What if all the freeways within the city limits were turned into boulevards?

[EL Jimbo]

Another point about the whole 24 minute a day thing. That would be under the assumption that there would be no freeway the entire length between Detroit and Pontiac or Detroit and Mount Clemens. I was suggestion no freeway east of 275 and south of 696. So once you hit 696, those new surface arterials would transition back into 75 and 94. Under that circumstance, the added time to the commute would be roughly 8 minutes each way or 16 minutes per day.

Is that REALLY going to break the back of someone who's driving all the way downtown from Pontiac or Mount Clemens every day?

[Detroitnerd]

I think that if you remove the expressways and turn Detroit back into a city and not a drive-through, people will live closer together. Oh, I don't know that we'll see a construction boom of new single-family homes on the east side right away, but some might move in to take advantage of ditching the car for the work week, some might live nearer work and cycle instead. There are some possibilities here.

I think the first step is admitting that we have largely destroyed the city in our selfish mission to be able to drive as fast as we want and park anywhere we like.

[EL Jimbo]

I think that if you remove the expressways and turn Detroit back into a city and not a drive-through, people will live closer together. Oh, I don't know that we'll see a construction boom of new single-family homes on the east side right away, but some might move in to take advantage of ditching the car for the work week, some might live nearer work and cycle instead. There are some possibilities here.

I think the first step is admitting that we have largely destroyed the city in our selfish mission to be able to drive as fast as we want and park anywhere we like.

One would think the development would be of greater density along these corridors than single-family homes and/or strip malls.

[Detroitnerd]

And people adapt. You know, I didn't know how I was going to do all my shopping and get around when I moved to New York. But once you do it and you find you don't really need a car [[and lose 15 pounds while you're at it) it's a pretty liberating experience.

[Bham1982]

While I'm not sure if the urban portions of the interstate network were good postwar decisionmaking, I'm absolutely certain that removing Detroit freeways would kill downtown and midtown.

Downtown and Midtown are dependent on suburban discretionary dollars. Once you remove the freeways, a huge proportion of customers will disappear.

For example, I can get from Birmingham to downtown in 25 minutes, thanks to I-75. Remove I-75, and I would have to deal with the minimum 50 minutes of stop-and-go, dodge-the-bus on Woodward [[and probably much worse once freeways were removed).

So a 50 minute Friday night round trip turns into 2 hours of pain. Not gonna happen, and the city loses out on the $400 or so we usually spend [[my wife and I usually go with a few other couples).

And I'm lucky to live in a relatively close-in suburb. The folks in Holly or Brighton would pretty much never bother going downtown. Add in the escalating gas prices, and Detroit would be noncompetitive with suburban diversions.

[iheartthed]

While I'm not sure if the urban portions of the interstate network were good postwar decisionmaking, I'm absolutely certain that removing Detroit freeways would kill downtown and midtown.

Downtown and Midtown are dependent on suburban discretionary dollars. Once you remove the freeways, a huge proportion of customers will disappear.

For example, I can get from Birmingham to downtown in 25 minutes, thanks to I-75. Remove I-75, and I would have to deal with the minimum 50 minutes of stop-and-go, dodge-the-bus on Woodward [[and probably much worse once freeways were removed).

So a 50 minute Friday night round trip turns into 2 hours of pain. Not gonna happen, and the city loses out on the $400 or so we usually spend [[my wife and I usually go with a few other couples).

And I'm lucky to live in a relatively close-in suburb. The folks in Holly or Brighton would pretty much never bother going downtown. Add in the escalating gas prices, and Detroit would be noncompetitive with suburban diversions.

I think downtown Detroit would find a way to survive without you and the 10 people who come downtown on a regular basis from Brighton or Holly.

[EL Jimbo]

While I'm not sure if the urban portions of the interstate network were good postwar decisionmaking, I'm absolutely certain that removing Detroit freeways would kill downtown and midtown.

