamps. A "chain" was the 66 foot long "Gunters Chain" of 100 "links". Eight chains per furlong, Eighty chains per mile. You were lucky to get one or two degree accuracy in azimuth with the old surveyors compass.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EastsideAl

Like DetroitPlanner said, the unevenness of streets running across Woodward, Cass, etc. is an artifact of our local history. As you may know, Detroit was originally laid out in a series of long narrow "ribbon" farms that ran northward from the river. And the echo of that pattern can still be seen today in the southern portion of the city.

Outside of the center of downtown [[the Woodward Plan), the main "spoke" arterials, and boundary streets like Grand Blvd and Outer Dr., the street pattern in most of the rest of the city is not the result of planning, but is a relic of hundreds of subdivisions cut out of farmland and laid out by real estate speculators as the city's population grew. This is why the street layout can seem to "make no sense" in spots [[as Jason says above), streets often don't quite meet or "jog" at intersections, and sometimes you'll run into a neighborhood with streets on a different orientation from adjacent neighborhoods. So, the answer to SpartanDawg's question in the original post is that the street layout was no one's "idea."

The streets that now do run straight across Woodward north of downtown are mostly the result of 20th century planning attempts to ease automobile travel across the city. The model for this was Vernor Highway, which was cobbled together as a crosstown auto route out of several different streets in the 1920s [[the downtown portion is now under I-75). Warren and Forest were turned into one-way crosstown through streets [[Warren westbound, and Forest eastbound) for auto traffic in the 1930s. Warren was later widened into a boulevard through that area in the 1970s, leaving Forest alone as one way. The Mack - MLK [[formerly Myrtle) crosstown boulevard was linked together out of several streets through the '60s and '70s.

The superblocks of the Med Center, Lafayette Park, Wayne State, and several other such areas, are of course the result of 1950s, 60s, and 70s planning ideas about the undesirability of urbanism, congestion, and density that left similar dead areas in cities throughout the country.

---

I always thought that "the Woodward plan" was the reason for the spoke pattern in downtown until I read this recently:

Quote:

---

The spoke-wheel layout of Detroit's streets is often attributed to Judge Augustus Woodward. But according to Joel Stone, senior curator at the Detroit Historical Society, that's a common misconception."The spoke-wheel plan we can attribute to the Native Americans," Stone explained. "They were here long before anyone else, and they had established trails."
These trails would take them down to Toledo, up to Port Huron, off to Grand Rapids, or up towards Pontiac. They were used for trade and travel and still stand today, just with different names than they once had: Jefferson, Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Michigan Avenue, and Fort Street.
The streets are the major spokes of Detroit's wheel system and their hub is Campus Martius Park.

---

http://michiganradio.org/post/8-mile...ht-miles-where

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jcole

I always thought that "the Woodward plan" was the reason for the spoke pattern in downtown until I read this recently:

http://michiganradio.org/post/8-mile...ht-miles-where

---

Thanks for this link. I never knew about this center post before. Too busy being a new mom at the time I guess.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jcole

I always thought that "the Woodward plan" was the reason for the spoke pattern in downtown until I read this recently:

"The spoke-wheel layout of Detroit's streets is often attributed to Judge Augustus Woodward. But according to Joel Stone, senior curator at the Detroit Historical Society, that's a common misconception."The spoke-wheel plan we can attribute to the Native Americans," Stone explained. "They were here long before anyone else, and they had established trails."
These trails would take them down to Toledo, up to Port Huron, off to Grand Rapids, or up towards Pontiac. They were used for trade and travel and still stand today, just with different names than they once had: Jefferson, Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Michigan Avenue, and Fort Street.
The streets are the major spokes of Detroit's wheel system and their hub is Campus Martius Park. "

http://michiganradio.org/post/8-mile...ht-miles-where

---

Although they started as Indian Trails, they were included as widened "spoke" roads in the Woodward Plan. The inter-city roads connected to these spokes were laid out along the old trails, and straightened, widened, graded, etc. by the military through the first half of the 1800s. This military road system was pushed by Lewis Cass, and approved by Congress, in reaction to the difficulties of defending and supplying Detroit during the War of 1812.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jcole

I always thought that "the Woodward plan" was the reason for the spoke pattern in downtown until I read this recently:

http://michiganradio.org/post/8-mile...ht-miles-where

---

The Woodward Plan incorporated the already existing pathways. It was an ambitious plan and reminds me a lot of Christaller's later work in proving Central Place theory and market hierarchies.
http://www.geocurrents.info/geograph...-and-elsewhere
https://www.flickr.com/photos/37603091@N02/3560718957/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

