The 2009 Greening the Heartland conference wrapped up in Detroit yesterday.

AmericaJR covered the event and recorded Council President Ken Cockrel Jr.’s welcome address. In it, Cockrel highlighted Detroit’s green efforts, including our non-motorized transportation master planning efforts.

Of course we are the Motor City… We want to encourage people to get out of their cars and look at alternative forms of transportation.

Regular readers of m-bike know of Cockrel’s strong support for making Detroit more bike friendly. And clearly that support continues despite his recent mayoral election loss.

Also at the conference was renowned environmental activist David Suzuki. In his keynote speach, he spoke of growing up in nearby Leamington, Ontario and how he enjoyed visits to the Detroit Zoo.

The Detroit Zoo is looking to create a green plan in partnership with Detroit Edison. This plan would likely include improving non-motorized access to the zoo — a topic we’ll soon write about in greater detail.

Despite all the depressing news of late swirling around the city of Detroit, one bright spot remains — the Dequindre Cut.

Let’s start with an excerpt from Jeff Gerritt’s Freep blog:

The cut is one more reason to feel good about Detroit’s future, if we can start looking at things differently. The city’s population is less than half of its 1950s peak, and it continues to lose more than 10,000 people a year. But its land mass streets, sewers, lighting and the like are still spread over the same 140 square miles geared to accommodate a city of nearly 2 million. Roughly a third of the city is now vacant. To survive and thrive, Detroit must creatively downsize. The Dequindre Cut Greenway shows us how.

The Cut was also mentioned during last Sunday’s Blessing of the Bikes ceremony at the Spirit of Hope Church in North Corktown. Here too is an excerpt from the Blessing:

Shower your blessing on cyclists across Detroit, from the Riverfront to Belle Isle, from Rouge Park to the Dequindre Cut, from downtown to Eight Mile, across Michigan, and all around the world. Amen!

And finally, Model D Media published an article highlighting the big ten greenway efforts in Detroit, Highland Park, and Hamtramck.

So despite all the doom and gloom from GM to Chrysler and now to Old Tiger Stadium, we still can celebrate having one of America’s most unique and beautiful urban trails right here at home.

Link: Grafitti art from the Dequindre Cut

Last night the Royal Oak City Commission approved a Request for Proposals (RFP) to solicit proposals which would include a non-motorized transportation master plan. That plan’s creation would eventually be funded through the Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant (EECBG) program — part of the economic stimulus package.

The City of Royal Oak is interested in receiving proposals for technical consultant services to assist the city to develop and/or implement a strategy for… the development of a non-motorized transportation plan to site and install infrastructure such as bicycle routes, lanes, pathways, and signed shared roadways, as well as sidewalks and pedestrian walkways.

UPDATE: “The submission deadline for proposals is Wednesday, June 24, 2009, at 5:00 p.m. For more information, contact Doug Hedges or Joseph Murphy at (248) 246-3280.”?The proposal deadline is June 12th and the city expects to select the winning proposal(s) by sometime around June 25th.

This is a critical first step to improving the quality of travel for those who are providing their own motor.

And it’s great news for anyone who bikes, walks, or runs in Royal Oak.

Link: Royal Oak Request for Proposals

For many years now, there’s been a Critical Mass ride in Detroit. It’s always the last Friday of the month and the start time is somewhere between 5:30pm and 6pm.

The attendance has varied with the weather. Sometimes there are fifty riders. Sometimes its just a handful of the usual suspects.

As always, the ride rightfully starts under the watchful gaze of Mayor Pingree, “the idol of the people,” at Grand Circus Park.

Last fall, a cyclist from Toronto was in Detroit for our ride. He was documenting Critical Mass rides from around the world. He was showing photos of thousands of riders taking over streets of other cities.

Detroit’s ride is not like that. Detroit cyclists are not in a David vs. Goliath battle with cars. Goliath moved to the suburbs years ago, leaving behind a great yet underrated place to ride a bike.

It could be argued that Critical Mass rides should be in the Detroit suburbs since bicycles there are often not considered traffic and the roads are not designed to safety accomodate bicycling. It would certainly raise the visibility of cycling and the lack of cycling-friendliness in these communities.

Of course one difficulty in doing a suburban ride is the lower density. To be effective, it would be a good idea having them centered in suburban downtown areas.

The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) released their 2009 rankings and Michigan fell 3 spots to 15th.

According to Josh DeBruyn, our MDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator, it appears the drop was primarily due to other states improving their scores.

These overall rankings are based on scores in six different areas. Here is how Michigan ranked within those areas:

• Legislative: tie 43rd
• Policies and Programs: tie 7th
• Infrastructure: tie 8th
• Education: tie 9th
• Evaluations: tie 16th
• Enforcement: tie 19th

Obviously Michigan scored most poorly in the legislative area. According to DeBruyn, this is perhaps due to other states having passed Complete Streets Policies; banning cell phones and texting while driving; having 3′ passing laws; and allowing photo enforcement of moving violations.

We did notice the state ranking application asked about mandatory helmet laws. We contacted the LAB and those answers are only for data collection and are not used in the rankings.

Here is the complete state ranking list:

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