Downtown and Midtown are dependent on suburban discretionary dollars. Once you remove the freeways, a huge proportion of customers will disappear.

For example, I can get from Birmingham to downtown in 25 minutes, thanks to I-75. Remove I-75, and I would have to deal with the minimum 50 minutes of stop-and-go, dodge-the-bus on Woodward [[and probably much worse once freeways were removed).

So a 50 minute Friday night round trip turns into 2 hours of pain. Not gonna happen, and the city loses out on the $400 or so we usually spend [[my wife and I usually go with a few other couples).

And I'm lucky to live in a relatively close-in suburb. The folks in Holly or Brighton would pretty much never bother going downtown. Add in the escalating gas prices, and Detroit would be noncompetitive with suburban diversions.

Why would you assume that Woodward is all stop-and-go? My suggestion doesn't mean getting rid of the freeways as corridors completely. Just turning them into boulevards or other form of major surface streets. What was I-75 would still carry a lot of traffic as too. Woodward would not be some gridlocked mess. All that would happen is that instead of having 140,000 vehicles a day on I-75 and 20,000 vehicles a day on Woodward you would have 80,000 vehicles a day on each.

To give you an example of what 80,000 vehicles on a surface road looks like, Telegraph Road through Bloomfield township carries about 73,000 vehicles per day.

Once again, is it REALLY that bad?

[Bham1982]

I think downtown Detroit would find a way to survive without you and the 10 people who come downtown on a regular basis from Brighton or Holly.

Suit yourself, I guess; but I'm willing to wager that the vast, vast majority of discretionary dollars spent downtown are by non-Detroiters.

But if you think the restaurants, DIA, symphony, Auto Show, etc. are all supported by folks on Dexter-Davison, and the suburbanites are basically a metaphorical "cherry on top", then we'll have to strongly disagree.

I'm seeing the Magic Flute this weekend [[group of 8), and then dinner afterwards. I'm not asking for congratulations or anything, but I don't doubt that Michigan Opera Theatre couldn't exist without suburban dollars.

[Scottathew]

Bad idea.

Better idea: Complete I-275.

I-275 should continue north and reconnect with I-75. That would allow all through traffic to bypass the city but still provide legitimate freeway access to locals.

[EL Jimbo]

Bad idea.

Better idea: Complete I-275.

I-275 should continue north and reconnect with I-75. That would allow all through traffic to bypass the city but still provide legitimate freeway access to locals.

TERRIBLE idea.

1. We can't maintain the roads we already have and you want to build a LOT more.

2. Have you ever look at a map of the area that would go through? Some VERY expensive lakefront property there that would have to get bought up. The real estate costs alone to do that project would be staggering.

[Bham1982]

A potential I-275 extension would go through wealthy lakefront areas.

Rich folks would never, never allow this, for the same reason Long Lake and Big Beaver go from highways to narrow, slow streets as you travel from Troy into Bloomfield.

[Russix]

The only sucessful freeway removal projects I can find have been last-mile sections that cut into the heart of a downtown. To advocate the wholesale removal of all freeways is a ridiculous fantasy.

[ghettopalmetto]

Suit yourself, I guess; but I'm willing to wager that the vast, vast majority of discretionary dollars spent downtown are by non-Detroiters.

But if you think the restaurants, DIA, symphony, Auto Show, etc. are all supported by folks on Dexter-Davison, and the suburbanites are basically a metaphorical "cherry on top", then we'll have to strongly disagree.

I'm seeing the Magic Flute this weekend [[group of 8), and then dinner afterwards. I'm not asking for congratulations or anything, but I don't doubt that Michigan Opera Theatre couldn't exist without suburban dollars.

Translation: "Tree-lined boulevards? Fuck no! Give me the expensive, barren, concrete-and-asphalt automotive sewer that I've grown to love!"

Is there anything else the City of Detroit can do for you, Mr. Bham1982? Perhaps some free valet parking at the front door of every establishment you visit? Breath mints? A shoe shine and a newspaper while you wait?

