Jefferson Avenue Streetscape

[dmike76]

It looks like there's going to be some work done on Jefferson at Chalmers. I'm not an east sider and I may have only been over that way once or twice, so I can't give great input on how much this will improve the traffic in that area. However, I do like the idea of narrowing some of these giant freeways aka Detroit's main roads and making them more pedestrian/bicycle friendly. Eastsiders....chime in. http://goeastjefferson.org/jefferson...scape-project/

[noggin]

I would be happy if they would just get around to replacing the street lights on Jefferson.

[expatriate]

That street is only busy during commute hours. I'm all for traffic calming and pedestrian improvements.

[Junjie]

It looks like there's going to be some work done on Jefferson at Chalmers. I'm not an east sider and I may have only been over that way once or twice, so I can't give great input on how much this will improve the traffic in that area. However, I do like the idea of narrowing some of these giant freeways aka Detroit's main roads and making them more pedestrian/bicycle friendly. Eastsiders....chime in. http://goeastjefferson.org/jefferson...scape-project/

Looks well-designed [[parked cars dividing the bike lane and travel lanes) and hopefully comes to some more of the enormous, overbuilt boulevards throughout the city. One of the weirdest things about Detroit is seeing these 7 or 9-lane highways with virtually no cars driving on them at many times of the day.

[Jason]

Good news imo. The only problem is the section they're doing is so short!

[animatedmartian]

Cool. As long as they don't mess it up like Livernois and have Michigan lefts in weird spots, they should do all of Jefferson from downtown to Alter.

[boater4life]

I like it. The jefferson Chalmers area needs some help and attention.

[Honky Tonk]

I would be happy if they would just get around to replacing the street lights on Jefferson.

It's only been 9 years, what's your rush? In the meantime, enjoy that that larger-than-life billboard photo of Janice Winfrey.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Good news imo. The only problem is the section they're doing is so short!

There is coverage on Curbed about this, and a commentator identified as the Detroit Greenways Coalition states that the plan is to continue all the way down to E. Grand. Humanizing the scale of those ultra-wide streets would really be nice.

[Mackinaw]

Brilliant, and might foster additional retail. Excited to hear that this right-sizing may continue toward downtown. There have been a couple nice recent historic preservation wins near Jeff-Chalmers. Frankly, this area will soon look nicer than GPP's increasingly exurban-looking streetscape along E. Jefferson, where they tear everything down to, you know, stop the spread of Detroit's blight.

[Gpwrangler]

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...l#incart_river

[sumas]

Having been very involved with JEBA and Creekside CDC for 30 some years, I keep seeing these street scape plans come and go, usually at a cost of 150k plus. Be nice to see something actually happen in my lifetime.

[MikeM]

Drove past today - could see the old streetcar rails being pulled out.

[Detroitnerd]

Drove past today - could see the old streetcar rails being pulled out.

Replacing rail service would seem to be a great way to take cars off the road and build density, but … nah … what we need is medians, bumpouts, bollards, bike lanes, and barriers. And flowers in spaces no reasonable person would want to be in, like in the middle of six lanes of rushing traffic. Definitely the place to stop and smell the roses. And we need benches in full sun right up against the parking lane so you can savor the exhaust.

OK, I have an issue or two with streetscaping.

[Danny]

Ah! a new Grosse Pointe-esque streetscape in Jefferson Ave. near Alter Rd. Sounds interesting. It would demostrate those folks in Richville that Detroit is not that ghetto!

[Wesley Mouch]

Replacing rail service would seem to be a great way to take cars off the road and build density, but … nah … what we need is medians, bumpouts, bollards, bike lanes, and barriers. And flowers in spaces no reasonable person would want to be in, like in the middle of six lanes of rushing traffic. Definitely the place to stop and smell the roses. And we need benches in full sun right up against the parking lane so you can savor the exhaust.

OK, I have an issue or two with streetscaping.

As you should have. Streetscaping should be secondary to functionality. I don't have an issue with streetscaping -- but its pretty unimportant.

