It seems a lot of Michigan’s local government officials have suddenly discovered the benefits of Complete Streets. In fact twenty-seven communities have passed Complete Streets resolutions or ordinances so far.

Sounds great, right?

Well we’re not celebrating yet.

Certainly there are many communities that have gone the extra step to pass a binding ordinance or have developed non-motorized master plans. We’re not so concerned about them.

What concerns us are those communities passing resolutions that have no history of building Complete Streets. Did they suddenly realize that pedestrians and bicyclists should have safe transportation options? Are they not reading the newspapers about pedestrians and cyclist getting hit? Did their 1999 AASHTO bicycle design guidelines just arrive in the mail?

And, there are some communities with resolutions  that had opportunities to build Complete Streets and chose not to. In fact one Complete Street community very recently removed a series of pedestrian crosswalks in order to speed up car travel — including a crosswalk between the senior center and some stores/bank.

Setting the bar

Many Metro Detroit communities we’ve met think they’re already real walkable and bike friendly. Too often this is not based in reality. Perhaps this is because so many area communities haven’t done anything. The bar has been set so low that a pedestrian countdown timer is considered a home run.

The truth is the bar for Complete Streets isn’t being set in Metro Detroit. It’s being set in cities like New York, Vancouver, and in Europe.  And later this year, maybe we can add Detroit to the list — a city starting to build Complete Streets with neither a resolution or ordinance.

So, at least around Metro Detroit area , Complete Streets is bringing out many good intentions.

It remains to be seen if those lead to good implementations. We’ll definitely celebrate those.

Google Bike Directions

If you use Google Maps to get a bike route between Detroit and Windsor, it will give you directions to use the Tunnel. Of course the Tunnel is not open to cyclists so we alerted Google and they are in the process of correcting that.

Southwest Detroit

We recently heard from the Southwest Detroit Business Association (SDBA) that construction on the Corktown/Mexicantown/West Vernor Greenlinks are on schedule and are close to moving to bid. “Construction is still scheduled for this spring/summer.”

Also on the Southwest side of Detroit, Model D is reporting on a planned Beard Park expansion led by the Urban Neighborhood Initiative (UNI). The plans call for a pump track. We helped connect Miss Cory Coffey — a BMX World Champion now living in Detroit — with this project. Beard Park is located north of W. Fort Street and a couple blocks east of Woodmere.

Detroit to Muskegon bike route

The League of Michigan Bicyclists has compiled input from cyclists to create a bicycle route from Detroit to Musekgon. The PDF route is on-line and it is very large at 27 megabytes.

RiverWalk’s Faye Nelson

Detroit Riverfront Conservancy President Faye Nelson received the 24th Soul and Spirit Humanitarian Award from Judge Damon Keith. Nelson also recently recognized by Grio as a History Maker in the Making for her RiverWalk efforts. “Nelson’s work has brought over $100 million to the area and renewed interest in the once-struggling neighborhood, becoming not just a beautification project, but a rallying point for the community.”

Reimagining Livernois

A Free Press editorial discusses the planning efforts to revitalize Livernois Avenue in Northwest Detroit.

Urban Land Institute’s Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use gathered in northwest Detroit. The urban planners, developers, city managers and architects spent four days generating ideas to turn the Livernois corridor — from 6 Mile to St. Martins, north of 7 Mile — into a thriving urban main street that could meet the retail and entertainment needs of one of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods. Similar Urban Land Institute efforts will take place this year in Charlotte, Sacramento and Houston.

One of the group’s conclusions is to make the street more bike friendly with traffic calming and bike paths. The relatively new boulevard, while improving pedestrian and vehicle safety, does limit the options for on-road bike facilities. There may not be enough room for bike lanes. Sharrows would be an alternative. And while sharrows may not make the road comfortable for less experienced cyclists, it should be possible to make the parallel residential streets more bike friendly.

Ordonez bikes

As many Red Wings have done, Detroit Tiger Magglio Ordonez now includes biking, including mountain biking in his training regimen.

