From the Conner Creek Greenway web site:

Join the Detroit Eastside Community Collaborative for the first annual Cycle into Spring!

Enjoy a pleasant pedal from the Detroit River to Eight Mile and back along the Conner Creek Greenway (CCG), nine miles of cycling infrastructure that traces the original Conner Creek and links people, parks, green spaces, neighborhoods, schools and shops. Five miles are complete; funds raised at Cycle into Spring! will support programming and the development of the final four miles of the greenway. Refreshments provided at rest stop.

Sites along the route include Chrysler Mack Assembly, Wayne County Community College, Chandler Park, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Conner Playfield, Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport, Better Made Snack Food Factory and the Milbank Trail.

Cost: $25; $35 includes a full lunch from Slow’s Bar B Q post-ride. $15 lunch only.

Register now!

Check out our event on Facebook and tell your friends.

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That grant wasn’t funded though the city was told by one congressional office that it scored near the top.

The City is submitting an improved version of the grant request this round.

Competition?

One interesting wrinkle this time is it appears the M1 Rail group is applying for a $25 million TIGER IV grant as well. Even though it would be from the transit portion of TIGER IV, it’s unlikely two big grants would come to Detroit.

From the Detroit News:

[U.S. DOT Secretary Ray] LaHood said in January the government will consider awarding Detroit’s light-rail project up to $25 million on top of $25 million awarded for a bus rapid transit system.

LaHood told The Detroit News he is willing to offer additional government money if the M-1 light rail coalition can show it is financially viable.

Congressional aides said the M-1 plan assumes it will win the $25 million grant, which the FTA says is not certain.

The Detroit News is reporting the the U.S. DOT has “serious concerns” about the M1 Rail’s viability. The Detroit Free Press reports a more moderate response.

…while no decision has been made, there is skepticism in Washington, including concerns that the M-1 plan’s cost estimate — at $125 million — is too low and that the group of private investors won’t pull together enough private financing to qualify for a $25-million federal grant for the project.

Of course the other issue with M1 Rail and bicycling is their plan to run the street cars along the curbs. As we’ve said before, curbside alignments are problematic for cyclists and Complete Streets advocates.

Seattle cyclists sue

The street car tracks are a major safety issue and liability. At least a half-dozen Seattle cyclists have lawsuits against the city for crashes due to street car rails. We spoke with an attorney handling these cases and they said this would be a class action lawsuit if their office had the capacity to organize such an effort.

Does MDOT really want to open themselves up to that?

MDOT should know it’s a hazardous design for bicyclists — it’s mentioned as such in Detroit’s Woodward light rail reports.

There are safety concerns for bicycle users with [the curbside designs] due to the potential for bicycle tires to be caught within the rail flange space in the road. While alternative rail types may reduce this potential conflict, it cannot be fully mitigated.

Of course the odds are that neither project will receive the funding. It’s a hyper-competitive grant source.

Then again, Michigan’s only successful TIGER III grant was a road to a landfill, so anything is possible.

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The Clinton_River_Trail is routed away from the downtown Pontiac businesses -- and on sidewalks

How can the city of Pontiac’s transportation network be improved so that it brings more business and life to the downtown?

A public meeting is scheduled for this Saturday, March 17th from 10am until noon at the Crofoot Ballroom to discuss that.

This Oakland Press article has more information:

Oakland County planners are trying to figure out ways to attract traffic into downtown Pontiac, rather than have traffic diverted around the downtown district.

The public is invited to attend a meeting with local government officials, planners, residents and business owners to discuss how to fix what many argue has become a barrier for the neighborhoods and surrounding communities.

The group also has been examining the city’s transportation links, assets and past planning documents.

The data, along with input from residents, will create an action plan for the Woodward Loop and to improve the city’s streets, sidewalks and bike path system.

Here’s one obvious suggestion: Stop routing the Clinton River Trail around the downtown. The trail should go through the main downtown business area using the roads.

It shouldn’t be routed on sidewalks. Besides ignoring the downtown businesses, the trail design ignores best practices.

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Detroit residents who want to create a more beautiful and physically active environment in their communities are in luck. The Healthy Environments Partnership (HEP) Greenway Mini-Grant program is funding projects, up to $1000, that will take place along the Conner Creek, Brightmoor Lyndon, and Southwest Detroit Greenways. HEP will be accepting requests for proposals from Detroiters engaging community residents, building local ownership, and promoting social and physical activity along the greenways. Some examples of the types of projects that will be funded are: creating youth artwork along the greenways, planting community gardens adjacent to the greenways, or hosting walk & talk programs that bring policy makers out where residents can share their local concerns.

