We mentioned earlier about the city of Birmingham’s consideration of converting Maple Road from 4 lanes to 3 between Adams and Eton.

Prior to the meeting, the Observer and Eccentric newspaper stirred the mob mentality with the headline “Birmingham’s nightmare on Maple Street.” No, it wasn’t an op-ed.

Mostly negative comments were given during the public hearing.

From the Observer:

The commission came to the same conclusion, voting 6-1 to keep Maple a four-lane road. They did, however, show their support for the concept of trying to narrow major roads to make them more pedestrian friendly, directing staff to begin a Complete Streets study that encompasses the entire city rather than just one particular street.

“Somehow, some way, we’re going to make Maple a better road,” Mayor Mark Nickita said before the vote.

Tom McDaniel was the lone member of the commission to vote against keeping East Maple four lanes, saying the only way to do a valid study of whether the road would work as three lanes would be to re-stripe it for a set period of time and evaluate the results.

City Manager Bob Bruner is a staunch advocate of the Complete Streets initiative, and he thought the timing was right to see if some of the ideas would work on East Maple. Starting in the spring, the stretch of Maple between Eton and Adams is being reconstructed to the same width of 41 feet, giving the city an opportunity to re-stripe the road to one lane in each direction with a center turn lane.

We’ve never seen a road diet studied more than this. The studies and traffic modeling showed it could work, but that wasn’t enough to change public opinion.

As we mentioned in our comments, if it didn’t work as the modeling predicted, it’s just paint. The old road configuration could be restored.

But unless the City tries it, they’ll never know.

As for the Observer newspaper, they showed their 1950s understanding of traffic solving in a follow up opinion piece.

Maple has been a problem road for years. It’s too narrow as it is to handle the flow of daily traffic. If anything, it needs to be widened, not narrowed.

And they probably think the Internet is a series of tubes…

There are bike lanes planned for the city of Detroit that are expected to be completed this year. Here’s a run down of those projects.

Midtown bike lanes

The below projects all tie together to create on consistent north-south bike route from Cass Tech to New Center. Though not a bike lane, phase II construction of the Midtown Loop will begin this year, extending the pathway south on John R and on Canfield from John R to Cass. The segment along Cass is now phase III.

Second Avenue from Grand Boulevard to Palmer – The street is being returned to two-way travel with bike lanes added for most of it. There is insufficient road width north of the railroad underpass so sharrows will be used.

Anthony Wayne Drive from Palmer to Warren – Bike lanes will be added.

Third Avenue from Warren to Ledyard – This segment will become all two-way with bike lanes.

Cass Park – All of the streets surrounding the park will receive bike lanes.

Conner Creek Greenway

Another phase of this eastside greenway is being constructed this year. This time the portion between 6 Mile and 8 Mile is the focus. E. Outer Drive and Conner Avenue below the Milbank Greenway (which is just north of E. Outer Drive) will get bike lanes.

Trumbull Enhancements

Bike lanes will be added to Trumbull from Warren Avenue north to about Holden. We haven’t seen the drawings, but that’s what we’ve heard. The City has said they would look into continuing the Trumbull bike lanes from Warren south to MLK though there is no timeframe for that.

Safety Improvement Projects

These are the safety projects we’d mentioned earlier. There is one additional public meeting to discuss safety improvements to West Chicago from Spinozza (Rouge Park) just about to Livernois. That meeting is Monday, February 20th from 5pm to 7pm at the Don Bosco Hall, 19321 W. Chicago. We’re told the plans for W. Chicago include bike lanes but we don’t know to what extent yet. We do know they make a great east-west connection to Rouge Park which has great roads, pathways, and trails for biking. Spinozza also connects with W. Outer Drive, another great Detroit biking road.

Dix Road from Waterman/W. Vernor to Woodmere – This is basically an extension of the existing bike lanes on W. Vernor which provides a connection with the pathway in Patton Park.

Central from W. Vernor to McGraw – Only portions of the Central will get bike lanes. At times the road is too narrow so sharrows will be used instead. Central become an even more critical biking route after the Detroit International Freight Transfer Project (DIFT) closes nearby Lonyo Road. Central is also part of the proposed Inner Circle Greenway route that encircles the city.

E. Seven Mile from I-75 to Gratiot is also a safety improvement project but there was insufficient room to add bike lanes. However, like the roads mentioned above, the designs are such that they encourage motorists to drive more prudently.

In 2010, the city of Detroit applied for road safety funding and were successful. Building on this success, Detroit applied for seven safety grants last year and received six. The city’s plan is to add Complete Streets features to these roads to improve safety.

There are two public information meetings this week to review the newly improved road designs.

We’ve seen the 7 Mile designs and they are mostly improved crosswalks, no bike lanes. Our suggestion will be to stripe the parking lane to make it a de facto bike lane when no parked cars are present.

