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

[EL Jimbo]

What is my suggestion for the project? It's simple. Don't do it. The original cut through the city was responsible for the destruction of hundreds of buildings, the evacuation of scores of businesses, the relocation of thousands of people with negligible economic impact, other than businesses moving out. Why are we trying to enlarge the problem 50 years later? This is insanity!

"MDOT hasn’t yet identified how it will pay for the entire project, which is estimated at $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion."

This is bullshit. Can we organize to stop this thing? Or are these meetings limited to, as another poster joked, picking out what kinds of shrubs they'll plant?

Public input is part of the MDOT process. Attendance tends to be pretty low though. The one thing I am curious about, is if there is a deficiency along the I-94 corridor, other than doing nothing, what is your solution to resolve it?

[bailey]

If I'm not mistaken, bailey, you're one of the old-school engineers who was complicit in originating the one-size-fits-all Car Culture. The 1950s are done. Get over it. Michigan has followed this tack for decades, and look at the place. What, you think jobs are going to come flowing back to Michigan if people can fly through midtown Detroit on I-94? Get real.

What, pray tell, does Michigan get for its $1.5 billion?




Those lanes seem to have worked fine for decades. Do you see the circular logic you're using here?

Slow the fuck down and you won't have any problems.



You know that the federal government has had to supplement the Highway Trust Fund for the PAST THREE YEARS with General Fund dollars, to the tune of $25 billion.




Certainly you have no bias and no axe to grind.

Certainly you have no understanding of sarcasm.

The only axe I have to grind is with the standard half assed bullshit that passes as normal around here.

[ghettopalmetto]

Certainly you have no understanding of sarcasm.

No, I didn't catch that you were being sarcastic. I'll delete my post above. My apologies.

[1953]

I drive that stretch daily and here's my two cents. The freeway is in need of repair, maintenance, and probably some modernization, to keep it useful. Yes, volumes are down and will stay low for some time, but we must be prepared for the day when the economy picks up a bit, since we don't want to have to rebuild it again. Also, it looks pretty awful, which does impact visitors' perceptions of our community.

Removing bridges seems rather absent minded, since we want to promote inter-connectivity within the city, not sever it. I can't imagine the John R bridge being removed, in particular. Also, road construction must be part of a coordinated mobility strategy for our city and region, not a stand alone solution. I don't see how this plan ties in with other transit planning from the news that's being reported today.

Lastly, I hope MDOT values form enough to make the freeway look nice and to build in solutions to some of the common problems with the freeway. For example, graffiti and litter are common problems on I-94; it would be nice if MDOT developed strategies, in building the freeway, to reduce or eliminate these indicators of blight.

[dtrrman]

So lets see. We spend billions, years of traffic construction delays, closings, bottlenecks so in the end we can have a slightly shorter and slightly wider traffic jam than before. Is that about it?

[Detroitnerd]

Public input is part of the MDOT process. Attendance tends to be pretty low though. The one thing I am curious about, is if there is a deficiency along the I-94 corridor, other than doing nothing, what is your solution to resolve it?

First of all, routing a busy international interstate through a major city shouldn't have happened in the first place. There is no sane reason why people traveling from Chicago to Port Huron or vice-versa have to go through Detroit on a cut carved through in the 1950s and finished at great cost to the city. The traffic to Port Huron should be routed outside the city. The road designated as I-94 should only carry intracity traffic. Anyway, I'll bet half the snarls are due to all the transfer traffic from the Lodge to I-96 to I-75.

Second of all, it has been documented that expanding roads leads to WORSE traffic, not smoother traffic. It's called "induced demand." When you expand I-94 to four lanes and generous service drives, the motorists who used to say, "Oh, HELL, no! I'm not taking I-94!" will say, "Well, let's give I-94 a shot." So it's quite possible that you will have spent almost $2 billion to fight congestion and end up with precisely the opposite effect: increased traffic, further congestion, slower transit times, lost efficiency, etc.

