Remove Detroit's Freeways?

[Detroitnerd]

Is this a fair comparison? Embarcadero was 1.2 miles of dead-ended freeway, it was unsightly [[elevated 55 feet tall), and was damaged by the earthquake.

It seems that when they close down freeways, the predictions of gridlocked traffic don't seem to materialize. Though it seems totally counterintuitive, here is a link to a piece about how eliminating freeways can actually help relieve traffic jams:

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009...lp-save-a-city

or the tiny version:

http://tinyurl.com/mlvqpy

[BShea]

The thing is, dismissing Detroit "until it fixes its problems" is a dead-ender.

Sorry, I didn't mean to intimate that Detroit was a lost cause, but instead that there are very basic things that have to be solved --- the things that make a city a city --- before there's any realistic chance of doing the cool things people want to do on a large scale.

I live downtown and I don't want to live elsewhere. But I'm still going to drive to the Allen Park Meijer for my "big" food shopping trips and I still want to drive to the mall for other shopping. I don't want to pay the premium on goods that come with a downtown retail shopping experience unless it's for stuff I can't get elsewhere. Maybe that makes me an exception, I dunno.

People left the countryside for cities for reasons. They then left cities for the 'burbs for other reasons. I suspect there's only a fraction of the metro Detroit population interested in the "new urban" experience. It's also chicken/egg ... if you had a great downtown experience to offer, with low crime, great schools, transit and reasonable prices, people would come downtown in some numbers ... but without people downtown now, it's unrealistic to think there's enough tax base to create that atmosphere.

And the ugly fact that gets little discussion? Cities are the repository of the poor. Always have been, always will be. How the poor are handled [[which sounds Orwellian, I know) is a real problem here.

[Detroitnerd]

Sorry, I didn't mean to intimate that Detroit was a lost cause, but instead that there are very basic things that have to be solved --- the things that make a city a city --- before there's any realistic chance of doing the cool things people want to do on a large scale.

Yes, but it has to begin somewhere. Detroit is not the place for a person who hates all taxes or wants to send their children to public school. But for those who don't consider taxes a top issue or who don't have children, not so much of an obstacle. I don't believe we have to solve every single issue in Detroit for it to be desirable. We'll always have problems; it's how we deal with them that counts.

I live downtown and I don't want to live elsewhere. But I'm still going to drive to the Allen Park Meijer for my "big" food shopping trips and I still want to drive to the mall for other shopping. I don't want to pay the premium on goods that come with a downtown retail shopping experience unless it's for stuff I can't get elsewhere. Maybe that makes me an exception, I dunno.

I shop at the local ethnic market because the quality is good and the prices are reasonable. They have to keep the quality high, unless they want to hear shrill complaints from their demanding customers! In this regard, I'm probably the exception. Most people like to shop as you do. People who shop as I do are a small segment, but growing year after year, even in this economy. Heck, 10 years ago, home gardening was a niche interest; most homeowners seemed to regard working in the soil as fit for peasants. But Americans started 8 or 9 million more gardens in just the last year. Trends are small and slow but powerful once they get going.

People left the countryside for cities for reasons. They then left cities for the 'burbs for other reasons. I suspect there's only a fraction of the metro Detroit population interested in the "new urban" experience. It's also chicken/egg ... if you had a great downtown experience to offer, with low crime, great schools, transit and reasonable prices, people would come downtown in some numbers ... but without people downtown now, it's unrealistic to think there's enough tax base to create that atmosphere.

If they're interested in new urbanism, they have few places to enjoy here because our urban policy is to turn cities over to the poor and uneducated. So they'll go to Portland or Chicago or somewhere else. And we lose all that good energy. Here's hoping the balance tips for Detroit in the '10s.

And the ugly fact that gets little discussion? Cities are the repository of the poor. Always have been, always will be. How the poor are handled [[which sounds Orwellian, I know) is a real problem here.

Not true. Paris is the opposite: The rich live in the city, the poor live on the outskirts. Or in 1880, Detroit was a nice small city surrounded by coarse farm folk. Part of the problem is that most American cities came of age during the brutal laissez faire capitalism of the last 19th century. That's why Henry Ford's solution to urban problems was "We shall leave the city." And many of us have turned our back on cities. Which prompts the fitting rationalization that cities are for the poor. And, when you live here, it's tempting to become resigned to that idea.