Reminds me of the dressing up of all the vacant downtown buildings in the 1980s. New awnings on the Statler. Oh, and of course Washington Boulevard. That worked so well. Let's do that again.

Before we even consider decorating the house we should be working on the foundation and structure. In the meantime we can distract all the designers and get them working on 'wayfinding'.

[313WX]

This streetscrape seems pretty functional to me. Side street access isn't blocked and one can still make simple left turns onto these side streets from Jefferson, unlike that disaster on Livernois.

It's not as if people will stop driving down Jefferson once the median is in place. NYC and Chicago has medians like what's proposed on Jefferson on their avenues as well.

There are far more pressing things to complain about IMO.

[Llama]

If so far is any indication, it's a disaster. At the time being there does not exist decent public transit in the area, so cars are the only feasible way to get around. What's left after medians AND bike lanes AND parking lanes? One lane in each direction, looks like. Get behind an intermittently stopping DDOT bus and you're SOL.

[[Of course if you're going to stay in the neighborhood and not move about to, you know, go out to work to earn the money to spend at the merchants old and new, then the traffic flow restrictions won't bother you.)

There are two lanes in each direction on either side of the Grosse Pointe Park landscaped medians, and no parking in travel lanes. That works reasonably okay to keep traffic moving.

Honestly based on the past few days, it is quicker [[and far less frustrating!) to traverse the Detroit-GPP border via the "closed" Kercheval so many complained about, than to try to use E Jefferson.

[kathy2trips]

This sounds really great. Please Detroit, just don't screw it up!

[mkd]

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...oads/83598476/

Looks like the project will be extended to East Grand Blvd:

• A $6-million revamp of East Jefferson between East Grand Boulevard and Lakewood, with construction starting later this year and lasting into 2017. Included are new landscaped medians and protected bike paths.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

One of the weirdest things about Detroit is seeing these 7 or 9-lane highways with virtually no cars driving on them at many times of the day.

Agreed. I have always thought that. It's sort of like going to a large store without a lot of products on the shelves. Like, say, going to a Kmart.

[Király]

Looks well-designed [[parked cars dividing the bike lane and travel lanes)

We have a few of those here in Vancouver and I do not like them. Far too many people exit their cars and walk right into cyclists without looking. I feel safer riding on a busy road with no bike lane at all, where drivers can clearly see you.

[renf]

Do I recall correctly that some of the early funding for the improvement of East Jefferson near Alter Road came from Governor Granholm's "Cool Cities" endeavor? Both she and Mayor Kilpatrick at least briefly embraced Richard Florida's ideas for urban revival.

[Junjie]

We have a few of those here in Vancouver and I do not like them. Far too many people exit their cars and walk right into cyclists without looking. I feel safer riding on a busy road with no bike lane at all, where drivers can clearly see you.

Hmm, well, I haven't biked hardly at all in US cities so hadn't considered that. Fair enough. I'd hate to lose either the bike lane or the street parking, though. I would think a protected lane would do a lot to encourage bike use.

[Király]

Protected bike lanes do a lot to give the illusion of safety, which does encourage bike use. As far as actual measured safety, that question is still out. Protected bike lanes also perpetuate the myth that cycling is dangerous and that cyclists should just get off the road. They also make things like left turns impossible because you can't move over to the leftmost lane; you are boxed in to the end of the block. Don't forget that debris like broken glass is much more likely to accumulate and stay in protected bike lanes, as those areas are usually passed over by the street cleaners.

Sorry to take the thread off-topic, but as a daily urban cyclist here in Vancouver, where there has been an explosion in protected bike lanes and other bike infrastructure over the last 15 years, I really prefer the days when we just had regular roads that everyone shared together. The new bike infrastructure is fine for cyclists who are slow, afraid of cars, and aren't interested in learning how to ride safely with other traffic, but for the rest of us who do know how to ride safely with traffic, we don't appreciate being pushed into the separated bike lane ghetto, where it is less convenient, slower, and often more hazardous.