[Alex] Avila noted how Ordonez would occasionally be a few minutes late for the workouts, only to have a pretty good excuse.

“We’d say, ‘Where have you been,'” Avila said. “‘Oh, I was riding my bike 15 miles.'”

Ordonez’s workout regimen drew attention last year, when his program was compared to that of a football player. But he also got into bicycle riding, especially mountain bikes.

It looks like the Tigers are at home for the 2011 Tour de Troit weekend… You in, Maggio?

Despite the recent buzz about Governor Rick Snyder’s new state budget, it probably won’t greatly affect bike projects in Michigan. In Michigan, bike infrastructure funding mostly comes through the state law (called Act 51) and the federal transportation bill. It is the latter that caused more concern this week.

On Sunday night, we received the following heads-up from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy:

Though we do not know details yet, we anticipate a congressional amendment that could do away with or hobble programs like Transportation Enhancements (the nation’s largest funding source for trails, walking and bicycling), Recreational Trails Program and Safe Routes to School. Therefore, we are working with many other organizations to defeat such a damaging amendment.

Transportation Enhancements are perhaps the number one source of on-road and trail infrastructure funding. (The Recreation Trails Program funds trails, but in Michigan, it is focused nearly exclusively on DNR trails, including a mix of motorized and non-motorized.)

So it was welcoming news to read today that those cuts did not happen. Again, from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy:

This is a heartening development, as our programs have been fiercely targeted in the past and many worthy programs are on the chopping block. We believe these programs were spared because of the groundwork you helped to lay over the past years to foster appreciation of trail, walking and bicycling investments. Thank you so much for your strong trail and active transportation advocacy!

The TIGER, Community Development Block grant, and Americorp programs are still at risk in House. Those funds could also pay for trails and trail workers.

Meanwhile the Whitehouse has released their proposed budget with a fact sheet specific to transportation. Perhaps of most interest to cyclists is the discussion on livability and sustainability.

Helps Communities to Become More Livable and Sustainable. Fostering livable communities—places where coordinated transportation, housing, and commercial development gives people access to affordable and environmentally sustainable transportation—is a transformational policy shift.  The Administration’s reauthorization proposal adopts a multi-pronged approach to help communities achieve this goal.  For example, in the Federal Highway Administration, the Administration proposes a new livability grant program ($4.1 billion in 2012 and $28 billion over six years) for projects like multi-modal transportation hubs (where different forms of transportation converge) and streets that accommodate pedestrian, bicycle, and transit access.  The proposal also seeks to harmonize State and local planning requirements and facilitate more cooperation—and includes competitive grant funding ($200 million in 2012 and $1.2 billion over six years) to improve those entities’ ability to deliver sound, data-driven, and collaboratively-developed transportation plans.  The Budget also includes $119 billion for transit programs over six-years, more than doubling the commitment to transit in the prior reauthorization for both existing capacity and capacity expansion.  This unprecedented increase for buses, subways, and other systems of public transportation will help improve and expand travel options and help make our communities more livable.

If the Whitehouse could get this livability grant program through Congress, there is little doubt Detroit has a number of planning efforts that could take advantage of it.

From the DLGI flyer:

Downriver Linked Greenways Reunion: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

Tuesday February 22, 2011 from 3-7 p.m.

Flat Rock Community Center,  One Maguire Street, Flat Rock, MI 48134

Come help us celebrate our successes, share your stories, visit our  mini-expo highlighting local businesses and hear what’s in store for the future of the Downriver Linked Greenways.

The Downriver Linked Greenways Initiative is a regional non-motorized pathway vision for the Downriver region of Southeast Michigan.

Contact Anita Twardesky for info at 734-626-5465 or anita@riversidekayak.com

Last week’s Metro Times includes an article (not be safe for work) on the return of the Bike Porn festival to the Burton Theatre in Detroit at 8 PM on March 16th.

Is this the result of a growing international bicycle culture or is it just contrived as the trailer seems to us? Not sure.

Anyway, it’s returning to Detroit, which may at least be a nod to our city’s bicycling rebirth.