You act like the City is supposed to go out of its way to cater to you. In case you haven't noticed, the City has enough problems funding services for its 715,000-or-so residents. What makes you so damned special--because on occasion you eat dinner and see a show??? That's what--a whole 3 hours you spend in Detroit on a semi-regular basis? What about the people who LIVE and do business in Detroit, huh? Are you more important than them?

It certainly wouldn't hurt to reclaim some of the otherwise-useable land that's been invested in an expensive and outmoded form of urban transportation. Think George Washington Parkway in Northern Virginia instead of I-75, or the ten-lane wasteland of I-96.

And if the region could finally get out of the 1950s and build a halfway respectable transit network, you might not have to drive at all to get downtown.

[Bham1982]

Is there anything else the City of Detroit can do for you, Mr. Bham1982? Perhaps some free valet parking at the front door of every establishment you visit? Breath mints? A shoe shine and a newspaper while you wait?

The city obviously has no obligation to me, and I correspondingly have no obligation to the city.

If you feel the city doesn't need suburban dollars to survive, then we'll have to disagree. I'm really not buying this claim of city residents contributing the bulk of dollars spent downtown.

And I think it would be extremely foolish to make it significantly more time consuming and difficult for suburbanites to come downtown.

[ghettopalmetto]

The city obviously has no obligation to me, and I correspondingly have no obligation to the city.

If you feel the city doesn't need suburban dollars to survive, then we'll have to disagree. I'm really not buying this claim of city residents contributing the bulk of dollars spent downtown.

And I think it would be extremely foolish to make it significantly more time consuming and difficult for suburbanites to come downtown.

Maybe at some point, you'll recognize that the City of Detroit is more than your personal drag strip.

The cock sucking for the almighty suburban dollar is what has made downtown Detroit what it is--a smattering of "entertainment destinations" surrounded by seas of parking lots. It might reason that the people who actually spend the bulk of their time in the City would rather see resources spent to improve Detroit as a place to live and work, vis-a-vis bending over backwards to accommodate your car on the off-chance you decide to grace downtown with your presence for dinner.

You want to spend time downtown without having to drive too long? No one told you to live in Birmingham. I'm jus sayin.

[EL Jimbo]

The city obviously has no obligation to me, and I correspondingly have no obligation to the city.

If you feel the city doesn't need suburban dollars to survive, then we'll have to disagree. I'm really not buying this claim of city residents contributing the bulk of dollars spent downtown.

And I think it would be extremely foolish to make it significantly more time consuming and difficult for suburbanites to come downtown.

How is 24 additional minutes of round trip travel time from places as far out as Pontiac or Mount Clemens considered "significantly more time consuming and difficult"?

[Gistok]

I think downtown Detroit would find a way to survive without you and the 10 people who come downtown on a regular basis from Brighton or Holly.

Reality check.... it would be many thousands times that 10 people...

I'd be of the same nature to rarely go downtown or to midtown.

And going to Metro Airport would involve a I-696 to I-275 drive... a longer commute gas wise... but probably faster than taking an I-94 boulevard.

Some of you obviously haven't even thought about the "choke points" that this scenario would do... the I-94/I-696 interchange is clogged up enough during the morning and evening rush hours... one can only imagine what the intersection would be like with a boulevard and traffic lights.

For anyone who travels I-94 to Port Huron... [[depending on the situations with the Blue Water Bridge crossing) the traffic tie ups on some days can go as far back as 4 miles... and that's just if you want to get into Port Huron or points northwards.

[EL Jimbo]

Reality check.... it would be many thousands times that 10 people...

I'd be of the same nature to rarely go downtown or to midtown.

And going to Metro Airport would involve a I-696 to I-275 drive... a longer commute gas wise... but probably faster than taking an I-94 boulevard.

Some of you obviously haven't even thought about the "choke points" that this scenario would do... the I-94/I-696 interchange is clogged up enough during the morning and evening rush hours... one can only imagine what the intersection would be like with a boulevard and traffic lights.

