Detroit's Broken Street Grid

[Bucket]

Looking at maps [[like this one) of old Detroit - before freeways, Lafayette Park and other megaprojects, it's evident that the street grid once ran largely uninterrupted through the developed parts of the city.

While I'm not an urban planner, I tend to agree with the Jane Jacobs school of thought that an intact street grid made up of short blocks is one of many ingredients of a healthy city as it is conducive to walkability.

So why can't we, the people of Detroit, push for small incremental improvements in our city street grid? Perhaps start by eliminating nonsense like this unnecessary dead end on Russell St. at Canfield:



And why does Columbia Street have to be closed off to traffic at Park? Given the influx of traffic near the stadiums and theater district, seems like it would make more sense to open up the grid to alleviate special event traffic backups.

But the coup de grace for messing up the street grid might be the southwest portion of downtown near the Federal Building and WDIV. Here's a map of a run I took. Notice the crazy route I was forced to take to get from Cobo to Grand Circus Park after making an errant turn north on First from Fort Street. First is closed from Howard to Michigan, even to pedestrians, as is Howard from First to Cass. Second runs from Congress to Lafayette, then dead ends at WDIV, but picks up again for a block and runs to Abbott, then dead ends again. There's zero pedestrian flow, and not surprisingly there's a dearth of street life in the area.



There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of other examples of the broken grid. Some fixable, some not. There are probably more pressing issues facing the city at any given time. But perhaps that very mindset is to blame for the fractured street grid and lack of walkability/navigability in certain parts of the city?

Would love to hear others' thoughts on this.

[EastsideAl]

Well, the Detroit street grid has been consistently redesigned for auto traffic since the 1920s, so it's no wonder this is the result. Why do you have to complain? Just get in your car and drive as quickly out of downtown as possible, just like the planners intended [[but watch out for those dead ends!). After all, pedestrianism is so tiresomely 19th century.

[Gpwrangler]

Looking at maps [[like this one) of old Detroit - before freeways, Lafayette Park and other megaprojects, it's evident that the street grid once ran largely uninterrupted through the developed parts of the city.

While I'm not an urban planner, I tend to agree with the Jane Jacobs school of thought that an intact street grid made up of short blocks is one of many ingredients of a healthy city as it is conducive to walkability.

So why can't we, the people of Detroit, push for small incremental improvements in our city street grid? Perhaps start by eliminating nonsense like this unnecessary dead end on Russell St. at Canfield:



And why does Columbia Street have to be closed off to traffic at Park? Given the influx of traffic near the stadiums and theater district, seems like it would make more sense to open up the grid to alleviate special event traffic backups.

But the coup de grace for messing up the street grid might be the southwest portion of downtown near the Federal Building and WDIV. Here's a map of a run I took. Notice the crazy route I was forced to take to get from Cobo to Grand Circus Park after making an errant turn north on First from Fort Street. First is closed from Howard to Michigan, even to pedestrians, as is Howard from First to Cass. Second runs from Congress to Lafayette, then dead ends at WDIV, but picks up again for a block and runs to Abbott, then dead ends again. There's zero pedestrian flow, and not surprisingly there's a dearth of street life in the area.



There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of other examples of the broken grid. Some fixable, some not. There are probably more pressing issues facing the city at any given time. But perhaps that very mindset is to blame for the fractured street grid and lack of walkability/navigability in certain parts of the city?

Would love to hear others' thoughts on this.

The property on the dead end might be privately owned. Can't connect the street unless you own the right of way.

Anyway, you were out for a run. Isn't covering distance the whole idea?

[mtburb]

Just to make things worse, pretty much most of the eastern end of downtown consists of one-way streets, some of which serve no purpose in getting out of downtown because they just end abruptly at a freeway service drive.



Do you think these should just revert back to two-way streets as they became one-way streets to handle the traffic of a Detroit with a population of over a million?

[Chicago48]

I totally agree, the grid is screwed up. Look at Chicago, Boston, even NYC. They're walking cities because they run e-w-n-s. They don't have streets that detour and cut off, run in circles. Each time I'm in Detroit, I get lost. Each time. I need someone to draw a map of where I'm going.

[313WX]

The broken street grid, if anything, is merely a symptom of Detroit's decline in population.