[Hermod]

Part of the problem is that most American cities came of age during the brutal laissez faire capitalism of the last 19th century. That's why Henry Ford's solution to urban problems was "We shall leave the city." And many of us have turned our back on cities. Which prompts the fitting rationalization that cities are for the poor. And, when you live here, it's tempting to become resigned to that idea.

Advances in transportation allowed for larger cities. Cities expanded along horse car lines, they expanded along electric streetcar lines, and they expanded along roadways with the advent of the automobile. Everyone was looking to move up to a better house if they could afford it. Much as a new car becomes a first, then second, then third generation used car until it goes to the scrapper, so also do houses pass from those moving up to those at the bottom of the economic heap.

[Hermod]

In the fifties, there were two separate transportation problems. Eisenhower saw the need for an interstate highway system to allow people and goods to move quickly across the country bypassing cities and towns. At the same time, middle sized and large cities were faced with automotive congestion on a street grid not designed for automobiles. The cities wanted to build urban expressways [[not necessarily extending into the countryside). The Davidson and the Lodge were never intended to go outside of the city limits. One was to ease east-west problems and the other was to take the congestion off of Woodward [[main street). The problem was "money" because the cities could only suck off the federal teat if their expressways were a part of the "Interstate System". Unfortunately, this caused the expressways to extend into the countryside and permit suburban sprawl because it linked the city expressways into the interstate network. What if the Lodge ended at Seven Mile? What if the Ford ended at the city limits?

[mtburb]

In the fifties, there were two separate transportation problems. Eisenhower saw the need for an interstate highway system to allow people and goods to move quickly across the country bypassing cities and towns. At the same time, middle sized and large cities were faced with automotive congestion on a street grid not designed for automobiles. The cities wanted to build urban expressways [[not necessarily extending into the countryside). The Davidson and the Lodge were never intended to go outside of the city limits. One was to ease east-west problems and the other was to take the congestion off of Woodward [[main street). The problem was "money" because the cities could only suck off the federal teat if their expressways were a part of the "Interstate System". Unfortunately, this caused the expressways to extend into the countryside and permit suburban sprawl because it linked the city expressways into the interstate network. What if the Lodge ended at Seven Mile? What if the Ford ended at the city limits?

What if the Fisher ended at Fort? What if the Jefferies ended at Telegraph? What if the Chrysler ended at McNichols? But it will never happen, Detroit without it's freeways is like NYC without it's subways.

[stasu1213]

I have a better idea. Put a rail line on the freeway and that would be mass transit. Use one of the lanes for it.

[Hermod]

I have a better idea. Put a rail line on the freeway and that would be mass transit. Use one of the lanes for it.

I suggested running the M1 rail line down the next street over from Woodward. What if John R. was closed to automotive traffic and tuned into a right-of-way for a two track transit line running from downtown to 8-Mile? By giving the motorman a device to change the traffic lights on the east-west streets, the streetcars could move quite quickly. It would be "relatively cheap" to put in the rails compared to a subway or an elevated.. Station stops would only be a block east of Woodward and within easy walking distance. Is there that much left on John R. which would be affected by the loss of automotive traffic?

[BShea]

Paris is the opposite: The rich live in the city, the poor live on the outskirts.

Is Paris an apt comparison to Detroit? I've never been there, but the poor made up most of the city in 1789, when things got pretty dicey ...

In the core downtown, the few blocks of high rises and condos, yeah those folks are rich. But the bulk of Detroit isn't like that. I'm considering the whole city, not the ghettoized few blocks of isolated six-figure folks in 40th floor condos.

And in Detroit, there are poor people and blighted buidings steps from the city center and CBD. Most large American cities I've been to are like that, but Detroit is it's own creature become so few other cities have our unique geography/layout and industrial history.

[DetroitDad]

This will happen in the coming decade.

More and more people are essentially being evicted from the motoring system, and that will mean less funding [[gas tax) and some unrest when the non motoring group is forced to pay for a expensive freeway transit system that they can't afford to use.

