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?