Third, I-94 is really only a problem for about four hours a day: from about 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from about 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The surface streets around those congested areas are often almost empty. If just a quarter of our motorists decided to take surface streets during those times, that might help.

But seriously: If we really want to fight "congestion," we need a serious, integrated transit policy for the region. When we place every burden on vehicles and roads, we're going to see congestion. If we have many transportation CHOICES -- such as foot, bike, light rail, commuter rail -- and build more densely -- obviating the need for much of our travel -- we will be able to reduce congestion more effectively than by expanding a freeway. And $1.8 billion would give us a good start on all that.

And this expansion will cost more than a mere $1.8 billion dollars. It will come at the cost of cutting off New Center from Midtown, destroying Fourth Street, removing bridges that connect Midtown to the near east side, building endless lane-miles of expensive concrete that will pay no taxes at all. And, as pointed out, it probably won't relieve congestion anyway.

[izzyindetroit]

The system needs updating, plain and simple. The drive through this stretch is dangerous and depressing.

The removal of the John R bridge still perplexes me, but the midtown area will become more connected with the addition of the service drive bridges.

[Hermod]

First of all, routing a busy international interstate through a major city shouldn't have happened in the first place. There is no sane reason why people traveling from Chicago to Port Huron or vice-versa have to go through Detroit on a cut carved through in the 1950s and finished at great cost to the city. The traffic to Port Huron should be routed outside the city. The road designated as I-94 should only carry intracity traffic. Anyway, I'll bet half the snarls are due to all the transfer traffic from the Lodge to I-96 to I-75.

1. The Detroit freeway network in the city was planned prior to the Interstate highway act. By incorporating the interstate system into the city expressway system, Detroit got the feds and the state to pay 97.5% of the cost of the freeway system.

2. Most cities oppose having the main interstate bypass the city. They want the route thru the city to be designated I-XX and the bypass to be designated I-2XX or I-4XX.

[professorscott]

The reason MDOT is going to spend a gajillion dollars on this, while throwing scraps to public transportation, is structural. In Michigan, the state DOT is primarily responsible for roads, and everything else is subordinate. In Maryland for instance, by contrast, the state DOT is responsible for roads AND transit, among other things.

We could change, but we won't; there's no political will. That is why we are stuck in a hellish version of the 1950s transportation-wise.

Who is responsible for public transportation in Michigan? The answer is: a bunch of local or regional transit agencies, all fighting each other for their share of a pitifully inadequate pool of money, barely cooperating with each other and without an effective lobby at the state level.

We throw away potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from Uncle Sugar for transit every year because we just do not have our shit together. I was not the least bit surprised that in the recent round of funding for rail projects, we got barely anything. We got what we earned.

[Detroitnerd]

1. The Detroit freeway network in the city was planned prior to the Interstate highway act. By incorporating the interstate system into the city expressway system, Detroit got the feds and the state to pay 97.5% of the cost of the freeway system.

Yes, Hermod. You well know I've perused the 1945 Detroit Master Plan, and that Detroit's city fathers were determined to criss-cross, bisect and trisect the city with freeways. They had already started with the Davison and Lodge, and had several planned for both sides of town. It was an ambitious plan that, in many ways, repeated the worst mistakes of the railroad age. When the federal government offered those subsidies, Detroit's leadership jumped on the money and built as many freeways right through the city as they could with federal money.

Of course, in the intervening 50-odd years, we've learned quite a lot about what freeways can and can't do, and what they do well. But instead of learning from that and altering the way we route freeways, our local leadership seems determined to repeat the errors of the past on a grander scale. You can explain why Albert Cobo wanted freeways running through Detroit, but it's more difficult to explain why, in 2010, we want to enlarge his plan.

2. Most cities oppose having the main interstate bypass the city. They want the route thru the city to be designated I-XX and the bypass to be designated I-2XX or I-4XX.

