It's Back! I-94 rebuild in Detroit returns

[expatriate]

I mean, more than it's importance to Detroit, people are forgetting that a lot of freeway eliminations are eliminating freeway spurs. I-94 is a true interstate highway with its most important section connecting Detroit/Port Huron/Canada with Chicago and beyond. This isn't some freeway spur you can just get rid of. And, BTW, Detroit is getting rid of I-375.

I am not a fan of new freeway construction, but it's crazy to me the gaping ignorance behind the opposition to a project like this, as if people don't remember this isn't just about commuters, but that routes like I-94 routes carrying necessary truck traffic. We're not talking about the Lodge or the Davison, which are largely commuter corridors. Like, people have to start making the simple distinctions. There are some freeways we don't really need. A true interstate freeway

In Detroit more than most this is the case; their aren't just commuter corridors for suburbanites, they are economic corridors for goods and services that can't be effectively shipped by plane or train. Like, act like you've been here before, folks.

That would be great if the "economic corridor" was used mostly for that purpose, but as we know more road construction merely generates more traffic since it allows more sprawl.

[expatriate]

The San Francisco Bay Area sprawls at least as much or more so than Detroit Metro, but people take transit to the city for the most part. When all of these new and rehabbed buildings downtown come online and people still commute in SOVs it would seem a recipe for incredible congestion.

[JBMcB]

When all of these new and rehabbed buildings downtown come online and people still commute in SOVs it would seem a recipe for incredible congestion.

Perhaps, but there is still a LOT of empty residential space available near downtown, and a lot more available for high density housing. Right now the only thing holding people back from moving into Detroit en masse, and staying there, is the abysmal school system. I'd put all my energy into fixing that before I'd even consider getting a mass transit system up and running.

[poobert]

Right now the only thing holding people back from moving into Detroit en masse, and staying there, is the abysmal school system.

Okay. Let's take a step back here. I can tell you that after living in Detroit for many years [[until 2015), the only thing holding people/me back was not the school system.

The disorder, blight and crime was much more detrimental for me. You can send your kid to a private school [[as people do in NYC - and every big city for the most part) but wearing kevlar every day gets uncomfortable.

Yes, the schools are horrible and need improvement but let's be realistic.

[dtowncitylover]

Right now the only thing holding people back from moving into Detroit en masse, and staying there, is the abysmal school system. I'd put all my energy into fixing that before I'd even consider getting a mass transit system up and running.

Except in order for people to move here and to create dense housing we need strong transit that delivers transit-oriented development. We'd be stupid [[though look at the metro area) to think we can build dense housing without transit.

You know what doesn't produce high-density housing and true population growth? Freeways.

[Meddle]

Ya'know, this transit-transit-transit mantra is getting more than a bit annoying. I spent 30 some years there and only very rarely ever rode a bus. I can't even really remember why I did, except maybe it was before I got a car. I used the Lodge and Jeffries almost daily for many of those years from the NW side to downtown while I worked down there. I also used the Southfield, Ford and Davison regularly. Chrysler a bit less often. My other major routes were Grand River and Eight Mile depending on where I was going. ALL of my freeway mileage was while I lived in the city. Those freeways were built for city people commuting within the city and that was the primary use for years. Did/do suburban dwellers use them? Of course. Was that sue the demise of the city? Not even close. Are they hampering recovery? Of course not. What['s hampering recovery is the total disregard for the neighborhoods at the expense of downtown.

Work on the neighborhoods. Demolish the junk two and three story caverns that were so popular in some areas and build new single family homes that people want to live in and can afford to heat and cool.

As I mentioned before, restructure some of those areas, so a single lot is the width of two or three of the old lots. Give people some yards to be able to get outside and play.

[dtowncitylover]

Ya'know, this transit-transit-transit mantra is getting more than a bit annoying. I spent 30 some years there and only very rarely ever rode a bus. I can't even really remember why I did, except maybe it was before I got a car. I used the Lodge and Jeffries almost daily for many of those years from the NW side to downtown while I worked down there. I also used the Southfield, Ford and Davison regularly. Chrysler a bit less often. My other major routes were Grand River and Eight Mile depending on where I was going. ALL of my freeway mileage was while I lived in the city. Those freeways were built for city people commuting within the city and that was the primary use for years. Did/do suburban dwellers use them? Of course. Was that sue the demise of the city? Not even close. Are they hampering recovery? Of course not. What['s hampering recovery is the total disregard for the neighborhoods at the expense of downtown.

Work on the neighborhoods. Demolish the junk two and three story caverns that were so popular in some areas and build new single family homes that people want to live in and can afford to heat and cool.

As I mentioned before, restructure some of those areas, so a single lot is the width of two or three of the old lots. Give people some yards to be able to get outside and play.

