Here are some photos from Sunday which show greenways under construction (in all senses) throughout Detroit.
There are three bike-to-work rides scheduled for this Friday in Detroit
All of the ride information, including the stops along each route, are included on the Detroit Synergy web site.
Information on volunteering for this event is also on the web site.
There’s are also bike-to-work events scheduled across Michigan. The Michigan Municipal League’s Let’s Save Michigan site has a good listing of those rides. You can also sign their pledge, though it’s unclear just what that does for you.
And, this Saturday is a Henry Ford bike to work day. As you may know, Ford was an active cyclist. In fact, he was the first bicyclist in Detroit to Share the Road with a motorist — Charles B. King. He often rode his bike to work as his house in the Boston-Edison neighborhood was conveniently located near both his Highland Park and Piquette factories.
This Saturday ride — as the flyer wisely notes was a work day back then — starts from Ford’s house and ends at the Piquette plant where the Model T was invented.
Additional details on the temporary closing of the Dequindre Cut were in a recent Free Press article. The closure is on the RiverWalk end of the trail.
Work on bridge overpasses at Larned and Lafayette that run over the Cut are forcing the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy to close the Cut from Lafayette south to Woodbridge until approximately September, when the projects finish. However, the southern end of the Cut will reopen on weekends except when the overhead construction work would make it dangerous, the conservancy said today.
The Cut will remain open from Lafayette north to Gratiot all summer.
Construction has begun on the new St. Aubin bike lanes between Jefferson Avenue and Mack Avenue. It is hoped that by the end of this summer, construction will begin on bike lanes on nearby Clairpointe from Jefferson to Maheras Gentry Park (on the Detroit River.) And, Wayne County has just submitted an MDOT grant application to build an off-road trail and bike lanes from Mt. Olivet Cemetery to Eight Mile Road.
All three segments are part of the Conner Creek Greenway, which will eventually be nine-miles long from the River to Warren along Detroit’s east side.
Center for Creative Studies' uncreative bike rack at the Taubman Center. Nudge, nudge.
The Wheelhouse Detroit blog has an excellent discussion of bicycle parking and racks.
As Detroit becomes more bike friendly, more and more businesses and institutions are installing bike racks — which is great, no doubt about it. What is frustrating, though, is to see funds and good intent wasted when, simply put, the bike rack is not functional. This occurs when the rack is poorly designed or poorly placed.
This is perfect timing as the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals released a second edition of their Bicycle Parking Guidelines. Their first edition is available on-line, but this second edition adds:
One issue is funding. Cities like Chicago rely on Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funding for much of their bike parking. SEMCOG’s CMAQ funding formula does not give the same priority to our non-motorized projects — something groups like MTGA want to change.
It also seems that once we find a funding mechanism, we can spur green job creation by having local steel workers creating bicycle racks. Why would a underemployed manufacturing city import these simple metal structures? We should be exporting bicycle racks.
Yesterday evening, a Detroit cyclist was critically injured when hit by a driver.
Detroit Police have a 25-year-old man in custody who they believe is responsible for a hit-and-run accident that critically injured a bicyclist on the city’s west side Monday night.
The 44-year-old cyclist was hit at about 7:30 p.m. as he rode his bike on McGraw and West Grand Boulevard, ending up stuck in the windshield of the car, Detroit Police spokesman John Roach said today.
“The driver allegedly stopped the car, removed the victim from the vehicle and then sped off,” Roach said, adding that investigators believe alcohol played a part in the crash. The victim remains in critical condition today in an area hospital, he said.
ClickonDetroit also reports that according to police, “the driver took the license plates off the vehicle before driving away from the accident scene.”
ClickonDetroit has a video report as well.