Support Complete Streets in Detroit

[Todd_Scott]

We need people, Detroit residents and others to sign up and show their support for having Complete Streets in Detroit. The signup takes seconds and there's no obligation.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewf...NS0wME1oV1E6MQ

Perhaps you heard the health department talking about this on the Craig Fahle Show yesterday.

There's also more information on m-bike.
http://www.m-bike.org/blog/2010/09/0...ets-in-detroit

[Meddle]

As far as I know streets are paved, have curbs, drainage, overhead lighting, traffic and flow control and are maintained in most cases. How much more 'complete' can they be?

[Detroitnerd]

As far as I know streets are paved, have curbs, drainage, overhead lighting, traffic and flow control and are maintained in most cases. How much more 'complete' can they be?

Streets are more than thoroughfares for cars. They are avenues for all of us. That's why we must demand that our road departments don't hew to the outmoded car-only thinking of the past. They must be brought into compliance with design ideas that include pedestrians, cyclists, etc.

[DetroitPlanner]

Isn't this a little late? The complete streets legislation was passed last year and requires a ton of coordination to plan streets, pathways, and transit facilities.

What is needed is for people to become educated on what a complete street is and what is required in the law.

[Meddle]

And in a time of declining revenue and extreme budget cuts, where do you suggest they get the hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions of dollars to redesign and rebuild so many miles of roads?

[Todd_Scott]

Isn't this a little late? The complete streets legislation was passed last year and requires a ton of coordination to plan streets, pathways, and transit facilities.

What is needed is for people to become educated on what a complete street is and what is required in the law.

The Complete Streets legislation passed this year and primarily affects MDOT and state trunklines. It does not affect city-owned or county-owned streets. That's why we are pursuing a Complete Streets ordinance in Detroit.

[DetroitPlanner]

And in a time of declining revenue and extreme budget cut, where do you suggest they get the hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions of dollars to redesign and rebuild so many miles of roads?

The legislation requests coordination at the time of major decisions are being made on infrastructure projects. For example, MDOT owns Woodward. Previously Detroit had little input on what was done to it. With the legislation in place MDOT will have to work with the local communities in prioritizing what gets done and how it gets done.

http://www.michigancompletestreets.org/

Todd what neighborhood do you live in? What is your most pressing problems with the roadways of Detroit?

[Meddle]

The legislation requests coordination at the time of major decisions are being made on infrastructure projects. For exaple, MDOT owns Woodward. Previously Detroit had little input on what was done to it. With the legislation in place MDOT will have to work with the local communities in prioritizing what gets done and how it gets done.


Talk, talk, talk. All costs money. Accomplishes nothing.

[Detroitnerd]

And in a time of declining revenue and extreme budget cuts, where do you suggest they get the hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions of dollars to redesign and rebuild so many miles of roads?

Is it a cost? Is it an unfunded mandate? Or is it an investment?

If designing complete streets takes vehicles off our roads and replaces them with cyclists and pedestrians, it not only reduces wear but can spur development. Yes, you have to pay some costs, but don't we already rip up our roads every five years as it is? When we do, we can ensure that they are rebuilt to handle less onerous forms of traffic.

[Novine]

"And in a time of declining revenue and extreme budget cuts, where do you suggest they get the hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions of dollars to redesign and rebuild so many miles of roads?"

I'm confused. Previously, you said all of the streets were "complete". Now you say that they have to all be rebuilt? Which is it? Do you understand what a "complete street" actually is about?

[DetroitPlanner]

Talk, talk, talk. All costs money. Accomplishes nothing.

Meddle wants to increase your taxes!

[Meddle]

I'm confused. Previously, you said all of the streets were "complete". Now you say that they have to all be rebuilt? Which is it? Do you understand what a "complete street" actually is about?

They are complete as they are even though they need maintenance. One can drive, cycle or walk on existing roadways. To redesign and rebuild for another purpose would be cost prohibitive.

Raise taxes? No, I strive to end government waste dealing with nonsensical proposals.