For anyone who travels I-94 to Port Huron... [[depending on the situations with the Blue Water Bridge crossing) the traffic tie ups on some days can go as far back as 4 miles... and that's just if you want to get into Port Huron or points northwards.

Per a friend of mine who is an engineer with experience working on roads, typical capacity for each lane of traffic is 2,000 vehicles per hour. Therefore, a 2 lane in each direction [[4 total thru lane) boulevard has an hourly capacity of 8,000 vehicles. Multiply that by 24 hours in a day gives a maximum capacity of 192,000 vehicles a day. Of all the freeways I'd propose being converted, the highest daily traffic is 159,000 vehicles [[I-94 south of I-696). That's only 83% of capacity. So even if traffic patterns didn't balance themselves out between the arterials, the boulevards could still handle the capacity.

Now in regards to your getting to Metro Airport from the Eastside example, there would actually be no benefit of taking 696/275. That route, per google maps, would be 66 miles long and take 1 hr and 15 minutes from Mount Clemens. Taking a route that left from the same location and went I-94 to 696, to Gratiot, to "I-94 Boulevard", to DTW would take 1 hr and 19 minutes and is 43 miles in length. The 4 minutes of time saved hardly seems worth the 23 additional miles of driving.

For comparison purposes, under its current construction, Mt Clemens to DTW along I-94 is a 48 minute trip that is 43 miles in length. I guess the question is this. Is an extra 40 minutes of travel time on the occasional trips requiring you to go to DTW worth implementing transportation and land use policy changes that would be of significant benefit to the city of Detroit and the entire region as a whole?

[Bham1982]

So even if traffic patterns didn't balance themselves out between the arterials, the boulevards could still handle the capacity.

I don't think there's any issue of "handling capacity". Obviously there are cities with far worse traffic patterns than Detroit. There are cities of 20 million with essentially no freeways, and people survive on a day-to-day basis.

The issue, IMO, isn't whether people could move about, but rather how such radical changes would impact development and economic outcomes.

And I'm not really buying any of your "minutes added" estimates. Surface roads, with their frequent traffic lights and slow speeds, are much, much slower than you're estimating. Woodward takes easily twice as long as I-75 from Oakland County, for example.

[EL Jimbo]

I don't think there's any issue of "handling capacity". Obviously there are cities with far worse traffic patterns than Detroit. There are cities of 20 million with essentially no freeways, and people survive on a day-to-day basis.

The issue, IMO, isn't whether people could move about, but rather how such radical changes would impact development and economic outcomes.

And I'm not really buying any of your "minutes added" estimates. Surface roads, with their frequent traffic lights and slow speeds, are much, much slower than you're estimating. Woodward takes easily twice as long as I-75 from Oakland County, for example.

They aren't my calculations. They are based on what Google maps says and I think they factor that in. For example. From Downtown Pontiac to Downtown Detroit, using I-75, the average speed is just shy of 58 MPH using Google maps [[30.7 miles in 32 minutes). The same start and end point using Woodward has an average speed just above 32 mph [[25.1 miles in 47 minutes). For Gratiot, the average speed was closer to 28 MPH. When I did the Mt Clemens to DTW example I used the Gratiot speed.

As far as development and economic outcomes, the opportunities for development along those new corridors would be immense. You can't really grow along a corridor using a freeway as development will only be clustered near access points. However, at surface grade, a boulevard opens up all the adjacent property for development along the entire corridor that is carrying a lot of traffic [[aka customers). Furthermore, because traffic counts would likely drip along the former freeway corridors as they are balanced by the currently underutilized surface corridors, the increased traffic along the existing surface corridors [[like Woodward Avenue) would attract more development along those roads as well.

Whether it is transit or roads, historically, development has followed wherever transportation access is increased. By implementing something like this, it opens up areas in the city and inner ring suburbs that either

A) were off limits to development due to being adjacent to limited access freeway

or

B) were along underutilized corridors that lacked the traffic necessary to spur development.