You know what's also annoying? Your post.

I'm fucking sick and tired of people acting like Detroit is somehow special enough NOT to have transit. That cars are still the fucking future. We KNOW freeways destroyed the inner city. There is no doubt. So why are we still propagating the myth that freeways are somehow not partly responsible for our demise. How is not clear enough that freeways inhibit true urban growth? Tell me how the Jeffries contributed to Detroit's growth. I'll wait.

Wow, you used the freeways. Good for you. That means little. How the fuck can you say the Edsel Ford, Jeffries, and Chrysler were used by city folk when they were built for the interstate system? The Lodge would go north to connect with 96/696. Who cares who used them?

SINGLE FAMILY HOUSING IS AWFUL. Detroit had sprawl before sprawl. We are a HUGE city and we failed because the city grew too quickly in short a time. And instead of investing in mass/rapid transit at the same time that would've produce density, we built freeways that produce sprawl. So that when the 1950s boom happened our geography ruined us and the flat farm lands of Troy, Livonia, and Warren quickly became suburban sprawl.

They're hampering recovery because they do not weave neighborhoods together. They tear them apart and destroy them. You want to link Lafayette Park with downtown? DESTROY 375. Having the ability walking over a freeway, either by a bridge or those stupid pedestrian bridges, is not good enough. If it were, Detroit should be in fine shape. It is not.

Cars and auto-centricity do not produce urbanity. They do not produce busy sidewalks. They are not meant for true urban cities. They are the cause of congestion. The cause of urban destruction. Cities are built for people. Not cars. Fuck cars.

[Meddle]

I'm <bleeped> sick and tired of people acting like Detroit is somehow special enough NOT to have transit.

It was tried. It failed. Some of the streetcar tracks may still be buried under layers of pavement on Woodward, Grand River, Gratiot and Michigan among others. Bus routes were common in the 40s, 50s and 60s. To a lesser extent in the 70s and 80s. Nobody used them, so they were taken out or discontinued. People want the autonomy of cars and single family homes. They don't want the congestion of downtown type locations. They don't want the urbanity insanity.

And again, no reason to quote a long and mostly useless rambling post to respond to a portion of it.

[dtowncitylover]

It was tried. It failed. Some of the streetcar tracks may still be buried under layers of pavement on Woodward, Grand River, Gratiot and Michigan among others. Bus routes were common in the 40s, 50s and 60s. To a lesser extent in the 70s and 80s. Nobody used them, so they were taken out or discontinued. People want the autonomy of cars and single family homes. They don't want the congestion of downtown type locations. They don't want the urbanity insanity.

And again, no reason to quote a long and mostly useless rambling post to respond to a portion of it.

This isn't what happened at all. Detroiters did NOT want the streetcars to go away. Go look at the Free Press in the late 40s and into the 50s. That was the decision of city hall. They incorrectly thought buses and cars would be the future and Detroit would be the next New York City. None of that happened. A bunch of white men telling the populace what they think they needed. Destroying black neighborhoods in the name of "progress". It was shortsighted and wrong. Unfortunately, hindsight is always 20/20.

Nothing was tried. We never built a rapid transit system. Therefore it never failed. The only thing that failed was the belief that cars would save us. They didn't. We are beholden to an industry that fluctuates. We are bunch of sadists and masochists.

BUS ROUTES ARE STILL COMMON. What the fuck are you even taking about? Except DDOT is rebuilding after decades of neglect and city corruption.

There is no freedom in cars. Only slavery. The slavery of a car note. The slavery of insurance. The slavery of congestion. The slavery of maintenance. The slavery of auto collisions.

[Meddle]

There is no freedom in cars. Only slavery. The slavery of a car note. The slavery of insurance. The slavery of congestion. The slavery of maintenance. The slavery of auto collisions.

You know you just totally and completely destroyed any credibility you might have had, right?

[dtowncitylover]

You know you just totally and completely destroyed any credibility you might have had, right?

Coming from a guy that thinks bus routes don't exist here.

EDIT: "Aren't common" here. Whatever the heck that means.

And, no. I haven't.

[JBMcB]

There is no freedom in cars. Only slavery. The slavery of a car note. The slavery of insurance. The slavery of congestion. The slavery of maintenance. The slavery of auto collisions.

Some people like to live in cities and walk or ride mass transit. Some people like to live in the suburbs, or the country, and drive. Not everyone likes the same things.

When you start equating the ownership of some gadget to slavery, I think you need to start re-evaluating your perspective.

[Junkin4Life]

This freeway should be put in a tunnel between 10 and 75.

