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

[Hermod]

Never mind the massive amounts of untaxable real estate they consume.
As for the remaining freeways, what's so wrong and horrible about a configuration that looks more like this:

Notice any disconnect between the two statements?

[Russix]

This would be a good plan for eliminating some miles of expressway. Some or all of the Lodge, Jeffries, Davison, and 375 spur could be eliminated.

Way to extreme, downtown should be accessible by freeway, just not entirely entrenched by them. I'm still waiting on a 1940 downtown city map I ordered and I'll show you my interpretation of this.

[Brian1979]

Sure, the idea to completely eliminate freeways is radical--at least in the post-World War II, Baby Boomer-dominated way of thinking.

But what if--what IF--such a thing were done? Let's be honest here--freeways are horribly expensive to maintain. Anyone driving Michigan roads this time of year will tell you that, every damned time they hit a pothole. Never mind the massive amounts of untaxable real estate they consume. And what is the benefit?--to carry 1200 cars per lane per hour? It seems there might be more efficient means of moving people.

So what if I-375 were removed? Would people no longer be able to find the Ren Cen or Greektown? What if the Lodge were removed south of I-75? Would people still be able to find Cobo? I think they would. And rather than have a constant traffic jam on Jefferson, with folks waiting to get on the same on-ramp to the expressway, I think you'd find the congestion would disperse itself throughout the existing street grid.

As for the remaining freeways, what's so wrong and horrible about a configuration that looks more like this:



Does Detroit really need 8 and 10 lane expanses of asphalt running willy-nilly through it?

The Detroit metro area has over 4 million people and you're suggesting four lane highways? So the 160,000 vehicles that use parts of the Chrysler and Ford Freeway's are suppose to travel on four lanes? That would be a traffic nightmare as would removing these freeways.

[jtf1972]

The base proposal here is interesting, but will never happen any time soon. In order to even begin any sort of freeway removal there would need to be a wholesale change in the public financing of the construction and maintenance of them. The remote communities that rely on these tax dollars to build their roads aren’t looking to change the rules any time soon.

Detroit’s money built the suburbs. The highways provided the road to a rapid exodus of capital from the city. While it is nice that some suburbanites like to cruise on in & out of the city on occasion and spend a couple of dollars they are NOT the lifeblood of the city. This sort of economic strategy has proven to be a failure. Need proof? Look at Detroit! Much more capital still leaves the city for the suburbs than enters. People continue to leave for the suburbs and other regions. Why? Because the current model is simply not working.

Perhaps this freeway utopia would be sustainable if gas were still 30 cents a gallon. It is not. Even if it were the central city would not improve much. Suburbanites would bitch and moan about having to go downtown due to the congestion once these freeways got you there. Then we need to move things away from the congested central city to where they are more accessible. The Lions could move to, perhaps somewhere like Pontiac! Oh wait… that’s great if you live in Oakland County, but what if you’re one of the people who live downriver? Then you can take longer to get there than it would have been to get downtown.

Frankly, I don’t see where wholesale freeway removal would be truly beneficial. Removing 375 & The Lodge [[south of 75) would potentially have a tremendous impact on downtown [[I believe in a positive manner.) Beyond that I don’t see how the city could afford to actually do this… If you rip up a highway I am sure you lose any federal funding for that roadway. I’d love to see the leg of I-75 between 96 & 94 eliminated and rerouted along those arteries to eliminate one of the stupidest mistakes ever made in highway planning. Even if this error were corrected and Detroit had the money to fill in the pit & rebuild Hastings Street in a manner like the Grand Concourse in the Bronx… all we would have for many years would be a boulevard surrounded by vacant lots & perhaps a few cinderblock liquor stores painted yellow.

We need to fundamentally change how many things are done in Detroit before we could even attempt this. Sorry.

[[By the way.. Detroit shouldn’t need the permission of the suburbs to do a damn thing. Remember this: without Detroit, the suburbs don’t exist.)

