United Sound Studio threatened by I-94 project

[WaCoTS]

http://blog.preservationnation.org/2.../#.UiyuZBYaVmB

[Gistok]

There's an empty lot next to Motown Museum [[on the east side)... move it there... that way all of the history of Detroit Motown music is congregated in one spot...

https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-...&ved=0CJ0BEPwS

[KJ5]

United Sound Studio and that awesome little college/hippie enclave on Fourth St. Don't see why that project is at all necessary. It seems like a massive waste to me.

[EastsideAl]

This is sad, a shame, and a useless waste, but then this entire I-94 project is an enormous, useless, and wholly unnecessary waste.

We should be following the lead of other, more forward-looking, cities around the country and should be working to lessen the use and footprint of urban freeways, not creating even more destruction for them and enlarging their impact on our cityscape. Monumentally dumb.

[JohnnyFreddy]

United Sound Studio and that awesome little college/hippie enclave on Fourth St. Don't see why that project is at all necessary. It seems like a massive waste to me.

I totally agree KJ5....totally unnecessary and stubborn headed, this I-94 expansion project. We've been fighting them off for decades, and their projected cost estimate is laughable. I don't know where they're getting the monies for this project, but I think they would be better off spent on repairing/repaving existing freeway stretches. They didn't take into account the cost of acquiring all the privately owned land....relocating the residents....and the lies they tell to persuade the bobble heads is simply amazing. There is at least one charter school [[in the Fourth St. neighborhood) that would be destroyed, and it's VERY full and operational. Yes, that little neighborhood is a vital part of Wayne State University student housing, and a Detroit original. How many iconic areas and/or buildings can be disappeared from the landscape of this City, including the United Sound Studio, before it is no longer Detroit, but something else entirely ? Besides displacing scores of residents who have stuck by this City through thick and thin, good times and bad. We DIDN'T LEAVE....why are you now FORCING US OUT ??!!! It just doesn't make any sense, especially to expand a freeway through a City with a diminishing population. Somebody[[s) just wanna pocket some cash. Another scam, another corrupt set-up, only to be exposed twenty, thirty years from now when it's too late. Idiots all.

[Honky Tonk]

I totally agree KJ5....totally unnecessary and stubborn headed, this I-94 expansion project. We've been fighting them off for decades, and their projected cost estimate is laughable. I don't know where they're getting the monies for this project, but I think they would be better off spent on repairing/repaving existing freeway stretches. They didn't take into account the cost of acquiring all the privately owned land....relocating the residents....and the lies they tell to persuade the bobble heads is simply amazing. There is at least one charter school [[in the Fourth St. neighborhood) that would be destroyed, and it's VERY full and operational. Yes, that little neighborhood is a vital part of Wayne State University student housing, and a Detroit original. How many iconic areas and/or buildings can be disappeared from the landscape of this City, including the United Sound Studio, before it is no longer Detroit, but something else entirely ? Besides displacing scores of residents who have stuck by this City through thick and thin, good times and bad. We DIDN'T LEAVE....why are you now FORCING US OUT ??!!! It just doesn't make any sense, especially to expand a freeway through a City with a diminishing population. Somebody[[s) just wanna pocket some cash. Another scam, another corrupt set-up, only to be exposed twenty, thirty years from now when it's too late. Idiots all.

Because Wayne State, for the most part, is a car driven, commuter school, and having an entrance/exit ramp near it's main parking garage would help it's enrollment a lot?

[EastsideAl]

Because Wayne State, for the most part, is a car driven, commuter school, and having an entrance/exit ramp near it's main parking garage would help it's enrollment a lot?

But Wayne is practically full as it is, and people seem to have had little or no trouble getting there for the past 50+ years since those freeways were built. The existing Warren exit off the Lodge isn't that much further from the garages than this huge, destructive new boondoggle will be. And, anyway, I thought Wayne was trying to go to more residential dorm-living students than being a commuter school [[a dumb idea in my view, but still, that seems to be their intention...).

If WSU really is behind this idea, then they are being even more stupidly run than I thought. First of all, in today's world they should be doing more to encourage and fund the improvement and use of public transportation and other alternatives [[like bikes) for access to campus. But also, this project will actually work to make the campus community, and particularly the north campus area, much less attractive, pleasant, and livable.

Again, it's an enormous waste of money, resources, and actually occupied Detroit buildings [[and goodness knows we don't have enough of those) for a mostly useless and outmoded project. So many better things could be done with all of that money, including, as Johnny says, just maintaining the scandalously ill-maintained roadways we already have.