Other than some relatively mild inconveniences for people living in some of the farther reaching suburbs, I really don't see many disadvantages.

[iheartthed]

Reality check.... it would be many thousands times that 10 people...

I'd be of the same nature to rarely go downtown or to midtown.

And going to Metro Airport would involve a I-696 to I-275 drive... a longer commute gas wise... but probably faster than taking an I-94 boulevard.

I'm still not convinced that Detroit should be designing itself for your needs over the interests of residents and businesses within its own borders.

Some of you obviously haven't even thought about the "choke points" that this scenario would do... the I-94/I-696 interchange is clogged up enough during the morning and evening rush hours... one can only imagine what the intersection would be like with a boulevard and traffic lights.

For anyone who travels I-94 to Port Huron... [[depending on the situations with the Blue Water Bridge crossing) the traffic tie ups on some days can go as far back as 4 miles... and that's just if you want to get into Port Huron or points northwards.

A choke point? The only place I've ever seen choke points are on freeway interchanges. Guess what happens when you remove a freeway? Yes, you also remove freeway interchanges.

[Augustiner]

The issue, IMO, isn't whether people could move about, but rather how such radical changes would impact development and economic outcomes.

Basically, there are two ways to approach downtown development in the automobile age. One is to try to compete with the suburbs on automobile accessibility, in hopes that easy expressway access and convenient parking will make people choose downtown over the suburbs. The other is to try to make downtown into an attractive, pleasant place to spend time, and let people figure out for themselves how to get there.

By all accounts, the first strategy is a losing one. There is an excellent discussion of this in chapter 18 of Death and Life of Great American Cities, and if you've never read it you should. Essentially, the problem is that there's no way to accommodate every single car that might want to drive into downtown and still maintain anything approaching the level of density you need for a downtown to be viable. Thriving downtowns have density, they have life, they have concentrations of people and businesses, and that's what allows them to attract the kinds of destination businesses, prestigious employers, and civic institutions that people are willing to travel there for. Once you start to chew holes in the urban fabric for expressway trenches, widened surface streets, and parking, you get an area like downtown Detroit that's actually quite tedious to walk around in. Downtown still has plenty of destinations, but they're so far apart that walking from one to another involves passing by a lot of empty lots, parking garages, and other uninteresting, unattractive things, so most people who visit downtown end up driving to a specific destination and parking rather than walking around. We've destroyed our downtown to make it easier for people to get there, and it's still much less convenient for motorists than any random destination in the suburbs. Convenient automobile access is not an asset for a downtown.

In cities that I've lived in or visited that have vibrant downtowns, driving to them and within them is invariably a giant pain in the ass. Take a look at this Google map, for instance. Look at where the expressways [[marked in dark orange) end in relation to the downtown. Map out the distance, if you like; the closest expressways to the downtown are about 2 miles away. That's a city of over a million people, with a downtown as vibrant as any I've seen [[it's hard to even walk around the center of downtown during the day, that's how crowded it is), and the downtown is only accessible via surface roads and mass transit. Why do people go there? Because the downtown there is nice, because the space there is devoted to activities that promote urban vitality rather than conveying and storing massive numbers of automobiles. That's how you redevelop a downtown. Make it attractive and unique, and people will find a way to get there.

I'm not necessarily endorsing this specific proposal of replacing the expressways with surface boulevards of approximately equal width and traffic volume, but in general, I think getting rid of some or all of the expressways near downtown is an idea worth considering precisely because of how it would affect "development and economic outcomes."

[EL Jimbo]

A choke point? The only place I've ever seen choke points are on freeway interchanges. Guess what happens when you remove a freeway? Yes, you also remove freeway interchanges.