So what you're saying is that cities often have one route that goes right through it and one that goes around it. That's fine with me. The labeling question, though, is a little more complicated. Do most cities want inter-city motorists to use their "business" route? Do most cities want inter-city motorists to use their cross-town routes, contributing to rush hour traffic loads? No, it's a question of naming the route, which is a little testament to their civic pride. That's not to say they want every goddamn motorist driving right through their congested urban cut built in the 1950s.

It's closer to the truth to say that most cities want long-range traffic to go around them. For instance, I've never seen AAA recommend that I take anything other than I-280 when I'm going to Pennsylvania. This doesn't hurt the civic pride of Toledo at all; I'm sure they'd encourage that.

And, finally, we are talking here about cities that have a route through the city and a route around the city. One thing you don't see anymore is a city that has a freeway routed around it clamoring for a freeway directly through town! If you know of such a city, please let me know more about it. Take a look at this map of Ann Arbor:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour....4319&t=h&z=11

Have you recently heard Ann Arbor demanding that interstate traffic be routed through the center of town? Why are they not offended that the freeway gives them such a wide berth? What about all the missed economic opportunities?

The reason is that Ann Arbor is satisfied with the freeway going around town. It preserves the old vital center of town for dense development, and leaves the car-centered malls and move theaters on the outskirts of the old urban center. The way the interstate AVOIDS Ann Arbor is the perfect way to design an interstate.

But we in Detroit, as if still under marching orders from Albert Cobo, must ignore all the evidence accrued over the last 50 years and insist upon a bigger, wider urban cut right through an area that is seeing some of the most development [[the mid-city area) in the last 50 years. Sigh ...

[milesdriven]

I drive 85,000 miles per year all over the Midwest, and Detroit traffic is nothing. I agree that I94 could use some longer entrance lanes, but other than that I don't think it is necessary. Also, Michigan's roads are not as bad as everyone makes them out to be, I57 in Illinois is way worse than any freeway I've driven on recently in Michigan.

[Rocko]

Funny how it's no big deal to drop $1.5 billion for a little 6 mile freeway project, but yet it's a bunch of arm twisting to get a little $7 million for continued Amtrak funding for two routes which already exist and connect Michigan communities over several hundred miles. Ridiculous!!

It has been documented again and again that freeways divide neighborhoods and sever connections. So how can removing several bridges between Midtown and New Center help? And these aren't little side streets, either. Some of these are important thoroughfares. How are they going to re-route 3rd street traffic if they close that bridge? If anything, they should build additional bridges in some places over the expressway to help reconnect neighborhoods on each side, not demolish more.

As for the freeway looking bad, they repainted all the bridges on the west side on 94 prior to the Superbowl, and in general they still look pretty decent [[graffiti may be present, but no rust or streaks). They just need to do the same thing on the east side, and it'll make a tremendous difference. I'm not sure what the process is for removing litter along urban freeways, but it's true it could be stepped up. But more concrete and asphalt and a wider ditch [[or trough, or whichever word you prefer) won't make it go away. As for the non-continuing service drives, yes, they're somewhat annoying. But at the same time, not having continuous service drives force people to use surface streets....which will still be there even if a new service drive is in place. What they need is better signage about which portions of the service drive are thru and which ones dead end or become side streets. How many signs can $1.5 billion buy? I think selective service drive extensions would be appropriate, but on a case-by-case basis.

If the 4th Street neighborhood were designated a National Register for Historic Places Historic District, it would slow the freeway expansion down. With a designated district, any use of federal dollars impacting the district or its resources would trigger Section 106 review, where impacts to historic resources are researched, and if an adverse effect is found, it can prevent projects from happening...or at least for them to modify the plan to create no adverse affect. But the neighborhood must be designated.

What we don't need is the demolition of occupied residences, neighborhoods, or removal of more property from the active tax rolls. I drove I-94 five days a week for much of 6 years for work and even when traffic was heavy, it wasn't the end of the world. Selective lengthening of entrance ramps, etc. should be sufficient. Nevermind the amount of money MDOT spent just two years ago to completely re-construct all the ramps at the I-94 interchange. Ugh.