[EL Jimbo]

The Detroit metro area has over 4 million people and you're suggesting four lane highways? So the 160,000 vehicles that use parts of the Chrysler and Ford Freeway's are suppose to travel on four lanes? That would be a traffic nightmare as would removing these freeways.

No. No at all. The end result would be instead of the current setup where 160,000 vehicles using the Chrysler or the Ford, you'd have 90,000 each on Woodward, Gratiot, the new "Ford Boulevard", and the new "Chrysler Boulevard". Why would 160,000 cars pile onto the old freeway corridors if they aren't freeways anymore?

Right now, we have a situation where we have underutilized surface corridors [[for example, Woodward is only running 20,000 vehicles a day when it has the capacity for as must as 192,000) and heavily utilized freeways that still aren't near their capacity either. Essentially, we are WAY overcapacity in terms of our roads. Just like the city of Detroit is trying to rightsize itself to get infrastructure in line with tax revenues, every level of government has to rightsize level of service. Why are we paying to maintain so many lanes of travel when we don't have the capacity to justify it?

By turning the freeways into major surface arterials, we would create a road system more in line with our capacity needs and on roads that are much less costly to maintain over time.

[ghettopalmetto]

Does Detroit really need 8 and 10 lane expanses of asphalt running willy-nilly through it?
The Detroit metro area has over 4 million people and you're suggesting four lane highways? So the 160,000 vehicles that use parts of the Chrysler and Ford Freeway's are suppose to travel on four lanes? That would be a traffic nightmare as would removing these freeways.

Brian, you'll note that the roadway pictured in the link [[http://www.trainweb.org/oldmainline/gen/gwp.jpg) runs right through the heart of a metropolitan area of 5 million people.

You should also note that this particular roadway is far less congested than any of the notorious Interstate highways in its region.

[Gistok]

[[By the way.. Detroit shouldn’t need the permission of the suburbs to do a damn thing. Remember this: without Detroit, the suburbs don’t exist.)

Maybe before making such a broad statement... you ought to check out a map of the latter 1800's to see what existed or not. Mt. Clemens, Pontiac, Northville, Rochester, and all the famring communities existed before Detroit overspilled its' borders. in the 1920s... they may not have had "in fill" housing... but they existed...

And as for your attitude on Detroit shouldn't need the permission thing.... it just feeds on the continuing problem with this region... lack of cooperation...

[Detroitnerd]

Maybe before making such a broad statement... you ought to check out a map of the latter 1800's to see what existed or not. Mt. Clemens, Pontiac, Northville, Rochester, and all the famring communities existed before Detroit overspilled its' borders. in the 1920s... they may not have had "in fill" housing... but they existed...

That's true, but not as suburbs. It's worth noting, though, that they've been suburbs of Detroit for more than 100 years now, thanks to the electric interurban and steam lines of the turn of the last century.

I think the point that I keep coming back to is that this region is doomed until it starts behaving like a coherent area, investing in its downtown [[no, Somerset is not "downtown Michigan"), ensuring its suburbs survive by not being overbuilt, and restoring some of our more overzealous developments to farmland or parkland. Other places "get it" and act upon it and pass us by. Of course, I guess it's OK here because we're so busy pointing at "them" that we don't ever stack ourselves up against another, successful region.

[ghettopalmetto]

Other places "get it" and act upon it and pass us by. Of course, I guess it's OK here because we're so busy pointing at "them" that we don't ever stack ourselves up against another, successful region.

Of course, whenever someone tries to make such a comparison, it is inevitably met with cries of: "Detroit isn't like those places!"

To which I respond, "No shit."

[jtf1972]

Maybe before making such a broad statement... you ought to check out a map of the latter 1800's to see what existed or not. Mt. Clemens, Pontiac, Northville, Rochester, and all the famring communities existed before Detroit overspilled its' borders. in the 1920s... they may not have had "in fill" housing... but they existed...

