East Jefferson Streetscape Project

[intelligentBeing]

So everyone is aware the project site is: EastJeffersonCorridor.com.

$17 million

I have adopted a lot of the planning philosophies of an organization called strong towns, not sure if any of you have heard of them, and for East Jefferson this YouTube by them is crucial.

There is a group called Dover Kohl on YouTube and they do a great job, this video specifically talks about the street as a public room. I recommend their whole TOWN PLANNING STUFF series.

I think the street layout in this image would be perfect for E Jefferson since it is already so wide.

One of their FAQs is:
When we say public transit improvements, what do we mean?

"Jefferson already has 5 bus lines! 2 DDOT Routes [[9 and 80) and 3 SMART routes. One goal of this Study is to improve the experience of using transit on Jefferson. This could include different things such as better transit shelters or a bus-only lane. Additionally, the City is considering many transit options, including light rail, bus rapid transit, and other express bus services for Jefferson. Outside of this study, DDOT is working on making it easier to pay, extending service hours and bus frequency. This study will help us determine what’s possible for Jefferson."

[bust]

There is so much potential in re-urbanizing this corridor-- as much as Michigan Ave., or more. However I expect my expectations to be unmet, even as they're already limited by awareness how local, regional, and state politics hamstring opportunity.

Better chances than Ilitchville, at least.

[NSortzi]

They should continue the Qline in the median of Larned to Mt. Elliot and have it connect with Jefferson there. Having a turnaround loop at the Uniroyal site would be a decent length for a first phase and a nice amenity for that future development. And then most of the new line would be mostly unimpeded by surrounding traffic. At a later date the line could always be extended to Alter Rd.

[expatriate]

I think that the Grand Boulevard intersection would be the perfect place for a traffic circle and create a more attractive entrance to Belle Isle. The current configuration is terrible.

[kuuma]

I think that the Grand Boulevard intersection would be the perfect place for a traffic circle and create a more attractive entrance to Belle Isle. The current configuration is terrible.

I usually bike to Belle Isle but last weekend I drove, it definitely was unattractive/terrible. got caught in that little diag between red lights turning left off the bridge, it was comically clunky.

would love to see an ambitious redesign of that whole square, between the Uniroyal park site and The Platform's holdings on the corner, really activating that half-circle motif that's already there – it's the roughly size of Grand Circus Park. lots of chances to go big there - Belle Isle deserves it

[Gistok]

On a previous thread, I've mentioned that the E. Grand Blvd. terminus/Belle Isle Bridge and E. Jefferson clusterfuck of an intersection, that a grand traffic circle would be awesome. Something similar to NYC Columbus Circle, but not needing a pedestrian area on the circle.

Detroit has its' share of grand but unloved statuary that could make a nice centerpiece to a grand circle... such as the Hurlbut Memorial Gate at Waterworks Park [just a fence ornament for decades], or maybe the Merrill Fountain [hidden and neglected in Palmer Park after it was removed from Campus Martius 8 decades ago], or even that fancy roadside billboard along Michigan Ave., known as the Thaddeus Kosciuszko Equestrian Statue [Bicentennial gift from Poland to Detroit with no prominent place to put it].

So many possibilities to give some World Class panache to our diamond in the rough East Riverfront.

[Danny]

The streetscape better work.

[Zacha341]

Hah-Yeah it's pretty bad there now Expat! This is probably the only intersection in Detroit where a round-about could exist. As it stands now it's sorta of a half-quarter, half-baked one now. Might as well go thru with it full-circle!

I think that the Grand Boulevard intersection would be the perfect place for a traffic circle and create a more attractive entrance to Belle Isle. The current configuration is terrible.

[masterblaster]

On a previous thread, I've mentioned that the E. Grand Blvd. terminus/Belle Isle Bridge and E. Jefferson clusterfuck of an intersection, that a grand traffic circle would be awesome. Something similar to NYC Columbus Circle, but not needing a pedestrian area on the circle.