Also, if traffic was distributed throughout the road network more evenly, then the choke points where certain interchanges are wouldn't be as bad. As I mentioned before, just south of 696, over 158,000 cars a day drive along I-94. However, only 112,000 cars drive along Van Dyke, Groesbeck, and Gratiot just south of 696 COMBINED [[71,000 of that coming from Gratiot alone). Reducing the incentive for so much traffic to travel along the existing I094 corridor would spread that traffic more equally along those other major trunkline and would likely eliminate the congestion issue at the I-94/I-696 interchange.

[Gistok]

I'm still not convinced that Detroit should be designing itself for your needs over the interests of residents and businesses within its own borders.

Ummm... that decision was already made for us 50 years ago... and no one has the money to change it anytime soon... especially since... on I-94 for example... EVERY SINGLE road overpass over I-94 [[east of Conner and west of I-96) has already been rebuilt in the last 10 years or so... with the Conner to I-96 portion either due for replacement or widening in case of a wider I-94 is approved.

Let's put this into perspecitive... hundreds of millions of Fed/State dollars have been spent rebuilding our aging freeway system in Detroit. So removal discussions make for an interesting... but otherwise pointless discussion.

Detroit needs to focus on retaining the businesses and population that it still has...as well as attracting new ones... I don't think removing freeways will help in that regard.

[EL Jimbo]

Basically, there are two ways to approach downtown development in the automobile age. One is to try to compete with the suburbs on automobile accessibility, in hopes that easy expressway access and convenient parking will make people choose downtown over the suburbs. The other is to try to make downtown into an attractive, pleasant place to spend time, and let people figure out for themselves how to get there.

By all accounts, the first strategy is a losing one. There is an excellent discussion of this in chapter 18 of Death and Life of Great American Cities, and if you've never read it you should. Essentially, the problem is that there's no way to accommodate every single car that might want to drive into downtown and still maintain anything approaching the level of density you need for a downtown to be viable. Thriving downtowns have density, they have life, they have concentrations of people and businesses, and that's what allows them to attract the kinds of destination businesses, prestigious employers, and civic institutions that people are willing to travel there for. Once you start to chew holes in the urban fabric for expressway trenches, widened surface streets, and parking, you get an area like downtown Detroit that's actually quite tedious to walk around in. Downtown still has plenty of destinations, but they're so far apart that walking from one to another involves passing by a lot of empty lots, parking garages, and other uninteresting, unattractive things, so most people who visit downtown end up driving to a specific destination and parking rather than walking around. We've destroyed our downtown to make it easier for people to get there, and it's still much less convenient for motorists than any random destination in the suburbs. Convenient automobile access is not an asset for a downtown.

In cities that I've lived in or visited that have vibrant downtowns, driving to them and within them is invariably a giant pain in the ass. Take a look at this Google map, for instance. Look at where the expressways [[marked in dark orange) end in relation to the downtown. Map out the distance, if you like; the closest expressways to the downtown are about 2 miles away. That's a city of over a million people, with a downtown as vibrant as any I've seen [[it's hard to even walk around the center of downtown during the day, that's how crowded it is), and the downtown is only accessible via surface roads and mass transit. Why do people go there? Because the downtown there is nice, because the space there is devoted to activities that promote urban vitality rather than conveying and storing massive numbers of automobiles. That's how you redevelop a downtown. Make it attractive and unique, and people will find a way to get there.

I'm not necessarily endorsing this specific proposal of replacing the expressways with surface boulevards of approximately equal width and traffic volume, but in general, I think getting rid of some or all of the expressways near downtown is an idea worth considering precisely because of how it would affect "development and economic outcomes."

Excellent post. For the record I'm not suggesting we replace the exact same traffic volumes. As I've mentioned, There are currently several underutilized corridors that could handle the excess from the current freeway corridors losing capacity. The point I was making is that these massive right-of-ways that the existing freeways take up could easily accommodate an adequate amount of traffic to handle gridlock, transit, bike lanes, and sidewalk to create interesting opportunities to build the very unique environment you were mentioning.