[WaCoTS]

yeah shit i forgot about 4th Street.

i maintain that 94 should be an elevated freeway, like I-95 thru Philly. i love riding on that thing, its like flying thru the city--you can actually SEE stuff instead of being down in some boring trench. if it were an elevated grade it wouldnt totally destroy the neighborhoods underneath it either.

[rjlj]

Is this a statement or a question? I can't tell which one it is. Regardless, enrollment is not going to increase because of a ramp near a parking garage.

Because Wayne State, for the most part, is a car driven, commuter school, and having an entrance/exit ramp near it's main parking garage would help it's enrollment a lot?

[Gistok]

Elevated freeway?? Yeah.... lets turn the entire freeway into a skating rink for cars in winter instead of just the bridges! Instead of "Bridge may be Icy" signs over the I-75/Dequindre Yards, and Lodge bridges... they can have "Freeway may be Icy" along the entire route...

Let's take the 1.7 billion and double it to build an elevated I-94 freeway. Never mind that the freeway noises will disturb neighborhoods for many blocks in either direction.

And WSU is NOT the driving force behind the I-94 expansion... never read that anywhere...

[DetroitPlanner]

The driving force is international trade. There are lots of shops on the East Side that sell parts that need to go to Windsor. In addition there are a lot of shops on the West Side whose parts need to go to London or further East. Those take the Blue Water Bridge.

Another driving force is the freeways do not operate very well and there are continuous back ups sue to people needing to get from right lanes to left lanes and vice-versa. All of this idling traffic creates noise and pollution.

What is not being said by the critics is that for every pedestrian or car access that is being removed two are going in which will aid in the movement of people. Yeah the Mathai bridge will be gone, but the peds will be able to use a bridge just N of it. This will improve access to the WSU fields W of the Lodge. Yes billions will be spent. However that is one of the oldest sections of freeway in the State and needs to be replaced anyway.

The feds will not allow you to build left-hand on and off ramps when you reconstruct. They will be flipping the bill. The City has signed off on this project years ago, in fact before the School that needs to be altered was even built. The issue with that is schools operate independently of City jurisdiction and can do pretty much what they want. They built it there knowing full well it was going to be needed for a service drive.

[WaCoTS]

Elevated freeway?? Yeah.... lets turn the entire freeway into a skating rink for cars in winter instead of just the bridges! Instead of "Bridge may be Icy" signs over the I-75/Dequindre Yards, and Lodge bridges... they can have "Freeway may be Icy" along the entire route...

Let's take the 1.7 billion and double it to build an elevated I-94 freeway. Never mind that the freeway noises will disturb neighborhoods for many blocks in either direction.

oh pardon me.
ill try to keep my imbecilic comments to a minimum next time sir.

my opinion is moot anyway, since 94 is already a below-grade freeway.

[Gistok]

oh pardon me.
ill try to keep my imbecilic comments to a minimum next time sir.

my opinion is moot anyway, since 94 is already a below-grade freeway.

I may have sounded snarky... but that wasn't really my intent. But elevated freeways are being torn down in many places across the country... San Francisco [[actually that one fell down during the 1989 Earthquake), NYC and Boston [[Big Dig). I don't like the look of elevated freeways either... they are much uglier than sunken ones. Sorry to sound condescending... not my intent... although in retrospect it did sound that way....

[DetroitPlanner]

But elevated freeways are being torn down in many places across the country... San Francisco [[actually that one fell down during the 1989 Earthquake), NYC and Boston [[Big Dig). I don't like the look of elevated freeways either... they are much uglier than sunken ones.

Not to mention 3x's the cost. And yeah what you said about icing is also a real concern. Remember what happened on the elevated part of I-75 last year?!?

With the exception of the Big Dig, most elevated freeways have been replaced with projects that were much more cost effective and aesthetically pleasing.

[WaCoTS]

s'ok, im just so used to the flaming on here, i assumed thats what it was

[Jimaz]

... i maintain that 94 should be an elevated freeway, like I-95 thru Philly. i love riding on that thing, its like flying thru the city--you can actually SEE stuff instead of being down in some boring trench. if it were an elevated grade it wouldnt totally destroy the neighborhoods underneath it either.

