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?

The Michigan Safe Routes to School web site has posted information on two new job positions at the Michigan Fitness Foundation (MFF): a new Safe Routes to School Program Director and a part-time Michigan Policy Network Organizer.

The latter position is the result of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership selecting Michigan to participate in the 2011 phase of the State Policy Network Project. According to the web site:

The Michigan Policy Network will work to increase physical activity among all students, leverage additional state resources for Safe Routes to School initiatives, and advocate to remove barriers to walking and bicycling to schools through policy initiatives. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently participate in this project, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The National Center for Bicycling and Walking recently posted a great list of resources compiled by Christopher Douwes from the Federal Highway Administration. If you’re just looking to make your community more bike friendly or more walkable, this is a good place to gain some background.

Included on the lists are some of Douwes’ presentations. His first presentation, Policy, Planning, Programs, and Provisions for Pedal-Power, Pedestrians, and Paths, includes one of our favorite slides:

Don’t Embarrass the Agency or Yourself.

Then it was the DOT traffic engineer’s turn….and I quote: “Since the bicyclists are always in the way of traffic, we need to figure out how to get them off the road.” (or something very close to that :-]). I couldn’t ignore the comment. I tried. Really I did. But I had to share: “Bicyclists and pedestrians are also traffic.” The poor man didn’t say one more word the rest of the meeting.

– A planner from the Heartland

“Get them off the road?” That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The Independent Film Channel (IFC) is debuting a short six-part series called Portlandia next Friday.

Each episode’s character-based shorts draw viewers into “Portlandia,” the creators’ dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon.

Included among the characters is the “militant bike messenger” who’s shown rather humorously in the video snippet below.

Ugh… cars… MAN… WHY???