I agree with you. the upper level can be a blvd or something

[Atticus]

I have friends that live in NYC, Boston, DC, and several other major metros with good transit systems. And when I have asked “What are you doing this weekend?”, never once from any of those friends have I heard “well, I love transit so much I am going to ride transit around all weekend and just soak in the glory of being a transit rider”.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t ride transit of course... but they rode it because they couldn’t walk from their residence to where they are going. Transit is a means to an end, and not an end itself. Detroit doesn’t have enough walkable neighborhoods yet. Downtown, Midtown, and New Center are walkable. Corktown and pockets of Mexicantown are getting there... but that is it. Every other neighborhood is pretty much designed for a car.

So yes, if the neighborhood is single family housing, with a yard, it is not really walkable. Because it means getting in a car or bus to drive somewhere to get on transit. And if you have to get in a car anyway, the traffic situation is not horrible enough to justify not just driving downtown.

And yes, functionally the bus is not really transit. It uses the same lanes as cars. It gets caught in the same traffic as cars. And the majority of bus riders are people who cannot afford cars. People don’t want to ride busses, even most transit lovers. They really only ride busses if they have no other choice financially.

[Zacha341]

I don't do car notes [[I buy/ own used cars) and purchase small brand insurance so I manage. I enjoy and prefer driving so I afford it on my budget by leveraging costs. Maintenance is minimal if you purchase a good runner. You can have a wreck on a bus.

Everyone's experience varies. Per their options even if driving. Different strokes for different folks, thankfully.

There is no freedom in cars. Only slavery. The slavery of a car note. The slavery of insurance. The slavery of congestion. The slavery of maintenance. The slavery of auto collisions.

[Dexlin]

with the announcement of the relocation of United Sound Studios-- just how much of I-94 will be widened? The music studio is a commercial property-- what is being proposed regarding the residential communities that currently exist in the I-94 immediate vicinity? Have they been given any "warning" that this widening project is happening? Regardless of the 2030+ timeline, this is serious...

Again, the freeway is being widening within its footprint. There will be some slight realignments and a widening/replacement of a few ramps and bridges. I suspect this is why United Sound is being moved. Warning? They've been having public meetings and notifications since 2015. The project already started with the advance bridge replacements to make internal room for new lanes/reconfiguration.

Just because you didn't hear anything doesn't mean everyone else is surprised.

[ABetterDetroit]

A bunch of white men telling the populace what they think they needed. Destroying black neighborhoods in the name of "progress". It was shortsighted and wrong.

It was, and to me you are no different. Exactly the same.

You want 20 billion to get your ass to the airport on a brand new commuter train. Ann Arbor and Birmingham of all fucking places. These are some ass expensive locales you keep pounding the table that you need commuter rail to get to. Trust, the people in Birmingham, Royal Oak and Ann Arbor can afford several different options today, right now, to get themselves to Detroit or the fucking airport.

What about the other 130 odd square miles in the City of Detroit and the half million people that live there? Private schools are not the answer. A Billion dollar commuter train that’s 5 miles away in downtown that can whisk them to the airport is not their most crushing need. Yours maybe but not theirs.

1/3 have lost their homes to foreclosure in the last twenty years and jobs have evaporated and your plan is to fuck them over even worse by raising the tax on rent and jobs even higher than the ridiculous rates they are already paying. Drive more capital investment and blue collar jobs out onto the farm fields on the outer ring where industrial parks and new everything sprouts like weeds continuously because the property taxes are 30% what they are in Detroit without the miles of fucking red tape where only billionaires can afford to get them abated for new construction.

It’s unbelievable that anyone could be so obtuse and incapable to look around at Detroit’s neighborhoods and not be able to see much greater pressing problems that have to be addressed immediately more than a 20 billion dollar train system. Downright selfish as hell to make that a top priority in my eyes.

Now that there are well off “white men” living downtown and in Midtown those selfish bastards and the expats who like to visit need a way to get to the airport and those nice fun bars in RO that doesn’t involve anything with rubber wheels. It would be nice. But its a far cry from what is desperately needed.

[Bham1982]

The San Francisco Bay Area sprawls at least as much or more so than Detroit Metro, but people take transit to the city for the most part. When all of these new and rehabbed buildings downtown come online and people still commute in SOVs it would seem a recipe for incredible congestion.

Yes, transit share in the Bay Area is much higher than in Metro Detroit [[not surprising given much worse congestion), but the vast majority of Bay Area trips are by private auto, even in SF proper.

Auto ownership rates in SF proper are actually higher than in Detroit, BTW [[though differences in relative wealth plays a role - many car-free Detroit households are not car-free by choice).

[dtowncitylover]

Some people like to live in cities and walk or ride mass transit. Some people like to live in the suburbs, or the country, and drive. Not everyone likes the same things.

When you start equating the ownership of some gadget to slavery, I think you need to start re-evaluating your perspective.