Detroit has its' share of grand but unloved statuary that could make a nice centerpiece to a grand circle... such as the Hurlbut Memorial Gate at Waterworks Park [just a fence ornament for decades], or maybe the Merrill Fountain [hidden and neglected in Palmer Park after it was removed from Campus Martius 8 decades ago], or even that fancy roadside billboard along Michigan Ave., known as the Thaddeus Kosciuszko Equestrian Statue [Bicentennial gift from Poland to Detroit with no prominent place to put it].

So many possibilities to give some World Class panache to our diamond in the rough East Riverfront.

If it hadn't been destroyed by lightning 10 years ago, the World's Largest Stove could have been featured in such a traffic circle, as it was located at the entrance to Belle Isle for many years before being moved to the departed State Fairgrounds.

I don't know why would want to exclude the walkways around a statue a la NYC Columbus Circle, make it place to hangout like a mini-Campus Martius

There is a group called Dover Kohl on YouTube and they do a great job, this video specifically talks about the street as a public room. I recommend their whole TOWN PLANNING STUFF series.

I think the street layout in this image would be perfect for E Jefferson since it is already so wide.

One of their FAQs is:
When we say public transit improvements, what do we mean?

"Jefferson already has 5 bus lines! 2 DDOT Routes [[9 and 80) and 3 SMART routes. One goal of this Study is to improve the experience of using transit on Jefferson. This could include different things such as better transit shelters or a bus-only lane. Additionally, the City is considering many transit options, including light rail, bus rapid transit, and other express bus services for Jefferson. Outside of this study, DDOT is working on making it easier to pay, extending service hours and bus frequency. This study will help us determine what’s possible for Jefferson."

Intelligence, that Berlin street design is phenomenal! All of the wide avenues radiating from downtown [[Fort, Michigan, et al) as well as Grand Boulevard, should be redesigned to match that Berlin Street. Maybe then, we would look like "Paris of the Midwest"

[Gistok]

I don't know why would want to exclude the walkways around a statue a la NYC Columbus Circle, make it place to hangout like a mini-Campus Martius

Yes there is a very good reason for not including a pedestrian plaza in a grand traffic circle. The 2 restaurant buildings on the corners of the north side of East Jefferson would have to be razed for a traffic circle. Can't make the circle too large to include pedestrian use, because it would also mean the demolition of 112 E. Grand Blvd... a very old and historic building that should not be torn down.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3471.../data=!3m1!1e3

http://detroitfunk.com/tag/prop-art-studio/

[Jason]

Time for my obligatory People Mover expansion plug. A People Mover extension along Jefferson to Van Dyke is practical and should be looked into.

I've made the main points in bold and you can skip the rest [[I'd have hidden the rest in spoiler tags if the site had them. Sorry!).

1. A People Mover [[PM) extension would cost the city less money to operate than the current bus service.

DDOT spends about $18,000 per day on buses along Jefferson from downtown to Van Dyke. I calculated this by combining the FTA's operating cost per vehicle hour and DDOT's bus schedules. I did this pre-pandemic.

A PM extension would cost $22,000 per day. I did the same thing using the FTA's PM numbers, but since the PM does the transit police for DDOT, I took the transit police expenses out and recalculated the cost per vehicle hour.

This number is at the high end of possible operating costs. The PM currently has high fixed costs spread over a small system. From what I can tell, the Vancouver SkyTrain costs about 60% as much to operate [[when calculating per vehicle hour) despite being the same kind of system.

If you replaced the buses along that segment and put the money towards the PM, there would be a $4,000 daily gap. Possibly less.

During planning for one of the SkyTrain extensions, they found that for the same route, SkyTrain would get 2.5 times as many riders as light rail, which would get more riders than BRT, which would get more riders than their existing high quality bus service. Which would get more riders than our existing bus service. I would figure there's currently about 3,000 daily bus riders along that segment [[public ridership numbers are from before the service changes/improvements from a few years ago). If ridership tripled, at $2 per ride [[assuming DART integration) you'd get an extra $12,000 a day in fares, which more than makes up for the remaining gap.