The Woodward Plan incorporated the already existing pathways. It was an ambitious plan and reminds me a lot of Christaller's later work in proving Central Place theory and market hierarchies.
http://www.geocurrents.info/geograph...-and-elsewhere
https://www.flickr.com/photos/37603091@N02/3560718957/

---

The annotated version of the 2nd link shows how much of the Plan was actually implemented.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37603091@N02/3590065349/

End result: https://www.flickr.com/photos/376030...57618862355998

It's interesting to note that Grand River and Fort Street wouldn't have existed within the Woodward Plan. Also Gratiot would instead be Monroe Street and follow the same route only a few feet over to the east.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

The annotated version of the 2nd link shows how much of the Plan was actually implemented.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37603091@N02/3590065349/

End result: https://www.flickr.com/photos/376030...57618862355998

It's interesting to note that Grand River and Fort Street wouldn't have existed within the Woodward Plan. Also Gratiot would instead be Monroe Street and follow the same route only a few feet over to the east.

---

Gratiot was the "military road" connecting Detroit to Fort Gratiot [[Port Huron).

We can still blame Woodward for Grand Circus Park. When they couldn't buy the land to make a full circle, the plan should've been scrapped. That's not to say Grand Circus Park isn't attractive. It is. But it didn't do wonders for the downtown street grid.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jcole

I always thought that "the Woodward plan" was the reason for the spoke pattern in downtown until I read this recently:

http://michiganradio.org/post/8-mile...ht-miles-where

---

This takes issue with the argument made in the michigan radio article.
http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/...ards-plan.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nain rouge

We can still blame Woodward for Grand Circus Park. When they couldn't buy the land to make a full circle, the plan should've been scrapped. That's not to say Grand Circus Park isn't attractive. It is. But it didn't do wonders for the downtown street grid.

---

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make here? :confused:

That all the streets at GCP should have just run together? Or that Detroit should have scrapped Woodward's entire plan?

Just look at NYC... Downtown NYC is very similar to the Woodward plan [[but much more chaotic) in that there are streets going off at so many angles. And it makes downtown NYC an interesting place to view NYC skyscrapers. By the time you get to Midtown NYC, the street grid has taken over... and has left a rather monotonous arrangement of streets... where taking a photo of the Empire State Building at a good angle is virtually impossible.

Ironically the most interesting and most photogenic [[and famous) parts of Midtown NYC are those that are bisected by crooked running Broadway Ave.... such as Times Square, Colombus Circle, Madison Square, Herald Square and Union Square.

By the same token it's Detroit's Woodward Plan streets that provide downtown Detroit with so many interesting vistas as well. Few ballparks can claim such a grand view of a downtown as you get from Comerica Park... thanks to Woodward's Plan, and GCP.

Had Grand Circus Park, even in just its' beautiful half completed state, not been built... the intersection where all those streets converged would have been like Campus Martius used to be back in the 1990s... just a large confusing clusterfuck junction of streets. Campus Martius cleaned all that up in a very nice way... they put a park in the middle. GCP conveniently already has that.

Before the destruction of the Statler and Tuller blocks back in the mid 20th century... when an out-of-town visitor was walking down Woodward to Adams, he came upon an unexpected grand vista of noble buildings... and if he turned his head in 360 degrees at night... he was able to see all the lit up marquees of all of the theatre's in the district... a "Grand" display.

It's the layout of what we have today at Grand Circus Park... that we should be thankful for.... now if only more of the buildings had survived...:[[

EastsideAl's answer is right, but I just wanted to add another detail. The land immediately on both sides of Woodward was subdivided first, but it was not part of any of the ribbon farms. In 1806, Congress granted the Governor and Judges authority to lay out the new [[post-fire) town, plus survey 10,000 acres of public land and sell it to build a courthouse, jail, and fund other necessities. The first part of this 10,000 acres of land to be surveyed was that just north of Adams Avenue *in between* the Cass and Brush farms, up to around Piquette Street. In 1808, this strip of land was divided into what were known as the Park Lots. There are 86 in all, and a copy of the plat can be seen here if your Java is up to date: http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/platmaps..._SUBINDEX=8018

What I'm getting at is that a bunch of dudes just bought these lots [[or the lots themselves were given as payment) and the new owners proceeded to put streets on them wherever they wanted. Some put side streets on the outer edges of their lots, some put streets going through the middle. None of them really cared if their streets mirrored the ones on the other side of Woodward. That's how quickly it took for the Woodward Plan to be ignored.