[milesdriven]

First of all, routing a busy international interstate through a major city shouldn't have happened in the first place. There is no sane reason why people traveling from Chicago to Port Huron or vice-versa have to go through Detroit on a cut carved through in the 1950s and finished at great cost to the city. The traffic to Port Huron should be routed outside the city. The road designated as I-94 should only carry intracity traffic.

I-69 is one mile shorter than taking I-94 from Port Huron-Chicago.

[Detroitnerd]

I-69 is one mile shorter than taking I-94 from Port Huron-Chicago.

Really? Just one mile shorter? How about that! Thanks, milesdriven!

[Detroitnerd]

The reason MDOT is going to spend a gajillion dollars on this, while throwing scraps to public transportation, is structural. In Michigan, the state DOT is primarily responsible for roads, and everything else is subordinate. In Maryland for instance, by contrast, the state DOT is responsible for roads AND transit, among other things. We could change, but we won't; there's no political will. That is why we are stuck in a hellish version of the 1950s transportation-wise. ...

Excellent critique, professorscott. Instead of an overarching transit plan designed by people who know their stuff, I think we just wind up with concrete, rebar and roadbuilding lobbies whispering into the right ears in Lansing. I'm sure an enlargement of I-94 would be a bonanza for them, even if it drives a division between two parts of town that are starting to work well together [[New Center and Midtown).

[East Detroit]

Funny how it's okay to widen Hall Road [[20 Mile), totally rebuild the Lodge, rebuild the 75/96 corridor, re-do I-94 WEST of the city, repave 696 and add new bridges, build up and out with I-275 and the like... but when I-94 in the city needs action its suddenly bad news. Try driving it. The bridges are literally rusting apart. The traffic is horrendous. The 94/Lodge interchange is ridiculous with the left merging on and off.

If it doesnt need widening it sure does need new bridges, new drainage [[it constantly floods), and a new 94/Lodge interchange without left merging.

[English]

Would writing to MDOT or calling do any good? I'd be happy to voice my concerns about this plan if pointed in the appropriate direction. Or are they so apolitical until they don't care about public sentiment?

[Detroitnerd]

Funny how it's okay to widen Hall Road [[20 Mile), totally rebuild the Lodge, rebuild the 75/96 corridor, re-do I-94 WEST of the city, repave 696 and add new bridges, build up and out with I-275 and the like... but when I-94 in the city needs action its suddenly bad news. Try driving it. The bridges are literally rusting apart. The traffic is horrendous. The 94/Lodge interchange is ridiculous with the left merging on and off.

If it doesnt need widening it sure does need new bridges, new drainage [[it constantly floods), and a new 94/Lodge interchange without left merging.

I think a lot of those projects are probably ill-conceived as well. I drive I-94 pretty often and I don't think it's that bad. It's an old freeway cut, and I appreciate its limitations by avoiding it for four hours a day.

That 94-Lodge interchange is one of the last diagonal interchanges I know of. It may not be easy to merge and exit on the left, but because of the design, it eats up a lot less space than a traditional cloverleaf, which would probably have obliterated more than a dozen blocks instead of only about five. I'd say it's worth it.

As for bridges rusting apart, can you be more specific?

[ghettopalmetto]

Well stated, Rocko.

What MDOT is not telling anyone, of course, are the alleged benefits of this I-94 project. The proposed widening of I-75 through Oakland County, a similar $1 billon+ project, was concluded by the Corradino Group to save motorists a whopping one minute off travel time over the entire length of the segment under consideration for widening.

One whole minute.

Of course, that one minute is in the short term. Those of us who understand roadways at a level higher than plug-and-chug engineering formulas know that induced demand on such a roadway will reduce the long-term time savings to a number approaching zero. One need look only at Maryland's I-270 widening from six lanes to twelve, or Georgia's infamous Freeing the Freeways program of the 1980s to see how this plays out in reality.