[Detroitnerd]

Raise taxes? No, I strive to end government waste dealing with nonsensical proposals.

There are a few nonsensical wars I would draw your attention to ...

[Meddle]

I won't argue with you there.

[Detroitnerd]

I guess this is the sort of world we live in. Everybody cries, "Social Security will go broke!" or "We don't have the billions to rebuild our cities!" But nobody ever says, "The Pentagon will go broke!" or "We don't have the trillions for all these pointless wars!"

Seriously, though, complete streets isn't some billion-dollar program. It's designed to have all users of roadways, not just cars and trucks, considered in construction and maintenance projects. When it's time to rebuild a street, they might add bike lanes, or dedicate space for a bus stop, or lower speed limits, or ramp curb cuts, or narrow car lanes. It's a more thoughtful process than simply seeing how much asphalt you can put down for cars for the amount of money you have. In other words, this is not a huge burden when it comes to materials. It is simply a challenge to our road builders to take everybody into account when they do a rebuild. And, as I said, it will mean less wear on the roads, and quite possibly more foot traffic, which helps local businesses.

[Joseph C. Krause]

I think this idea could be merged with the concept of "Woodward Corridor" being the city.

Do "complete streets" involve road diets? We need lots of that. The biggest horror of being a pedestrian on Detroit streets in my opinion is the overwhelming scale of them. The city blocks already seem large with their missing fabric, but then every major road is five to nine lanes wide. I am a fit 29-year-old and crossing those streets can still be daunting. How should I expect my octogenarian grandmother who is under five feet to want to walk across Jefferson to get to Hart Plaza? The missing fabric and car-based fabric is also a problem. A pedestrian must not only watch for speeding autos in the carriageway, but also dodge careless motorists careening out of garages and skidding out of parking lots.

Some main roads I can't imagine becoming urban again without extremely expensive and drastic changes. Michigan Avenue, for example, was doubled in width by demolishing the entire South side of the street and replacing it with mostly suburban buildings. The only way to reurbanize that that would be effective is putting it back as it was, which isn't worth the effort. In a case like that, I would propose focusing new commercial energies in areas that still have narrower streets. For Corktown, I propose the area around Brooklyn and Porter, which wouldn't require radical change to improve the streets and make it a comfortable place to be on a slightly larger scale than what's already there.

More daunting places to be a pedestrian downtown:
Trumbull, Grand River and MLK
Church and Michigan at Brooklyn
Lafayette, Michigan and Griswold
Randolph, Broadway and Gratiot
Beaubien under The Renaissance Center
The "No Pedestrians" area by the Windsor Tunnel
Anthony Wayne Drive at WSU
Third Street South of Michigan
All arterial streets

[Parkguy]

Here is a link to the now-complete Grand River Ave. project in downtown Farmington. This is a good example of what can be done.

http://www.ci.farmington.mi.us/stree...ct_forward.htm

The Farmington city article in this link is from before the project started, but it is all complete now. The area is very walkable, with sidewalk cafe seating in spots, several pedestrian crosswalks with signs reminding drivers that they are require to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk [[most do stop now). Parking bumpouts slow down the traffic and keep people from driving in the parking lane, plus this provides onstreet parking. It is quite nice. Grand River is a state road there, and DOT had to approve the plans.

There were similar plans for Grand River in Rosedale Park, but since the project was done before the state legislation was in place, the state kept scaling back and scaling back so that Grand River is still a 50-mph speedway in a 35-mph zone, ripping right through the neighborhood with zero crosswalks. Hopefully, the new law will mean they can't ignore non-motorized users any more.

[Hermod]

There are a few nonsensical wars I would draw your attention to ...

Ummmm, how much has the city of Detroit spent on wars? Last time I looked, wars and the defense of the country were federal responsibilities.

[Detroitnerd]

JCK: Those are some good examples. We seem to do everything wrong, especially downtown. We want superhighways so cars don't have to go out of their way, but then force pedestrians to walk an extra half-mile sometimes so that they don't impede traffic.