From Detroit Traffic Engineering:

Monday, February 13, 2012, 6pm to 8pm

The meeting is at LA SED – Green Site, 7150 West Vernor, Detroit.

The Safety Improvement Project are:

• Vernor Ave (Lansing to 20th Street) Corridor
• Dix Ave (Woodmere to Waterman) Corridor
• Central (W Vernor Hwy to McGraw Street)

FREE Raffle for restaurant gift certificates donated by El Nacimiento, courtesy of Rodrigo Padilla, and Nuestra Familia, courtesy of Jorge Canchola.

Come to this open house to learn more about plans for traffic and safety improvements along the three corridors, including new crosswalks, upgraded traffic?signals, and changes to striping and lane use on Vernor, Dix and Central. This project is intended to promote pedestrian and vehicular safety and the vitality of the area.

For more information, contact Ghassan Khalaf at 313-224-1268

Thursday, February 16, 2012, 6pm to 8pm

The meeting is at St. John Conner Creek Village, 4777 E. Outer Drive, Detroit.

The Safety Improvement Project are:

• E. Seven Mile (I-75 W. Service Dr to Vandyke) Corridor
• E. Seven Mile (Vandyke to Gratiot) Corridor

Come to this open house to learn more about plans for traffic and safety improvements along this corridor, including new crosswalks, upgraded traffic signals, and changes to striping and lane use on E. Seven Mile Corridor. This project is intended to promote pedestrian and vehicular safety and the vitality of the area.

For more information, please contact: Stella Kulangara at 313-224-1733

Forget your Valentine. It’s time to speak up for improved biking in Royal Oak this Tuesday.

From the Royal Oak Planning Department:

The Planning Commission will be conducting a formal public hearing on the revised Non-Motorized Transportation Plan as an amendment to the city’s Master Plan on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. The public hearing will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the City Commission Chambers on the 3^rd floor of City Hall, 211 Williams Street, Royal Oak, Michigan 48068.

Any individual or group interested in the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan is invited to present their view at the public hearing. For those unable to attend, written comments regarding the plan can be mailed to the City of Royal Oak Planning Department, P.O. Box 64, Royal Oak, MI 48068-0064. Comments may also be faxed to (248) 246-3005 or e-mailed to dough@ci.royal-oak.mi.us.

Link: Royal Oak Non-motorized Transportation Plan

We think this is a very good plan and cyclists should support it.

We do plan on making some suggestions on Tuesday.

• Adding bike lanes on Main Street from Catalpa south to I-696, including a road diet through the central business district.
• Reducing the number of signed bike routes, especially those that are short, disconnected, and redundant.

If you cannot attend on Tuesday, please consider sending a email expressing your support to Doug Hedges in the Planning Department.

There has been some concerns about road diets on some of the busier roads. Keep in mind that this plan doesn’t give Engineering carte blanche to make those changes without further study. Traffic studies and perhaps even traffic modeling may be used prior to making changes in order to avoid creating problems.

The Daily Tribune has an article on this planning effort.

If you would love to see friendlier roads for motor-less modes of transportation, you best make your way to City Hall on Tuesday.

Don’t worry. Your Valentine will understand.

It’s challenging keeping abreast of the recent announcements for the off-again, on-again light rail and now bus rapid transit (BRT) projects in Detroit.

The latest proposal is to build the M1-Rail’s 3-mile light rail on Woodward with BRT on Michigan, Woodward, and Gratiot.

Woodward Avenue

According M-Live, the M1-Rail group has “90 days to develop a plan to incorporate their 3.4 mile light rail line into the BRT system. Just how that will work on a practical level is something to be decided in the planning process, according to Bing spokesman Stephen Serkaian.”

Are we back to the curb-side versus center-running debate? Not sure.

Both the light rail and BRTs will all but certainly share a dedicated right-of-way and some stations. As wide as Woodward is, MDOT’s not going to dedicate four lanes to transit.

And in order for both projects to move most quickly while using federal dollars, they’ll likely use the DDOT light rail study which favored center running for most of the route. That coincides with a statement from the Mayor’s office that “Any light-rail studies to date can be applied to advance the approval and construction of rapid bus.”

Following the DDOT study would be fairly ideal for cyclists who want to continue riding safely on Woodward.

However, M-Live adds, “experts say the possibility of BRT ending in New Center is a real one.” That would make it easier to put light rail on the curbs, which would be?a terrible scenario for cyclists.

Michigan and Gration Avenues

For these roads, there are definitely more questions than answers at this point.

How will the BRT affect:

• the new Corktown bike lanes?
• the planned sharrows on Gratiot in Detroit?
• the Woodward Avenue non-motorized planning north of Eight Mile?

We may not have answers to these for some time, especially since Woodward will likely be the first dip in the BRT waters.

We do know that BRT will be on state trunk lines and MDOT is committed to building Complete Streets.