Md.'s Lesson: Widen the Roads, Drivers Will Come http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...t/traffic4.htm

Maryland responded with $200 million to widen more than a dozen miles, up to 12 lanes in some stretches.
But now, less than eight years after the project was finished, the highway has again been reduced to what one official called "a rolling parking lot." Traffic on some segments already has exceeded the levels projected for 2010.

Of course, Maryland is now constructing the controversial $3 billion InterCounty Connector, eating up federal transportation funds for years to come, for a project that has been concluded will *not* reduce congestion on the Capital Beltway--it's proponents' primary argument in favor of the ICC. At the same time, planning work on the long-proposed Purple Line Metro has stalled for lack of funding.

Clearing Those Clogged Arteries: ATLANTA
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...968392,00.html

Atlanta responded in 1978 with a $1.4 billion plan for "freeing the freeways." Computer models showed traffic engineers where to expand the system and where to streamline it by eliminating entrances and exits. Today the highway features as many as ten lanes, includes eight rebuilt interchanges and can handle four times as much volume as the old roadway. Although work on the southern portion of the highway is still under way, tie-ups north of downtown are rare.

Bad ride

When will 'leaders' learn that more highways aren't the answer?

[[Doug Monroe wrote 1,000 traffic columns for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/g...tent?oid=62928

A man who may become Georgia's next lieutenant governor thinks we ought to keep widening roads. "As long as Georgians have a love affair with their vehicles, we've got to widen the roads," Republican Casey Cagle said at a recent candidate forum.

Freeing the Freeways took 17 years and cost $1.5 billion. It doubled metro Atlanta's interstate lane miles from 900 to 1,851.
When it was finished, that original four lanes of the Atlanta freeway system between Tech and the Varsity had grown to 15 lanes in some stretches. And traffic still doesn't move on it. Last Friday afternoon, the flow on the eight southbound lanes of the Downtown Connector [[I-75/I-85) was stopped dead.

...Our transportation future was hijacked 30 years ago by the Freeing the Freeways project. We built massively wider highways at a time when gasoline was cheap. No one had any incentive to ride the then-novel MARTA system. It languished while the bulldozers roared. It has never recovered.

With highways spreading out in all directions, developers have been building subdivisions from the Appalachian foothills to the horse country of Middle Georgia to the outskirts of Athens. Atlanta has grown faster geographically than any community in the history of the world, thanks to the highway system.

MARTA was forever stunted from the ever-widening highway system -- not only by the competition, subsidized with tax dollars -- but also by the suburban racism that kept MARTA confined to Fulton and DeKalb counties.

The one telling comment that the pro-road crowd always makes is the "love affair" with cars. Emotion has no place in what are essentially engineering decisions. Use of this phraseology is indicative of an academically bankrupt argument in favor of highway expansion.

[Rocko]

If you'd like to give feedback, here's one option:

The Michigan Department of Transportation is seeking public input on the aesthetics of the final design for a $1.8 billion rehabilitation project along a 6.7-mile stretch of I-94 in Detroit planned over the next decade.

MDOT project engineers and staff have scheduled a public work session from 5:30 to 8 p.m. April 21 at the Wayne County Community College District’s Cooper Conference room. They will be answering questions and taking suggestions from the public on the project.

Anyone planning to attend the meeting is asked to RSVP by calling [[313) 832-2210, Ext. 13.

The project — it includes widening the highway from three lanes to four, bridge replacement, new service drives and reconstruction of the I-94/I-75 and I-94/M-10 interchanges — is the corridor between I-96 to Conner Avenue.

[Hermod]

MARTA was forever stunted from the ever-widening highway system -- not only by the competition, subsidized with tax dollars -- but also by the suburban racism that kept MARTA confined to Fulton and DeKalb counties.

MARTA is known in the Atlanta burbs as Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta

[canuck]

If this goes through, I'm moving out of Detroit and I dont even live there!