Anybody ever tried crossing Jefferson at St. Antoine? Even if you're fit, fast and quick, it's dangerous as hell.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=...03176&t=h&z=18

[Hermod]

When I was a kid in the city, you didn't bicycle on the main roads. If I wanted to go to Whittier and Kelly, I would either bicycle up Yorkshire [[parallel to Whittier) or use the Whittier alley behind the stores. I just didn't bicycle on Whittier because there were too many cars. With Detroit's relatively square grid, you can always find a parallel route on side streets.

[Todd_Scott]

Do "complete streets" involve road diets? We need lots of that.

While there is no one uniform design for Complete Streets, road diets are often employed. With Detroit's overbuilt streets, they will probably be used here quite often. Detroit is a national leader in pedestrian deaths largely for the design issues you mention.
http://agentgenius.com/g-rants-insan...estate-agents/

Detroit receives about $60 million a year in road funding. Roads are re-constructed and repaved every year. It would take a small investment to "Complete" many of these road designs.

[Novine]

"They are complete as they are even though they need maintenance. One can drive, cycle or walk on existing roadways. To redesign and rebuild for another purpose would be cost prohibitive."

Again, do you not understand the concept of "complete streets"? Who said anything about redesign or rebuilding anything? Can some of these streets accommodate a dedicated bike lane? If so, it costs next to nothing to stripe a bike lane. A lot of this could be done through the normal process of maintenance of streets or when a street needs to be repaved. You act like someone is saying to tear up all the streets and do ... something since you still haven't explained what exactly it is that you are opposed to doing.

[fryar]

So this is more about being cognizant of the issue, and then making adjustments when warranted [[maybe even just painting a bike lane), rather than tearing up the whole street grid and replacing it with red brick sidewalks? Since that's what it sounds like, it makes a lot of sense. For example, if they happened to be repaving Jefferson in downtown, they probably should do a few small things to do things a little differently. I'm the wrong guy to ask precisely what - it's a little like pornography, I know it when I see it - but maybe a raised bike lane, and slightly elevated crosswalks that simultaneously act to calm car traffic. I don't mean necessarily that, but as a fer-instance.

If this is all about being cognizant of the modern way of designing a road, I'm all for it.

[Johnlodge]

We are also pursuing Complete Streets in Ferndale. Sometimes it can be as simple as adding a bike lane, which in some cases can be done with no widening of the street, depending on current lane sizes. It seems somewhat antagonistic to attack the idea without even having a full understanding of what it's all about.

Even Novi has adopted Complete Streets, which is funny. I rarely see a pedestrian, but they have plenty of sidewalks should a bunch show up one day to walk from one strip mall to the next one.

"These efforts, in concert with the newly initiated master plan for non-motorized transportation, will enable the city to better meet the strong desire of Novi residents to live in a more walkable and bikeable city and to provide a transportation system that takes into consideration the needs of all users."

My advice would be to move, but that's just me.

[Det_ard]

"They are complete as they are even though they need maintenance. One can drive, cycle or walk on existing roadways. To redesign and rebuild for another purpose would be cost prohibitive."

Again, do you not understand the concept of "complete streets"? Who said anything about redesign or rebuilding anything? Can some of these streets accommodate a dedicated bike lane? If so, it costs next to nothing to stripe a bike lane. A lot of this could be done through the normal process of maintenance of streets or when a street needs to be repaved. You act like someone is saying to tear up all the streets and do ... something since you still haven't explained what exactly it is that you are opposed to doing.

I'm all for it if done in a smart way [[like the money begin spent was your own). On the other hand, I've seen a ton of curb cuts being redone recently because, I've heard, they were not constructed in accordance with some ADA guideline on slope. OK, if they're dangerous that's one thing but if the slope is 5% and should be 4%, that's a waste of money to rush out and replace them all.

If the complete streets thing piggybacks on existing roadwork, or grabs the low-hanging fruit like bike lane striping, excellent.