The city opted for superblock developments [[Lafayette Park being the first of this kind) to redevelop the vast swaths of increasingly vacant land, which is understandable as tax revenue would be generated and Detroit would never see the population density it had in 1950 again [[since it ripped apart its transit infrastructure).

New York City did the same thing to portions of The Bronx that were completely abandoned in the 1970s and 1980s. So it's not a Detroit-specific thing.

[Willi]

Try driving in downtown Manhatten , New York and parking, and paying the tickets/towing.
Better yet , run a large business involving deliveries, where your guys are paid the hour.
If a dignitary comes to the UN building, it's gets even worse by a factor of 10.
Typical example :
http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2012/02/unlock-the-grid-then-ditch-the-maps-and-apps/


Detroit is just fine in comparison.
A few tweaks here and there.

[jackie5275]

.... First is closed from Howard to Michigan, even to pedestrians, as is Howard from First to Cass.....

First & Howard around the federal building used to be opened until the 1995 OKC federal building bombing. After that, the feds decided to take no chances and closed off just about everything around it. I have to think the same happened in other cities also. I don't see these streets opened again due to "national security reasons".

[Honky Tonk]

Didn't we just do this thread a month or two ago?

[canuck]

Didn't we just do this thread a month or two ago?

Where threaders do not fear to tread twice.

[Honky Tonk]

Where threaders do not fear to tread twice.

To boldly thread where no theader has threaded before, these are the voyages of the forum DetroitYES!

[Gpwrangler]

I totally agree, the grid is screwed up. Look at Chicago, Boston, even NYC. They're walking cities because they run e-w-n-s. They don't have streets that detour and cut off, run in circles. Each time I'm in Detroit, I get lost. Each time. I need someone to draw a map of where I'm going.

GPS works quite well.

The "spokes of a wheel" layout interrupts the grid pattern anyway. So do several freeways. A large volume of vehicle traffic runs through Detroit, as do a couple busy rail lines.

[Scottathew]

I agree that we need to end the super-blocks. If we want a functioning, viable downtown we need people walking between places, not just within places.

Look at the RenCen for example. It's a huge sprawling complex that you would never need to leave. It has everything within it.

I visited NYC for a week and I loved it. Being able to walk around, use mass transit, hit a store up on the way home, it was wonderful.

If we can reproduce some of these better urban planning elements, we could start to see more momentum. It's going to take a lot of little decisions spread over decades.

[Warrenite84]

I believe traffic flow in the CBD would have been more efficient if Bagley and Madison Avenues were extended to Michigan and Gratiot respectively. Indeed, we now have to contend with inefficient decisions from the past.

Hopefully, the plans being drawn up for I-375 will repair some damage to the street grid and allow for more traffic and pedestrian movement in his area. Any news yet on this?

[animatedmartian]

Hopefully, the plans being drawn up for I-375 will repair some damage to the street grid and allow for more traffic and pedestrian movement in his area. Any news yet on this?

MODT doesn't have the funding for any changes so currently there's an indefinite timetable on it.

[paulj313]

I wish we could just...

[Honky Tonk]

I wish we could just...

WOW, I'm having flashbacks.

[Warrenite84]

IMHO, I would prefer it if we had one of those six-sided layouts. 12 capitol-sized parks and a GCP 2x size!

[1953]

I agree with the focus of this thread. We really need to fix the street grid to improve the city.

When the new DPD headquarters was built and I saw Abbott being truncated before the Lodge, I wrote a letter to the city advocating for it to be left open. They wrote back a very nice letter stating that they had to close it because it was part of their headquarters "campus." I laughed, knowing that the "campus" was the headquarters north of Abbott, and the parking structure south of Abbott. That's a very liberal use of the word "campus." [Not to mention, they left a big, dumb lawn on 3rd, which has no sprinklers and is not maintained][Oh, and the building looks like a Miami shopping mall, not a big city police headquarters].

Regarding the "security" at the federal building, its a total joke. The building is vulnerable from attack in several places, and always will be, until they put it in a castle, way out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a moat and a drawbridge [[and even then it might be vulnerable). I think I saw on the news that the NYC federal reserve is on a zero-setback street. I know the federal appeals courts in Cincinnati are. How could Detroit's federal building need more protection than these high profile buildings? Its ridiculous.

Ok, where do I sign the petitions?

1953