[East Detroit]

I don't think it's that bad. It's an old freeway cut, and I appreciate its limitations by avoiding it for four hours a day.

That 94-Lodge interchange is one of the last diagonal interchanges I know of. It may not be easy to merge and exit on the left, but because of the design, it eats up a lot less space than a traditional cloverleaf, which would probably have obliterated more than a dozen blocks instead of only about five. I'd say it's worth it.

As for bridges rusting apart, can you be more specific?

I don't think it's good when you have to avoid it.

The left merge slows down traffic for miles on either side, especially when combined on westbound with the I-75 interchange.

As for being specific on bridges... don't need to really be that specific. Just about every bridge over 94 from 75 to Harper Woods is rusting, has orange spray paint around the pieces of concrete ready to fall, has supports with concrete added to keep them afloat, and paint on the steel beams only where they meet the supports... as if they either decided to do that to keep them alive for a couple more years, or started to paint the whole spans and figured out they have to be totally rebuilt. I am guessing it's the latter.

I can think of no other stretch of highway in Metro Detroit where the bridges look so bad that you feel uneasy stopping under them during the 0-5 mph rush hour.

[Detroitnerd]

I don't think it's good when you have to avoid it.

I don't understand why we think that expressways should always guarantee travel at 70 mph no matter what time of day. Rush Hour is called Rush Hour for a reason. Anyway, as stated, the $1.8 billion expansion would likely result in the same jams anyway, so that's not a good fix. The fix would be [[oh, yeah, I do get tired of saying this) building a working regional plan for transit that included inducements for density and took cars off the roads by building an effective network of buses, light rail and commuter rail. If you want to battle rush hour traffic jams, this will more likely work.

The left merge slows down traffic for miles on either side, especially when combined on westbound with the I-75 interchange.

Do you mean the Lodge interchange? I'm not sure I've seen a left merge at the I-94/I-75 interchange.

As for being specific on bridges... don't need to really be that specific. Just about every bridge over 94 from 75 to Harper Woods is rusting, has orange spray paint around the pieces of concrete ready to fall, has supports with concrete added to keep them afloat, and paint on the steel beams only where they meet the supports... as if they either decided to do that to keep them alive for a couple more years, or started to paint the whole spans and figured out they have to be totally rebuilt. I am guessing it's the latter.

What? Didn't they rebuild most of those this last year? I live near the Mt. Elliot bridge and they seemed to give it a fix underneath [[although they left the top of the bridge in awful shape: ripped-up sidewalks and one of the city's largest potholes.) Traveling on that stretch of freeway just two years ago, I saw multiple rebuilt bridges with the new fencing on them. How can our views of the same stretch of freeway be so different?

I can think of no other stretch of highway in Metro Detroit where the bridges look so bad that you feel uneasy stopping under them during the 0-5 mph rush hour.

May be true. But I don't think that's a suitable justification for spending $1.8 billion. Besides, the plan would result in numerous bridges being removed entirely, not repaired.

Anyway, East Detroit, the important thing is not to have people rushing through Detroit at 90 mph. [[The posted speeds, of course, are much lower, though nobody ever seems to get a ticket for blowing it by 10 or 20 or 30 mph.) What if the cost of you getting somewhere a little bit more quickly were evicting a few thousand people from their homes? What if the cost of saving you a bit of time, frustration and mental fatigue were removing a few hundred buildings from Detroit's tax rolls? What if the cost of waiting a few minutes on the freeway for four hours a day were taking two viable neighborhoods that are seeing increasing investment and cutting them off from each other by taking away bridges? And what if, despite all these losses to "somebody else," the expressway speed didn't improve? [[Which it likely won't.) At some point, you must admit that there are more things at play here than your commuting time, yes?

[ghettopalmetto]

Do you think that, perhaps, if MDOT stopped embarking on multi-billion dollar freeway expansion projects, they might have money for things like paint and concrete patching?