For more information contact Julia Weinert at 734-763-0741, weinertj@umich.edu or go to the HEP website at www.hepdetroit.org and click on ‘Community Activities’. Mini-Grant materials will also be available at neighborhood development corporations in Eastside, Northwest, and Southwest Detroit. The application deadline is April 13, 2012.

The Healthy Environments Partnership, established in 2000, is a partnership including the Brightmoor Community Center, Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation, Friends of Parkside, Rebuilding Communities Incorporated, The Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion, Henry Ford Health System, and the University of Michigan. It is funded through the National Institute of Environmental Science and is an affiliated project of the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center.

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One question was to name three primary reasons Detroit deserves this recognition. Here’s one of the given reasons:

Detroit is a national leader in developing and maintaining greenways/biking facilities through public-private partnerships. Philanthropy, community development organization, business organization, and other non-profits are the driver behind much of the bicycle friendly infrastructure in Detroit. For example, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy has raised $104 million to transform Detroit’s industrial riverfront into a world class greenway. That said, a limitation of this BFC application is it presumes the city is always the project development and maintenance lead. That is not often the case in Detroit. For example, while there is approximately city of Detroit 1 FTE working on bicycle issues, there are approximately 30 FTEs among the non-profits and retained consultants.

This recent video from the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy highlights their public-private partnership on greenway security. In most cities, security would be provided by a police agency or perhaps contracted by them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34zHbcoSIQ0

Maintenance on the RiverWalk and Dequindre are similar in that the Conservancy hired Clean Detroit and others to perform the work. In other cities this work is more commonly performed by city staff.

The other two reasons

The Bicycle Friendly Community application asked for three primary reasons. Here are the other two.

Detroit is bike friendly in 2012 for many of the same reasons it was bike friendly in 1910. There are not that many cars on the roads, which is not something that’s reflected in this application. The city’s population has dropped over 61% since 1950 and we’ve added a comprehensive freeway network. Both issues have pulled cars off the surface streets. Detroit has 23 linear feet of road for every resident, nearly double the rate in Los Angeles. Cyclists dont always need a bike lane when they have a car lane to themselves. During a recent meeting on creating another Detroit bike map, we realized that there are so many roads that accommodate bikes well in their current state. We agreed it would be easier to just mark the few roads that don’t.

Detroit has a burgeoning Black bike cultures perhaps unmatched by any other city. Despite being the Motor City, that’s not unexpected since Detroit has the highest percentage of African American residents among U.S. cities over 100,000. There are at five Detroit riding clubs that have formed in the past 2 years. These clubs are growing in popularity. One club, Grown Men on Bikes (GMOB) just released their own theme song to ride to. These clubs along with the youth clubs and Hispanic bike clubs are helping overcome the stigma of the bicycle as a last choice mode of transport.

We should know in a couple months whether Detroit will be recognized as a bicycle friendly community. Currently there are none in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne Counties. Ferndale applied years ago but was unsuccessful.

It would be quite exciting if Detroit was the first.

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The Spinal Column has more exciting details:

“We’re going to put a new limestone surface on top of the ballast similar to the existing trail, and have a safe road crossing at Arrowhead, Halsted and Walnut Lake,” said West Bloomfield Parks and Recreation Director Dan Navarre. “There will be 400 feet of boardwalk north of Walnut Lake over a wetland area and a pergola area with benches.”

There will be benches installed every quarter-mile and two overlooks with benches – one at Woodpecker Lake between Arrowhead and Halsted Road, and another over a large wetland area west of Halsted.

A small parking lot will be constructed at the terminus of the trail at Haggerty Road.

This will add 2.5 miles of pathway and extend the West Bloomfield Trail all the way to Haggerty Road. Here it will eventually connect with the Walled Lake, Commerce, and Wixom rail-trail also under development. MDOT has also suggested building a trail bridge across M-5 to connect the trails.

The Road Commission is even considering a speed table where the trail crosses Arrowhead — an innovative traffic calming design that we’d like to see more of. Not only does it act as a stretched speed bump for cars, it tells drivers that they’re crossing the trail. It visually says that the trail has a right-of-way. This is a design we would have preferred seeing where the Dequindre Cut crosses streets south of Jefferson.

As mentioned in the Spinal Column, the West Bloomfield trail extension should be under construction by May and completed by the end of summer.

Support Transportation Enhancements

Federal Transportation Enhancement funding really makes projects like this possible, but that funding source may get eliminated in Congress. A vote on this is coming up this week in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Local congresswoman Candice Miller serves on this committee.

Please take a minute and call her office before Thursday’s vote and ask her to not eliminate this funding. Her Washington DC phone number is (202) 225-2106.

Let’s keep this funding in the next transportation bill!

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Here are the grantees from the three Metro Detroit counties.