It's also worth noting that the state subsidizes about a third of Michigan's public transit operating costs, but it doesn't take a cut of the fares. So when the PM service would cost $22,000 a day, the city would only be paying $15,400 a day, but it would be get all of the hypothetical $12,000 a day in new fares.

2. Property and income tax revenue increases would cover the construction of it.

Transit investments create value, and in order to pay for the investment the government can get some of that value back. One way of doing that would be to create a Tax Increment Financing district. A TIF is when you take the new tax revenues from increased property values [[increased due to the investment) in a project area to pay off the costs of the investment. A TIF is raising $250 million to help pay for the hockey arena. Jefferson's area is bigger and also contains a lot of high value properties and developable land.

In addition to property value increases, an extension would increase the number of workers and residents, which would increase income tax revenue. If you got 1,000 new residents, each making $50k per year, and extended that across 30 years [[a common bond length), at 2.4% resident income tax, the city would get $36 million. It's not hard to imagine a few thousand new residents in that area.

If you took the money saved on operating costs and put it towards capital costs, over 30 years you would get about $130 million.

The extension would cost something like $350 million, based on the length of guideway, number and size of stations, and new vehicles. Maybe a bit more. An upcoming SkyTrain extension is about twice as much per mile than I think the PM would be, but theirs will have stations that are 3 times bigger, a much larger fleet of vehicles, and a new operations and maintenance facility.

3. This doesn't apply to light rail, streetcar, or BRT.

Operating costs would increase a lot with the other modes. They are all more expensive to operate than the PM, so there would be a larger gap between what the city is currently paying and what they would be paying with the improvements. But they also have much lower service quality, so they would attract fewer riders [[the QLine has half as many riders as the People Mover despite being the same length and having a more useful route), so there would be lower fare income than with a People Mover extension.

All of those other modes would also increase property values, but the PM's would probably be larger and more enduring. The QLine is worse than the existing bus service but it still raised property values because it improved midtown's brand. Being a [[very short) metro line, a PM extension would improve Jefferson's brand but would also provide genuinely useful transit service.

The other modes aren't cheap either. The QLine [[a streetcar) is about the same length as my suggested PM extension and it cost $140 million. Light rail varies in cost, depending on how substantial it is. Light rail in a median on Jefferson would be on the lower end, more similar to streetcar costs, but with longer trains and longer platforms. When light rail has substantial grade separation it becomes more expensive than PM.

Regardless of cost, the other modes provide worse service than the PM, and if given a dedicated right of way in a new median, would all function very similarly to regular buses with regular bus lanes, except they would have higher capacities because their trains would be longer. Their speed, frequency, and reliability would be equally aided by dedicated lanes [[compared to mixing in traffic), but also hampered by the unavoidable street intersections.

[masterblaster]

Yes there is a very good reason for not including a pedestrian plaza in a grand traffic circle. The 2 restaurant buildings on the corners of the north side of East Jefferson would have to be razed for a traffic circle. Can't make the circle too large to include pedestrian use, because it would also mean the demolition of 112 E. Grand Blvd... a very old and historic building that should not be torn down.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3471.../data=!3m1!1e3

http://detroitfunk.com/tag/prop-art-studio/

The drive-through Tim Horton's is a forgettable structure. The Big Boy's was demolished a few years ago. The historical building could be moved one or two blocks north - plenty of vacant lots along the Boulevard. Detroit should specialize in fantastic public squares. We have some fantastic ones downtown.

The negative thing about traffic circles, is the nature of a traffic circle to keep traffic moving non-stop. At busy intersections, this is trouble FOR THE PEDESTRIAN. With traffic flowing through the circle non-stop, the pedestrian has to wait and wait and wait and wait until traffic clears. That particular intersection is extremely busy and it would take forever for a pedestrian to cross it.