And as for your attitude on Detroit shouldn't need the permission thing.... it just feeds on the continuing problem with this region... lack of cooperation...

I do understand that these communities existed over 100 years ago and I applaud and support them. I wish them success. I hope they fulfill their founders visions and dreams. Unfortunately, most have similar problems to what is ailing Detroit. Some are even worse, as they don't hold the prominent position that Detroit still maintains in the world [[despite what some may feel or wish, Detroit is known around the world... and reflects on not just the city itself, but the state & nation as well.) I don't actually consider small urban cities that are nearly as old as Detroit to be "suburbs" either... They are actually satellite cities.

City & suburb can coexist and form a nice metropolitan area. However the city should not need permission of the suburb to improve itself any more than the suburb should. It's funny how everything in the region seems to be that anything in the city is open for criticism of suburbanites as to how it effects them, but Detroiters have no voice as to the effect of anything outside its borders [[and apparently not much inside either.)

Here's an idea that might work though... Rather than tear out all the highways & start anew with a radical plan that would [[debateably) have potential long-term benefits, but is simply not happening at this stage, how about we change over these "freeways" to toll highways? If all major highways in Michigan were converted to toll roads that charged lets say, 10 cents/mile to drive with the funds directed back toward these roads themselves we would have greatly improved roads. If 140,000 vehicles daily use the Lodge & Chrysler, if they average 10 miles that is $140,000/day. The tax burden could be greatly reduced...

[Brian1979]

Every major city in the United States has a network of interstate highways running through it, many of those cities are doing fine. Why should Detroit be any different? I don't see what removing the freeways is going to accomplish other than making it more difficult to to get into and through the city. And as far as Woodward being able to serve 192,000 vehicles that is the funniest thing I've ever heard, Woodward is busy enough as it is and removing the freeways wouldn't distribute the freeway traffic evenly through the city it would cause traffic nightmares. People want to be able to get to their destinations as quickly as possible and with the freeway system they can, you take away the freeways and make them into boulevards that is not going to happen, Detroit would be a traffic choked city.

[Gistok]

Jtf1972, I have a feeling that at some point toll roads will hit Michigan as a revenue generator. Desperate times call for desperate measures....

[Detroitnerd]

People want to be able to get to their destinations as quickly as possible and with the freeway system they can, you take away the freeways and make them into boulevards that is not going to happen, Detroit would be a traffic choked city.

Or you can have a mass transit system to take tens of thousands of cars off the road every day.

And people can live more densely, in neighborhoods where you can walk down the street to shop, instead of driving a mile to get a stick of butter or a gallon of milk.

And bicycling, walking and mass transit can take so many cars off the road that the vehicle can better do what it does best: Point to point transportation: Ambulances, emergency vehicles, police cruisers, small shipping trucks, etc.

The point is not making it difficult for people to drive. The point is having an actual, dense, vibrant city where people don't NEED to drive as much. And that alleviates the pressures on roads enough to where you can scale them back and encourage more density, with doesn't encourage driving.

Simply put, cities are places where the greatest diversity of goods, services and people come together.

The opposite of the city is where you have to travel all over to get everything.

Right now, we are experiencing the result of 60 years of idealizing cheap, reckless travel for everything.

In cities, much of the need for travel is simply obviated.

Does this make more sense? We don't want a "traffic nightmare." We simply want a place where every fleeting need doesn't generate an automotive trip. And if scaling back roads is part of that, so be it.

[DTWflyer]

All I have to say about ripping up freeways in Detroit and the whole "the city doesn't need the suburbs debate"

My company is located downtown in prime, class-A office space. We have about 750 employees, with most everyone making $60K+, about half making over $100K, and about 50+ probably making over $500K-$1M.

Only about 5-10 people, primarily administrative assistantants and a few of the mail room clerks live in the City of Detroit. Meanwhile the other 740 employees live in the suburbs.

We all know the reasons why they don't live in the city and it has nothing to do too many freeways.