Now, I'm not an expert by any-one's means, but I have been picking up that there is a problem with establishing heavy rail lines. Many heavy rail lines used to have multiple sets of tracks running a route, this allowed trains to easily navigate past each other without causing any delays. Unfortunately, portions of the rights of way have been dismantled, and the existing routes are now owned by freight operators, and the freight trains take priority over the right of way while the passenger lines have to work around them. Furthermore, these lines are not configured for higher speed trains.

Why not use the freeways as the right of way for high speed rail lines?

Could closing lanes or freeways during off peak times, or in bad weather be a source of mass transit funding? Could that be done? Could it be considered as a freeway project?

[reddog289]

I myself tend to avoid freeways. They never really run where I want to go anyway.
Given the state of Detroit. This might be a prime time to build the raillinks to where ever given the amount of vacant and underused properties.Leave the existing freeways and don't think about the building of new ones.People would be lost without them. This is the Detroit they know, Get in Get out.
I see myself that tearing up "good" freeways to "restore" them to something is a waste of money.True there are less folks living in Detroit and its neighhboring cities then what it was designed for, but if and when it comes back people will be yelling about the lack of freeways.

[casscorridor]

I shop at the local ethnic market because the quality is good and the prices are reasonable. They have to keep the quality high, unless they want to hear shrill complaints from their demanding customers! In this regard, I'm probably the exception. Most people like to shop as you do. People who shop as I do are a small segment, but growing year after year, even in this economy. Heck, 10 years ago, home gardening was a niche interest; most homeowners seemed to regard working in the soil as fit for peasants. But Americans started 8 or 9 million more gardens in just the last year. Trends are small and slow but powerful once they get going.

I am with you all the way! I spend almost all my money in the city. I'm pretty strict about it. For groceries, my main places are University Foods, Eastern Market, Little Asia Mart, and sometimes Honeybee and sometimes Goodwells. If you live in the Downtown/Midtown area there really isn't any need to go outside the city for groceries. It is almost pathological, how many city residents go to the suburbs to buy everything.

There isn't really anything I need that I can't get somewhere in the city. It is a myth that somehow there are no grocery stores, an extraordinary myth if you think about how large of a city this still is. Yes, the city is extremely depressed, with the retail economy basically collapsed, but are there no grocery stores? no stores? ... there are grocery stores. there are places to shop. there are people. Detroit is still a real city!

I can't believe we ever sunk so low, to the point where places like Royal Oak started filling the role of "Downtown," where even the most Detroit-loving residents will travel 15 miles to go to the burbs for everything they need. They need to just take a closer look, and start to realize that Detroit is where it is at. Michigan's future rests here.

[Hermod]

I can't believe we ever sunk so low, to the point where places like Royal Oak started filling the role of "Downtown," where even the most Detroit-loving residents will travel 15 miles to go to the burbs for everything they need. They need to just take a closer look, and start to realize that Detroit is where it is at. Michigan's future rests here.

Because the citizens of Detroit have driven the "downtown" out of the city. Meijer, Kroger, and Walmart do not find it makes economic sense to operate stores in Detroit. Believe me, if they truly felt there was a "viable" market in Detroit, they would be building stores tomorrow.. RenCen, WSU, and government offices are pretty much all there is to Detroit Everything else is a liability.

[EMG]

Yes, that's right! If you look at any great city in the world, they have a mishmash of freeways all over the damned place! And FREE parking! As far as the eye can see! And no taxes, either! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

EMG--your "outsiders" are already living in places other than Detroit, and SE Michigan's massive freeway system sure as hell ain't bringing 'em in. Why is that? Must be something to the idea that freeways aren't the end-all be-all ever-loving shit of the earth, huh?

No, I'd say there must be something to the idea that there are a lot more things besides freeways that Detroiters need to fix if they honestly want a real chance of attracting more outsiders to their city.

[Bullet]

We have already gotten rid of most of the houses in Detroit. This seem just as logical.

[Patrick]

Today, Tyson's Corner is also one of the biggest traffic clusterfucks on earth.

I was out the yesterday and it does indeed suck. They need some Michigan lefts in the median to get shit in order out there.

[ghettopalmetto]

Because the citizens of Detroit have driven the "downtown" out of the city.

