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

Troy, the “City of Tomorrow… Today” has been in the news lately with their recent rejection of federal funding for a transit station.

Now Brian Dickerson’s Free Press column, “In Troy, an all-too-familiar fear of the other” drops an H-bomb by calling them “hicks.”

To be a hick in 2011, then, is to be in a state of denial — which is why “hicks” is precisely the right word to describe Troy Mayor Janice Daniels and the like-minded elected city leaders who’ve sent Troy reeling backward in time, grasping for a past that is not so much racist or unsophisticated as it is, well, past.

But their real motive was transparent: the fear that outsiders currently disinclined to visit Troy may do so if enticed by a modern train station and convenient parking, at an incalculable cost to Troy taxpayers and their way of life.

This reminds us of a speech given by Horatio Earle in the late 1890s. Earle led the Good Roads committee for the League of Michigan Wheelmen — the state’s cycling body. He was in Troy to promote government investments in building good roads.

From his autobiography:

One night in Troy Township Hall, in Oakland County, where I was holding a meeting, it almost became a riot. I told them that they showed lack of intelligence, and gave me less consideration than would be shown a man in the center of Ethiopia; that some time they would be ashamed of themselves. And they have been; since then, they have made profuse apology.

The farmers said the muddy roads were good enough for them. They felt they were taxed enough already and they didn’t want city folks, especially bicyclists riding through their community.

Sound similar?

Now to be fair to Troy, Earle garnered the same negative reaction in nearby Royal Oak.

Then again, it’s likely that federal funding to improve the Royal Oak transit station would be greeted with celebration rather than controversy.

We should also mention again that Troy also created a citywide plan for non-motorized paths and Good Roads, now called Complete Streets. That plan also appears to be going nowhere.

[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.

Three is a charm for the Commerce, Walled Lake and Wixom rail-trail.

After two previous rejections, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund recommended they receive a $3,755,400 grant to acquire the now-abandoned rail corridor which runs between the West Bloomfield Trail and the Huron Valley Trail in Wixom.

This near 33 acres provides a critical connection between the two trails mentions, but especially in the context of the Great Lake to Lake Trail which connects St. Clair to Lake Michigan. This new trail would also connect with the planned M-5 Trail which is a northern?extension?to the I-275 Metro Trail.

The funding also includes acquisition of the?Walled Lake Train Depot which would be used as a historic stopping point along the route.

Other projects in Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties were recommended:

• City of Dearborn (Wayne County) is recommended to receive $268,900 to develop a new bridge across the Huron River on the Camp Dearborn non-motorized trail with a fishing pier and canoe launch.
• City of Detroit (Wayne County) is recommended to receive $300,000 for improvements to Jayne-Lasky Playfield, including development of walking trails, relocation of a soccer field, renovations to two softball diamonds, landscaping improvements and site amenities.
• City of Detroit (Wayne County) is recommended to receive $300,000 for improvements to Lipke Playfield, including relocation of a football field, conversion of open space, horseshoe courts, renovation of a softball diamond, walking trails, landscaping and site amenities.
• Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority (Oakland County) is recommended to receive $94,000 for improvements to Kensington Metropark to include a pond overlook, replace a seawall, walks and railing, group seating area, interpretive signage, viewing scopes and accessibility to pond dipping programs.
• City of Inkster (Wayne County) is recommended to receive $300,000 to construct a trail within the Lower Rouge Parkway System.
• City of Lathrup Village (Oakland County) is recommended to receive $50,000 to replace playground equipment at Goldengate Park.
• Oakland Township (Oakland County) is recommended to receive $300,000 to develop a paved trail, boardwalks, pedestrian bridges, interpretive/directional signage and fishing access on the Paint Creek Trail/Polly Ann Trail south connector.
• Southeast Michigan Eco-Region Consolidation is recommended to receive $1,475,000 for the acquisition of critical in-holdings within existing boundaries in state parks and recreation areas, state game areas, state harbors and Natural Rivers areas.

University of Michigan professor and Brookings Institute fellow Chris Leinberger wrote an interesting op-ed in the New York Times, The Death of the Fringe Suburb.

The article reiterates much of Leinberger’s presentation given earlier this year at CCS in Detroit. In summary, there is “great pent-up demand for walkable, centrally located neighborhoods” rather than sprawling outer suburbs.

Given this demand, he calls for increased investment in cities and its surrounding, older suburbs.

The cities and inner-ring suburbs that will be the foundation of the recovery require significant investment at a time of government retrenchment. Bus and light-rail systems, bike lanes and pedestrian improvements — what traffic engineers dismissively call “alternative transportation” — are vital. So is the repair of infrastructure like roads and bridges. Places as diverse as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Charlotte, Denver and Washington have recently voted to pay for “alternative transportation,” mindful of the dividends to be reaped. As Congress works to reauthorize highway and transit legislation, it must give metropolitan areas greater flexibility for financing transportation, rather than mandating that the vast bulk of the money can be used only for roads.

Lisa Rayle of Data Driven Detroit (D3) wrote this great companion piece that estimates Metro Detroit’s potential walkability based on street patterns. Basically, more dense American street grids promote walkability, while sprawling, cul-de-sac designs do not. It’s something we covered some time ago since street patterns also affect bike friendliness.

D3 analyzed block sizes in Metro Detroit to evaluate street patterns and therefore potential walkability — and created a map.

The map shows average block sizes in the Detroit region. Blue indicates a walkable street grid, or something close to it. Yellow indicates streets too far apart to be walkable. (Because this map is based on Census TIGER files, not street data, it is only an approximate estimate of block size.)

Block size is not all that matters. To be walkable, neighborhoods need destinations (schools, grocery stores, jobs) within walking distance. They need a certain density (usually at least 20-25 dwelling units per acre). They need to be safe, with good sidewalks, lighting, and protection from traffic. The above map does not include any of these factors. But the map does indicate, approximately, which areas have the underlying structure for walkability, upon which more convenient destinations and a better walking environment might be built.

Rayle’s last point is important. Block size determines potential walkability. Your destinations still need to be within walking distance. A quick review of the Michigan city walkability scores brings home the reality that we have much room for improvement.

And finally, it’s no surprise that this map aligns with what we wrote late last month about the varying bike-friendliness of Metro Detroit (Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.) Bike-friendliness and walkability are closely related.

UPDATE: Rayle also wrote this interesting look at how the street grid (and walkability) in Downtown Detroit has degraded over time.