I used to live next door to a new freeway interchange in Phoenix. The freeways weren't elevated but the soaring interchange was spectacular. They used some new design technique that relies on the tension of steel cables hidden inside the roadway for strength [[or so I was told). That's why it looks so spindly and sparing in its use of concrete.

Check out the view in Streetview. Note the distant mountains on the horizon. And those moonlight towers!

Of course, Phoenix doesn't have to worry about that ice problem.

[EastsideAl]

While progressive city planners elsewhere in the country are working to reduce the use of freeways and automobiles, trying to clam traffic and lessen the amount of urban land given over to car use, and directing money to the improvement of public transportation and non-automotive infrastructure, are we here in Detroit really going to continue to act like we're back in 1950? Like the answer to traffic is to simply tear more city down to build more roads? Have we learned nothing since the 60s, from our long experience of tearing down viable, occupied neighborhoods and historical structures to build freeways?

Look, there's no question that the Ford and Lodge Freeways are badly in need of maintenance and a certain amount of improvement. But the answer to that problem is just to fix the damn ill-maintained freeways we already have [[not to mention the absolutely deplorable condition of our surface streets).

The very last thing this city actually needs is to spend umpteen millions of dollars to buy out and tear down occupied housing, well-constructed older buildings, and historic structures like United Sound in the interest of building yet more ugly and otherwise useless concrete-scape so more folks can go zooming even more quickly through our city to somewhere else. I can hardly think of anything more backward-looking than this idiotic and destructive boondoggle.

[DetroitPlanner]

I used to live next door to a new freeway interchange in Phoenix. The freeways weren't elevated but the soaring interchange was spectacular. They used some new design technique that relies on the tension of steel cables hidden inside the roadway for strength [[or so I was told). That's why it looks so spindly and sparing in its use of concrete.

Check out the view in Streetview. Note the distant mountains on the horizon. And those moonlight towers!

Of course, Phoenix doesn't have to worry about that ice problem.

It looks a lot like a simplified version of the Southfield/Jeffries interchange.

[marshamusic]

While progressive city planners elsewhere in the country are working to reduce the use of freeways and automobiles, trying to clam traffic and lessen the amount of urban land given over to car use, and directing money to the improvement of public transportation and non-automotive infrastructure, are we here in Detroit really going to continue to act like we're back in 1950? Like the answer to traffic is to simply tear more city down to build more roads? Have we learned nothing since the 60s, from our long experience of tearing down viable, occupied neighborhoods and historical structures to build freeways?

Look, there's no question that the Ford and Lodge Freeways are badly in need of maintenance and a certain amount of improvement. But the answer to that problem is just to fix the damn ill-maintained freeways we already have [[not to mention the absolutely deplorable condition of our surface streets).

The very last thing this city actually needs is to spend umpteen millions of dollars to buy out and tear down occupied housing, well-constructed older buildings, and historic structures like United Sound in the interest of building yet more ugly and otherwise useless concrete-scape so more folks can go zooming even more quickly through our city to somewhere else. I can hardly think of anything more backward-looking than this idiotic and destructive boondoggle.

Beautiful. Totally agree. btw, a group called the Detroit Sound Conservancy has joined the efforts [[such as they are) to stop the expansion/destruction of United Sound. Find them on facebook.

[Wesley Mouch]

The driving force is international trade. There are lots of shops on the East Side that sell parts that need to go to Windsor. In addition there are a lot of shops on the West Side whose parts need to go to London or further East. Those take the Blue Water Bridge.

Another driving force is the freeways do not operate very well and there are continuous back ups sue to people needing to get from right lanes to left lanes and vice-versa. All of this idling traffic creates noise and pollution.

What is not being said by the critics is that for every pedestrian or car access that is being removed two are going in which will aid in the movement of people. Yeah the Mathai bridge will be gone, but the peds will be able to use a bridge just N of it. This will improve access to the WSU fields W of the Lodge. Yes billions will be spent. However that is one of the oldest sections of freeway in the State and needs to be replaced anyway.

The feds will not allow you to build left-hand on and off ramps when you reconstruct. They will be flipping the bill. The City has signed off on this project years ago, in fact before the School that needs to be altered was even built. The issue with that is schools operate independently of City jurisdiction and can do pretty much what they want. They built it there knowing full well it was going to be needed for a service drive.

Thanks for the nice, simple summary. I believe its possible to be in favor of minimizing freeway impact and need and be in favor of this project. This has been beat to death elsewhere -- so I'll just say I'm glad that MDOT and friends are finally addressing urban freeways.