[masterblaster]

Time for my obligatory People Mover expansion plug. A People Mover extension along Jefferson to Van Dyke is practical and should be looked into

Is this plan a one-car or two-car configuration?

What would the frequency of trains be? Every 5 minutes, 10 minutes?

If this replaces the bus service, then what would be the spacing between stations? Buses usually have stops every 2 blocks, sometimes one every block. Could you get away with having a station every 1/4 mile, every 1/2 mile?

[stasu1213]

Time for my obligatory People Mover expansion plug. A People Mover extension along Jefferson to Van Dyke is practical and should be looked into.

I've made the main points in bold and you can skip the rest [[I'd have hidden the rest in spoiler tags if the site had them. Sorry!).

1. A People Mover [[PM) extension would not cost the city additional money to operate.

DDOT spends about $18,000 per day on buses along Jefferson from downtown to Van Dyke. I calculated this by combining the FTA's operating cost per vehicle hour and DDOT's bus schedules. I did this pre-pandemic.

A PM extension would cost $33,000 per day. However, that is with the caveat that the PM currently has high fixed costs spread over a small system. From what I can tell, the Vancouver SkyTrain costs about 60% as much to operate [[when calculating per vehicle hour) despite being the same kind of system.

If you replaced the buses along that segment and put it towards the PM, there would be a $15,000 daily gap. Possibly less.

During planning for one of the SkyTrain extensions, they found that for the same route, SkyTrain would get 2.5 times as many riders as light rail, which would get more riders than BRT, which would get more riders than their existing high quality bus service. Which would get more riders than our existing bus service. I would figure there's currently about 3,000 daily bus riders along that segment [[public ridership numbers are from before the service changes/improvements from a few years ago). If ridership tripled, at $2 per ride [[assuming DART integration) you'd get an extra $12,000 a day in fares, which makes up almost all of the gap.

But in addition to traditional bus ridership there would also be event ridership. For example, the Grand Prix uses shuttles to get people onto the island from offsite parking located downtown. 100,000 visitors x 2 [[morning and afternoon rides) / 365 days is about 550 average daily riders spread throughout the year.

2. Property and income tax revenue increases would cover the construction of it.

Transit investments create value, and in order to pay for the investment the government can get some of that value back. One way of doing that would be to create a Tax Increment Financing district. A TIF is when you take the new tax revenues from increased property values [[increased due to the investment) in a project area to pay off the costs of the investment. A TIF is raising $250 million to help pay for the hockey arena. Jefferson's area is bigger and also contains a lot of high value properties and developable land.

In addition to property value increases, an extension would increase the number of workers and residents, which would increase income tax revenue. If you got 1,000 new residents, each making $50k per year, and extended that across 30 years [[a common bond length), at 2.4% resident income tax, the city would get $36 million. It's not hard to imagine a few thousand new residents in that area.

The extension would cost something like $350 million, based on the length of guideway, number and size of stations, and new vehicles. Maybe a bit more. An upcoming SkyTrain extension is about twice as much per mile than I think the PM would be, but theirs will have stations that are 3 times bigger, a much larger fleet of vehicles, and a new operations and maintenance facility.

3. This doesn't apply to light rail, streetcar, or BRT.

Operating costs would increase a lot with the other modes. They are all more expensive to operate than the PM, so there would be a larger gap between what the city is currently paying and what they would be paying with the improvements. But they also have much lower service quality, so they would attract fewer riders [[the QLine has half as many riders as the People Mover despite being the same length and having a more useful route), so there would be lower fare income than with a People Mover extension.

All of those other modes would also increase property values, but the PM's would probably be larger and more enduring. The QLine is worse than the existing bus service but it still raised property values because it improved midtown's brand. Being a [[very short) metro line, a PM extension would improve Jefferson's brand but would also provide genuinely useful transit service.