Beginning in the 1940s, of course.

[Hermod]

Beginning in the 1940s, of course.

No, the downtown shopping was still pretty viable in the 1960s. The regional shopping areas anchored by a supermarket and a Cunningham's were also doing well. In the 1940s and 1950s they were still building houses on the east side filling in vacant lots on blocks I assume they were still infilling on the west side during that time frame. I can remember when they built the last house on our block [[Nottingham between Yorkshire and Grayton). We kids had built so many forts in there over the years, it looked like the trenches of the Western Front in 1916.

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[RickBeall]

I think that realistically, its too late to remove the freeways now. It would just leave more urban prairie. It's not like anyone is going to build on the land that was freed up.

But as always, this thread is a cool DetroitYes thought experiment, that makes you think about things you otherwise would not.

[Baselinepunk]

Perhaps we should just let them flood out and rent gondolas. Hell, 94 is already 1/2 way there any ole how.

[professorscott]

Rick's nailed it. Taking out freeways is something that is done when the land under the freeway is too valuable to support that use. [[Same reason there aren't drive-in theaters much anymore.) In Detroit, the land is not valuable enough to support such a massive undertaking. But we can hope

[Detroitnerd]

Paris is the opposite: The rich live in the city, the poor live on the outskirts.

Is Paris an apt comparison to Detroit? I've never been there, but the poor made up most of the city in 1789, when things got pretty dicey ...

In the core downtown, the few blocks of high rises and condos, yeah those folks are rich. But the bulk of Detroit isn't like that. I'm considering the whole city, not the ghettoized few blocks of isolated six-figure folks in 40th floor condos.

And in Detroit, there are poor people and blighted buidings steps from the city center and CBD. Most large American cities I've been to are like that, but Detroit is it's own creature become so few other cities have our unique geography/layout and industrial history.

Well, you gave me a pretty categorical statement: Always has been, always will be. And I'm pointing out it's more complicated than that. [[As with most generalizations.)

Of course, then we get into the game of arguing whether Detroit is an apple or an orange. Been there. Done that.

[DetroitPlanner]

I think many of you have forgot that freeways bring us parts to make our Mustang's, Cadillacs, Dodge Trucks, F-150's, Volts, Focuses, Mazda 6's as well as get them to markets.

Without a way to get these products to market cheaply, there ain't no Detroit.

This is not to say that in many places freeways could be put on a road diet or eliminated. However we have to remember what butters our bread. Even though the loaf is much smaller than it used to be, we still are tied to it.

In order to address the sprawl issues we would need to have stringent land-use standards and controls at the state level. Otherwise local municipalities will continue to steal stores, offices, and manufacturing facilities from each other and developers will still build way more homes than our market should naturally allow for. Access to good roads is not the issue here, its how we use our land that is the difference. Remember folks we will need good roads to run these light rail cars in the future, but light rail won't be successful unless we can address land-use issues.

[iheartthed]

I think many of you have forgot that freeways bring us parts to make our Mustang's, Cadillacs, Dodge Trucks, F-150's, Volts, Focuses, Mazda 6's as well as get them to markets.

Without a way to get these products to market cheaply, there ain't no Detroit.

This is not to say that in many places freeways could be put on a road diet or eliminated. However we have to remember what butters our bread. Even though the loaf is much smaller than it used to be, we still are tied to it.

In order to address the sprawl issues we would need to have stringent land-use standards and controls at the state level. Otherwise local municipalities will continue to steal stores, offices, and manufacturing facilities from each other and developers will still build way more homes than our market should naturally allow for. Access to good roads is not the issue here, its how we use our land that is the difference. Remember folks we will need good roads to run these light rail cars in the future, but light rail won't be successful unless we can address land-use issues.

I don't think anyone is advocating that we scrap the interstate highway system.

[DetroitPlanner]

I don't think anyone is advocating that we scrap the interstate highway system.

The freeways that have the most impact on our land use are the interstates. Look at how I-96, I-75, I-94 have torn through the central cities. Look at how wide these roads are in the suburban areas. You can't say the same about M-10 or M-39, even the widened M-8 is pretty tame compared to I-275 in terms of non-motorized connectivity.