Macomb County

The city of New Baltimore will make streetscape improvements to its historic downtown on Washington Street from Green Street to Front Street. The project will include streetlights, trees, planters, bike racks, street furniture, and staining the existing sidewalk. The project budget is $486,110, including $340,277 in federal TE funds and $145,833 from the city.

Oakland County

The Road Commission for Oakland County, in partnership with West Bloomfield Township, will construct a multi-use trail along an abandoned rail line from Arrowhead Road to Haggerty Road. The trail will be an extension of the West Bloomfield Trail, which connects to the Clinton River Trail. The project includes trail surfacing, roadway crossings, benches, trash receptacles, and trail shoulder restoration with native plant materials. The project budget is $1,111,692, including $611,431 in federal TE funds and $500,261 from West Bloomfield Township Parks and Recreation.

Wayne County

MDOT, in partnership with the city of Detroit and the Greening of Detroit, will install streetscape amenities along US-12 (Michigan Avenue) between 14th Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard. The work includes replacing the concrete sidewalks and adding brick pavers, tree planters, bike loops and trash receptacles. When the project is complete, the Greening of Detroit will place trees in the planters. The project budget is $407,351, including $325,881 in federal TE funds, $71,286 from MDOT and $10,184 from the city.

Both streetscape projects include bike racks.

What’s not on the list is the grant request for Trumbull in Detroit. As we’d last heard, this was a request to reconstruct Trumbull from Warren to W. Grand Boulevard, including adding bike lanes.

Another project that is expected to get funded soon is the next portion of the Conner Creek Greenway from the Mt. Olivet Cemetery to Eight Mile. It includes a combination of bikes lanes on E. Outer Drive/Conner, sidewalks, and bike routes.

As you may recall, Transportation Enhancements has been threatened to be cut in Washington DC. Now is as good a time as ever to contract your Congress member and remind them of the value in these transportation dollars.

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This funding opportunity from the Healthy Environments Partnership is an excellent option for Detroit-based greenway programming!

The Active Living Detroit Mini-Grant Program awards mini-grants of up to $1000 to Detroiters developing sustainable projects and activities that 1) engage community residents, 2) build local ownership of Detroit neighborhoods and 3) create social and physical environments that promote active living and physical health.

Any neighborhood groups or organization located in the city of Detroit can apply. This includes, but is not limited to, block clubs, art groups, service organizations, parks and recreational organizations, churches, professional associations, public and non-public school-based groups, and individuals.

The Active Living Detroit Mini-Grants Program is a joint project of HEP and of the Detroit Food & Fitness Collaborative.

Mini-grant Application

Application deadline: February 1, 2012.

Resource: For project ideas and information about promoting active living in communities visit:

For more information contact

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As of this today, the city of Detroit has been updated.

• Milbank Greenway added
• Conner Creek Greenway added (including St. Jean and Clairpointe bike lanes)
• Southwest Detroit Greenlink added (bike lanes only)
• Atwater bike lanes added
• “bike lanes” on Joy Road removed
• “bike lanes” on Fort Street removed
• RiverWalk sections added

There are still more corrections to make.

• W. Outer Drive and W. Chicago are shown with bike lanes when they only have shoulders.
• There are still some sections of sidewalk shown as “preferred” bicycle routes.
• The Southwest Detroit Greenlink bike routes should be labelled as “preferred.”

We’ll get to these changes unless someone beats us to it.

We also removed the sidewalk along Lakeshore through the Pointes as a preferred bicycle path/trail.

What are the benefits?

For one, the map can help cyclists map their route. It’s interactive and up to date, though some may still prefer a printed bike map, especially since not everyone has a smart phone or direct access to the Internet.

Having an accurate bicycle layer also affects how Google generates bike route directions. Google will try to route cyclists on to bike lanes and preferred routes when it makes sense.

On the other hand, having an inaccurate bicycle layer can make bike directions less valuable. Google has directed us out of our way to use a sidewalk in Troy that has been labelled as a preferred bicycle route.

How to update the bicycle layer

The bicycle layer can be updated using the Google Mapmaker utility. There is a review and approval process for changes so it’s not as instant as Wikipedia.

Mapmaker gives you the ability to change roads attributes, sidewalks, places, and more. It appears bike racks are not being added to this map.

Guide to Mapmaker bicycle facilities

The Google guidelines on how to appropriately label bicycle facilities aren’t always that clear, but here are some key points.