The other modes aren't cheap either. The QLine [[a streetcar) is about the same length as my suggested PM extension and it cost $140 million. Light rail varies in cost, depending on how substantial it is. Light rail in a median on Jefferson would be on the lower end, more similar to streetcar costs, but with longer trains and longer platforms. When light rail has substantial grade separation it becomes more expensive than PM.

Regardless of cost, the other modes provide worse service than the PM, and if given a dedicated right of way in a new median, would all function very similarly to regular buses with regular bus lanes, except they would have higher capacities because their trains would be longer. Their speed, frequency, and reliability would be equally aided by dedicated lanes [[compared to mixing in traffic), but also hampered by the unavoidable street intersections.

A People Mover running along Jefferson would be an expensive waste of money. It is costly to build and operate an elevate monorail especially on that is made of concrete. Jefferson should be left as an avenue and not a 6 mile long pedestrian friendly Plaza. The present bike lanes are already dangerous blind spots especially for cars making right turns unto side streets and could get into accidents with cyclists darting from the side of a car that is practically parked in the middle of the street

[Honky Tonk]

A People Mover running along Jefferson would be an expensive waste of money. It is costly to build and operate an elevate monorail especially on that is made of concrete. Jefferson should be left as an avenue and not a 6 mile long pedestrian friendly Plaza. The present bike lanes are already dangerous blind spots especially for cars making right turns unto side streets and could get into accidents with cyclists darting from the side of a car that is practically parked in the middle of the street

+5, Thanks for the "reality world" post. You forgot to mention vehicles parked dangerously close to corners. If it's an SUV, van, or truck, you can't see the cyclists while making turns. Apparently red lights don't apply to cyclists. It's a dangerous situation.

[K-slice]

Jefferson is certainly wide enough to support a center running street car. and to not at least plan for one is short sighted.

Any light rail would likely have to wait until 375 is removed. Hell, the removal of 375 is as good a reason as any to start a Jefferson rail line as the entire area where the ramp is will be rebuilt.

It could use a platform on the other side of Woodward from the Q line terminus for connection, run down Larned to Randolph, then onto Jefferson. They could give it a dedicated lane on Larned westbound since the street is one way in the opposite direction. The station in front of the Ren Cen could tie right into the PM station they've talked about renovating anyways! But I dream...

[kuuma]

The present bike lanes are already dangerous blind spots especially for cars making right turns unto side streets and could get into accidents with cyclists darting from the side of a car that is practically parked in the middle of the street

The bike lanes would be a lot less dangerous if they weren't so half-assed. those painted-on medians with the plastic reflector dongles call to mind this Slate article quote, "decoration masquerading as infrastructure". they should be raised bunkers, and if that eliminates the parking lane, so it goes.

Agreed that the I-375 removal presents a prime chance to set up a rail connector to the Ren Cen PM station. Gotta bite the bullet and invest in spoke lines eventually! The way it would transform the city transcends this nickel-and-diming game.

[expatriate]

The negative thing about traffic circles, is the nature of a traffic circle to keep traffic moving non-stop. At busy intersections, this is trouble FOR THE PEDESTRIAN. With traffic flowing through the circle non-stop, the pedestrian has to wait and wait and wait and wait until traffic clears. That particular intersection is extremely busy and it would take forever for a pedestrian to cross it.

Pedestrians crossings set back from the circle eliminates this problem.

[expatriate]

I agree, that corridor does not have the population density to warrant that kind of investment. One can't count the SMART bus traffic since it doesn't make pickups and drop offs within the city limits.

[bust]

^expatriate,

The traffic circle design you shared works extremely well when there is only one lane of traffic, on not-heavily-used streets. It's great for both drivers and pedestrians.

But they work much less well where there are multiple lanes, even without heavy traffic. They're much harder to navigate and can even encourage bad driving behavior. One poster on another thread even said he has fun preventing people from merging into his lane so they can't turn and must circle again.

A location like at the Belle Isle bridge would need multiple lanes and have traffic heavy enough they'd probably still design it with traffic lights, which defeats the point. It may slow traffic, but I doubt it would reduce accidents. I wouldn't be surprised if even they went up.