As someone who is a slave to the automakers for unfortunately being born and raised and stuck in this mess known as Metro Detroit, I stand by the words I use because they are how I feel. I really don't care what any of you think of that.

I am not saying that people shouldn't own cars or do not have a right to cars. Yes, if you choose to live in Shelby Township you are going to need a car. I accept that. I have no problem with that.

However, the city cannot afford to continue to bend over backwards for every Dick and Jane from Shelby Township who can't find a parking spot in downtown. They shouldn't have to put up with developers who seek to destroy buildings to make way for more parking lots and structures. The only way to destroy car culture is to make it harder for motorists and to invest heavily in mass transit. [[Moratorium on parking lots and structures please!)

ABetterDetroit, poverty and mobility go hand in hand. I'm not saying we need to only build mass transit for suburbanites. I was probably coming off that way because we are talking about freeways which have to do with urban sprawl. Yes, the neighborhoods are in dire shape but maybe if Detroiters had a better transit system to get them to commercial, education, and health centers, there would be better development and social mobility. But no, DDOT is trying its best but isn't perfect by any means and Dick and Jane in Shelby Township are too stubborn to understand the complexities of a metropolitan economy and why RTAs matter.

Atticus, I'm not saying either how much fun it is to have a mass transit system. I'm saying HOW NECESSARY IT IS FOR A TRUE METRO REGION TO HAVE ONE. But apparently, I'm being laughed at for even suggesting our priorities in SE Michigan are fucked up. Because they are. And yes buses are transit. They may not be the most reliable or inexpensive, but they are transit.

[expatriate]

It was tried. It failed. Some of the streetcar tracks may still be buried under layers of pavement on Woodward, Grand River, Gratiot and Michigan among others. Bus routes were common in the 40s, 50s and 60s. To a lesser extent in the 70s and 80s. Nobody used them, so they were taken out or discontinued.

Failed due to the concerted efforts of powerful automobile related interests, of which GM was the instigator. I'm sure this history has been linked before, but it is worth reposting for folks who have not seen it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4&t=629s

[masterblaster]

People want the autonomy of cars and single family homes. They don't want the congestion of downtown type locations. They don't want the urbanity insanity.

This doesn't explain the explosion of young professionals [[and even empty-nesters) that have moved back to "downtown type" areas in the past 20 years.

Not all young professionals are moving to downtown type areas, maybe not even most, but so many of them are moving to these places, that developers are building high-density housing in all big cities all over the country.

Different strokes for different folks.

It's just in Detroit, we only cater to those who desire to live the completely auto-centric lifestyle. We need to try to attract all professionals, those who want to live like you, and those who want to live like dtowncitylover. We need all of these kinds of people if the city is to come back.

There are limited number of people who are going to want to live in a cold, flat, Midwest city. We need to attract as many of those people as possible.

Streetcars were taken out, not because there weren't being used. They are taken out because city administrators and other powerful people in the area thought that streetcars were outdated and that buses and cars were the future.

2. Bus is a very common method for thousands upon thousands of Detroiters to get around this to this day. Especially with the prohibitive cost of auto insurance.

3. Freeways may have made it quicker from point A to point B, but they also had significant negative drawbacks. They split neighborhoods in half [[Corktown, Mexicantown, Boston-Edison).

-How they aligned the freeways also hurt the walkability of neighborhoods. They often routed freeways immediately parallel to major thoroughfares, like Grand River, Michigan Avenue, Harper, cutting off pedestrian access to those commercial streets from the neighborhood streets that once intersected them, so that people would have to walk 5 blocks out of the way to get Grand River. See below link of Grand River/I-96:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3632...7i16384!8i8192

[stasu1213]

I-94 as other freeways and expressways throughout Michigan need lanes that reflect off vehicule's headlights. These lanes especially on the newly constructed I94 and I75 are rarely visible off the light concrete at night especially during rain. Maybe that is why there had been so many accidents on I94 where the new part had been completed. Spend the extra money to paint refected lanes on the expressway and freeways throughout Michigan and that will cut down on many of the hardship and accidents that occur on the freeways

[Wheels]

I-94 as other freeways and expressways throughout Michigan need lanes that reflect off vehicule's headlights. These lanes especially on the newly constructed I94 and I75 are rarely visible off the light concrete at night especially during rain. Maybe that is why there had been so many accidents on I94 where the new part had been completed. Spend the extra money to paint refected lanes on the expressway and freeways throughout Michigan and that will cut down on many of the hardship and accidents that occur on the freeways

If you need lines on the pavement to stay in your lane, you don’t belong on the road!

[Dexlin]

If you need lines on the pavement to stay in your lane, you don’t belong on the road!

Is this some kind of joke?