• Paved shoulders are not bike lanes. Google’s best practices says, “Roads without explicit paint markings or signage indicating a bicycle lane should not be given the ‘On-street bicycle lane attribute’”. Since paved shoulders of adequate width can improve bicycling, they can be labeled as “preferred.”
• Sidewalks and sidepaths are not trails/paths. Sidewalks and sidepaths should be documented as part of the road attributes. Google’s best practices says they should only be mapped as separate trails/paths when they’re “separated by a river, railway, or other impassable physical barrier.” Yes, many parts of Oakland County has improperly labelled bicycle features.
• Sidewalks are rarely preferred bicycle routes. If the above guideline is followed, sidewalks along roads can’t be. It’s less clear for sidewalks that are not along a road. In some cities like Royal Oak, bicycling on a sidewalk is prohibited. Sidewalks aren’t usually not cleared of snow by cities unlike streets, so their value in the winter can be variable. We’ve removed a preferred sidewalk segment in Royal Oak that had stairs.

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[Disclaimer: I provided assistance to the city of Detroit on this TIGER grant application.]

It wasn’t a good week in Detroit for transportation news.

First came the light rail decision, and now this. The U.S. DOT did not select Detroit’s TIGER III grant.

There were 828 application and only 46 were selected. The odds weren’t good but Detroit’s $20 million grant request was first-class.

It was called Link Detroit, a Multi-model enhancement plan and a copy of it is available on the city’s web site.

The listed project benefits were:

• Implements a $25 million infrastructure project that includes bridge replacements, streetscapes, on and off road non-motorized greenways ($20 million DOT grant, $5.8 million local match)
• Links Detroit’s core investments such as the Riverfront Conservancy and adjacent downtown central businesses through the Dequindre Cut and Midtown Loop greenways to the Eastern Market, Midtown and Hamtramck
• Intersects major transportation routes including auto, bus, and the planned Woodward Light Rail, enabling multi modal options from anywhere in the region
• Enhances non-motorized and multi-modal connections to:

• Jobs (downtown and midtown anchors, locally owned commercial/professional services, start up establishments, hotels and restaurants, eastern market district)
• Educational institutions (Wayne State)
• Cultural institutions (DIA, MOCAD, DSO, theatres)
• Recreational opportunities (Milliken State Park, numerous city parks, marinas)
• Famers market (Eastern Market)
• Neighborhoods (Midtown, Hamtramck, East Villages)
• Leverages significant investments already made in the transportation infrastructure (Campus Martius, Detroit RiverWalk, Woodward Light Rail, Dequindre Cut Greenway, Midtown Loop Greenway, Hamtramck Greenway) and real estate development (Downtown, Midtown, Eastern Market)
• Provides 289 direct near term jobs, and up to 16,000 long term jobs, assuming the residential and commercial fill in development typically stimulated by this kind of investment

Can Detroit just reapply for TIGER IV? That’s uncertain.

Congress has asked that TIGER “focus on road, transit, rail and port projects.” One source says it’s not a ban on bike-ped oriented projects, but that future focus doesn’t help Link Detroit.

In addition, some of the matching funds will likely be spent before the next TIGER round, and therefore will become ineligible.

Detroit had received $25 million in the first round of TIGER grants. That money was to be spent on the Woodward light rail and will now be applied towards planning bus rapid transit. We don’t know what role this previous award and the city’s current financial situation had in this grant request cycle.

No Dequindre Cut Extension?

This does not stop the planned Dequindre Cut extension. The city has a purchase agreement for the private property from Gratiot to Mack and is now doing due diligence. The funding is there to keep moving this project forward.

Eventually the Midtown and Hamtramck connections will be built once the needed funding is found. TIGER III would have put these critical projects on the front burner.

Other Michigan TIGER grants

The only successful TIGER III grant was for $3.6 million to rebuild 2.6 miles of road in St. Clair County which “provides essential access to the County’s only landfill facility.” Yeah, that stinks.

That said, we’re not surprised the MDOT/Canton TIGER request was rejected. This was a $22 million project to improve the IKEA exit on I-275.

The required grant section on Livability appears to have been written in the 1980s or earlier. One claimed project benefit is it will improve the quality of life by having “a safer operational and connected network to and from the surrounding community and the freeway network.” That and they won’t remove the existing bike path.

The grant’s section on Alternative Transportation and Sustainable Development says, Canton is “committed to promoting sustainable development opportunities and alternative transportation options for residents.” Canton opted out of SMART. You cannot take the SMART bus to the IKEA store.

If anything, this is an example of why transportation in Michigan is not a sustainable model. We let a major traffic generator locate in an area which lacks the existing transportation infrastructure to handle it. And now Canton (and MDOT) want taxpayers to fix their $22 million mistake.

IKEA even mentioned in their support letter for this grant that “when IKEA was considering potential locations for our Michigan store, we had strong concerns about the interchange.”

But to be fair, there are other costly expressway exit examples, from the Chrysler headquarters to the Great Lakes Crossing at Baldwin. We have a history of funding mistakes.

The bottom line is Michigan can’t afford to keep ignoring the obvious relationship between land use and transportation.

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