It's hard for me to understand how anyone could point to Columbus Circle in NY as a good example of a traffic circle that works [not you, expatriate]. It's multiple lanes, heavily congested, and even with traffic lights and set back pedestrian crossings a slow and difficult place for pedestrians to cross. Let's not build that.

[expatriate]

If it were only the size of Columbus Circle it would easily fit into the intersection. Completing the existing half circle would make it almost twice that size.

[Jason]

Is this plan a one-car or two-car configuration?

What would the frequency of trains be? Every 5 minutes, 10 minutes?

If this replaces the bus service, then what would be the spacing between stations? Buses usually have stops every 2 blocks, sometimes one every block. Could you get away with having a station every 1/4 mile, every 1/2 mile?

This would be for a two-car configuration. In the math, a one-car configuration would cut the operating costs in half, which is wrong, so to keep the numbers comparable I kept them paired.

The frequency is every 5 minutes, 6:30 AM to midnight. Speaking of the vehicle pairs, I got 5 minutes because if the pairs were decoupled, the new service could be run without buying new vehicles. The existing loop is 16 minutes. The extension is 7 minutes but it's two way [[14 minutes) and if it circled back through the old loop at the end it would be another 16 minutes. So there'd be 46 minutes of service to do, and I think they currently use 10 out of the 12 original vehicles, so 5 minutes would leave a little bit of wiggle room. The capital costs in my post does include new vehicles though, 10 at 4.5 million a piece.


The stations would be 1/3rd to 2/3rds of a mile apart. The stations would be Lafayette Park [[Riopelle), Elmwood Park [[DuBois), Bunche Park [[Jos Campau), Belle Isle/Gabriel Richard Park [[Uniroyal site), and Van Dyke [[UAW parking lot). The station placements are consistent with the East Riverfront Framework Plan, except for the Dequindre Cut because the stations would be too close. The way Lafayette Park hits Jefferson would be replicated at DuBois [[demolish a building), and Jos Campau [[replace a parking lot). The park paths to the north would be upgraded from recreational paths to bike and pedestrian paths for getting to the stations. Belle Isle and Van Dyke would have bus loops, and the others would have bus shelters on Larned.

The first three stations would have the same basic design. The guideway and platforms would be on Jefferson itself. On each side of Jefferson there would be a small building with elevators/escalators which would bring you to platform level, which would be connected to the platform by a tube [[like in Greektown). Above that would be another level which would cross to the other side of Jefferson. Fare gates would be on the platform levels so that pedestrians could use the stations to cross Jefferson without entering the fare area. The last two stations would be built on empty land entirely south of Jefferson and would simply have escalators/elevators going to each platform. For all the stations there would be the potential to include some commercial space or integrate them with new developments.


Based on the station placement, and a vehicle acceleration/deceleration of 1 m/s^2, and max speed of 100 km/hr, and a station dwell time of 35 seconds, it would take 7:09 to go the entire length. Reducing dwell times to 20 seconds would bring it down to 6:09. Driving takes about 8 minutes and the bus about 14 minutes. It would take 0-5 minutes to transfer from the bus to the PM.

[Meddle]

First five posts and we got the 'Tube, the Qewpie Thing, transit-transit-transit and circles.


There is virtually NO hope left for civilization.

[Meddle]

And a few more posts we get thrown back to the 1940s streetcars that were taken out because nobody used them.


And bike lanes!!!! The grand savior of all things everywhere.

Little podunk town I live near has been spending tons of tax money to paint bike lanes. I have never seen a bicycle anywhere in that town. Not once.

[Jason]

First five posts and we got the 'Tube, the Qewpie Thing, transit-transit-transit and circles.

There is virtually NO hope left for civilization.

First two posts from you and we got someone who doesn't understand why people would talk about transportation infrastructure when the city is rebuilding a major piece of transportation infrastructure.

There is virtually NO hope left for civilization.