Every time our lease comes up from renewal, they always conduct some study/poll about whether we should relocate to Southfield or Troy, but fortunetely we all stay.

The city needs our 1.5% income tax, the city needs the money we pump into the downtown economy. Ripping up freeways and forcing everyone to drive down Woodward or Michigan Ave isn't going to keep firms like ours downtown.

[DetroitDad]

It's an interesting proposition. I do think traffic should be routed AROUND the city. The old Ford freeway isn't really a good freeway; lots of motorists don't like how slow and narrow it is; but it might make a much better PARKWAY.

Most freeway backups in Detroit are the result of confusing bottleneck interchanges.
I-94 between I-86 and I-75 is a bottleneck, being used as a transfer between other motorways. Why not restrict use of I-94 as a transfer. That way, I-94 could still stay free and clear as a crosstown link, and transfer/interchange traffic could be rerouted down to the I-75 crossover, or North to the Davison crossover.

So just to be clear, I am talking about bypassing certain sections of freeways, particularly I-94 between I-96 and I-75, during peak times. Some new traffic would be rerouted at peak times as an answer to congestion... instead of spending billions widening and redesigning that section.

[DetroitDad]

How about we look into making the express lanes on I-96 interchangeable for in/out am/pm peak times? You could have nine lanes going in and three going out of Downtown in the morning, and nine going out and three going in in the morning.

How about we add express and local lines to other motorways? Or use those lanes for buses or train lines?

[DetroitDad]

And why the Heck isn't there a ferry traversing up and down the Detroit river? That would generally take a minimal amount of initial infrastructural investment in addition to what has been, or is already being constructed.

[DetroitDad]

And....

Why can't I use my DDOT bus pass on the People Mover? Why is there no plan being discussed at transit meetings [[I have attended several of them) to incorporate the People Mover and bus pass systems with the light rail pass system? Individual passes are fine, but why not a regional transit pass that incorporates all systems?

[EL Jimbo]

And as far as Woodward being able to serve 192,000 vehicles that is the funniest thing I've ever heard, Woodward is busy enough as it is and removing the freeways wouldn't distribute the freeway traffic evenly through the city it would cause traffic nightmares. .

You may think it is funny, but it is true. Industry standards dictate that capacity is typically calculated as 2,000 cars per lane per hour. So a road with four thru lanes would have a capacity of 8,000 vehicles an hour. multiply that by 24 hours in a day and you get 192,000. At current traffic levels, approximately 200 vehicles per day travel on any given lane of Woodward Avenue.

I'm sorry, but data kicks you sense of humor's ass any day of the week and twice on sunday when it comes to whether or not Woodward is "busy enough as it is" or not.

[Gistok]

You may think it is funny, but it is true. Industry standards dictate that capacity is typically calculated as 2,000 cars per lane per hour. So a road with four thru lanes would have a capacity of 8,000 vehicles an hour. multiply that by 24 hours in a day and you get 192,000. At current traffic levels, approximately 200 vehicles per day travel on any given lane of Woodward Avenue.

I'm sorry, but data kicks you sense of humor's ass any day of the week and twice on sunday when it comes to whether or not Woodward is "busy enough as it is" or not.

You might want to rethink your 200 vehicle per day comment....

[DetroitPlanner]

You may think it is funny, but it is true. Industry standards dictate that capacity is typically calculated as 2,000 cars per lane per hour. So a road with four thru lanes would have a capacity of 8,000 vehicles an hour. multiply that by 24 hours in a day and you get 192,000. At current traffic levels, approximately 200 vehicles per day travel on any given lane of Woodward Avenue.

I'm sorry, but data kicks you sense of humor's ass any day of the week and twice on sunday when it comes to whether or not Woodward is "busy enough as it is" or not.

Just to add a couple of things.

You need to look at peak hour congestion not 24 hour capacity. For example there are not many people driving around at 3 am. Roads that are congested at AM and PM peaks often are congested in different direction depending upon traffic flow, as traffic move to and from work centers.