In 1816, the rest of the 10,000 acres [[the vast majority of it) was surveyed and sold off as quarter-mile square farms, and that chunk of land now includes New Center, Hamtramck, and Highland Park.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gistok

Before the destruction of the Statler and Tuller blocks back in the mid 20th century... when an out-of-town visitor was walking down Woodward to Adams, he came upon an unexpected grand vista of noble buildings... and if he turned his head in 360 degrees at night... he was able to see all the lit up marquees of all of the theatre's in the district... a "Grand" display.

---

I agree that Grand Circus Park has an inherit beauty. It's photogenic, sure. But is it even close to being efficient at moving modern forms of traffic, whether public or private? No, absolutely not. It's a relic of the horse and carriage era.

Now if it was a full circle, it could've been infinitely more useful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SpartanDawg

A big problem is the DMC campus. They don't allow a single street to cut through it and it made basically a giant mega-block on the east side of midtown

Another problem on the east side of midtown seems to be those giant suburb-esque developments near brush park and the DMC

If midtown wants to be fully walkable it would be nice to get some four-way intersections and not all these awkward 3 way ones where you're shifting north and south just to go east or west.

rant over.

---

I know you're ranting mostly about driving east and west, but since you also bring up walkability, I have to defend the DMC. When I worked in the area, I would often take my lunchtime walks through the DMC campus. Specifically, the pedestrian mall that runs north and south from Canfield to Mack was my favorite. It was a bit of a patchwork affair that required a jog or two to get all the through, but I felt that added to its charm, and also inspired taking a slightly different path every day. This time of the year was the best as many trees would be turning spectacular colors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nain rouge

I agree that Grand Circus Park has an inherit beauty. It's photogenic, sure. But is it even close to being efficient at moving modern forms of traffic, whether public or private? No, absolutely not. It's a relic of the horse and carriage era.

Now if it was a full circle, it could've been infinitely more useful.[/COLOR]

---

I don't understand why you're dissing Grand Circus Park. Woodward, the largest street in the area goes straight through it. How would a circle have made that any easier? The bigger problem in that area, in my opinion, is the detours necessary to navigate around the stadia.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PSewick

EastsideAl's answer is right, but I just wanted to add another detail. The land immediately on both sides of Woodward was subdivided first, but it was not part of any of the ribbon farms. In 1806, Congress granted the Governor and Judges authority to lay out the new [[post-fire) town, plus survey 10,000 acres of public land and sell it to build a courthouse, jail, and fund other necessities. The first part of this 10,000 acres of land to be surveyed was that just north of Adams Avenue *in between* the Cass and Brush farms, up to around Piquette Street. In 1808, this strip of land was divided into what were known as the Park Lots. There are 86 in all, and a copy of the plat can be seen here if your Java is up to date: http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/platmaps..._SUBINDEX=8018

What I'm getting at is that a bunch of dudes just bought these lots [[or the lots themselves were given as payment) and the new owners proceeded to put streets on them wherever they wanted. Some put side streets on the outer edges of their lots, some put streets going through the middle. None of them really cared if their streets mirrored the ones on the other side of Woodward. That's how quickly it took for the Woodward Plan to be ignored.

In 1816, the rest of the 10,000 acres [[the vast majority of it) was surveyed and sold off as quarter-mile square farms, and that chunk of land now includes New Center, Hamtramck, and Highland Park.

---

Great summation of the history of the subdivision of land in the center city. Here is piece of a map showing what was then Detroit [[the Woodward plan section downtown), the Park Lots [[pink strip running north from downtown), the Ten Thousand Acre Tract [[big rectangle in the middle), and the surrounding ribbon farms

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/91697/96627.jpg

Here is a good map showing the survey of various parts of what would become the city of Detroit. This gives a good idea of why our streets are laid out the way they are in different parts of the city.

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/91697/96628.jpg

These are both taken from MikeM's excellent posts on this interesting thread about the 10,000 Acre Tract.

http://www.atdetroit.net/forum/messa...tml?1173667967

Geez, what a complicated mess of planning. Those damn farmers sure had a lot of influence.

Again though, not really "planned" in the way we think of it now. Most of Detroit just grew organically in small subdivisions by landowners, as population growth demanded. First along the farm lines laid out oriented to the river by the French [[and the early American 10,000 acre tract on the same orientation), then along the directionally-oriented lines laid out by the Northwest Ordinance surveys.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EastsideAl

Again though, not really "planned" in the way we think of it now. Most of Detroit just grew organically in small subdivisions by landowners, as population growth demanded. First along the farm lines laid out oriented to the river by the French [[and the early American 10,000 acre tract on the same orientation), then along the directionally-oriented lines laid out by the Northwest Ordinance surveys.

---

Note also the northeastern alignment on the lake which gives us Morross, Kelly, and Whittier which differ slightly from the older city alignment.