The most promising way to handle this issue is by having enforced HOV [[High occupancy vehicle lanes) or reversible lanes or a combination of the two. This way, the limited access roads eat up a lot less real estate for peak hour.

You would never be able to get as much capacity out of an regular arterial than a freway due to signals, turning movements, or speed.

Much of the traffic on Woodward would be local traffic, meaning it would not make sense for it to divert to a freeway. Jimbo may mean 200 per lane off peak [[which compares apples to apples of his lane example) which is a reasonable estimate.

[Hermod]

And why the Heck isn't there a ferry traversing up and down the Detroit river? That would generally take a minimal amount of initial infrastructural investment in addition to what has been, or is already being constructed.

There was a ferry service connecting downtown Hampton, VA and downtown Norfolk, VA. Despite significant government subsidies, it sank in a sea of red ink and was discontinued even though it was popular [[the two bridge/tunnel complexes really back up).

[DetroitPlanner]

There was a ferry service connecting downtown Hampton, VA and downtown Norfolk, VA. Despite significant government subsidies, it sank in a sea of red ink and was discontinued even though it was popular [[the two bridge/tunnel complexes really back up).

There is a ferry that crosses the Detroit River!

However at $60 per way for a pick-up sized vehicle you need to really justify using it.

[ghettopalmetto]

Just to add a couple of things.

You need to look at peak hour congestion not 24 hour capacity. For example there are not many people driving around at 3 am. Roads that are congested at AM and PM peaks often are congested in different direction depending upon traffic flow, as traffic move to and from work centers.

The most promising way to handle this issue is by having enforced HOV [[High occupancy vehicle lanes) or reversible lanes or a combination of the two. This way, the limited access roads eat up a lot less real estate for peak hour.

I don't think the issue is "too much congestion" on freeways in the City of Detroit. It's more an issue of "the road infrastructure is WAY overbuilt" and is an expensive burden for the state to maintain. All you are doing is proposing yet another driving-oriented solution. Have you filled your gas tank lately???

What do you propose HOV lanes would "fix"? Ever driven I-75 through Atlanta? It's seven lanes of parking lot during morning rush hour, with an empty HOV lane at the left-hand side.

Looking at peak hour congestion in a vacuum is like sizing every parking lot for the Saturday before Christmas--95% of the time, you're just wasting money and real estate. I don't think you understand how thoroughly unsophisticated traffic engineering analyses really are.

[DetroitPlanner]

Have you filled your gas tank lately???

What do you propose HOV lanes would "fix"? Ever driven I-75 through Atlanta? It's seven lanes of parking lot during morning rush hour, with an empty HOV lane at the left-hand side.

Looking at peak hour congestion in a vacuum is like sizing every parking lot for the Saturday before Christmas--95% of the time, you're just wasting money and real estate. I don't think you understand how thoroughly unsophisticated traffic engineering analyses really are.

I never said it could fix everything. I gave the parameters where applying it would work. Well if you are concerned about congestion at the mall why wait for the saturday before Christmas to shop? You have 364 other days in the year to visit the mall these days as they don't close on even major holidays. Engineering can only do so much. You can't engineer stupid out of people's decisions. They know there is going to be congestion at the mall yet they still go.

One of the better applications I've seen for parking is the Fairlane Dump mall. I think its called Fairlane Green. It was built ontop of a garbage dump. It uses pavers in many of the peak parking areas and the rest of the parking lot is pervious asphalt. This allows the impact to be much less than it would be at other malls. Incidentally the mall reminds me of an old Looney Tunes cartoon with its oversided facades and bizaree layout. But thats another thread alltogether!

Incidentally, I live close to work, and take transit and carpool whenever I can. My biggest concern about gas costs is that it is not taxedhigh enough and that the current tax structure allows for what should be a user fee be used as a way to prop up the State's General Fund.