Al Fields (DTE) and Greg Johnson (MDOT)

Many years ago we often heard cyclists level complaints against MDOT for the lack of safe road accomodations in Metro Detroit. At the time, they were right, that is until Greg Johnson became head of the MDOT Metro Region.

Greg went on to create an MDOT Metro Region Non-Motorized Committee. It was at an early meeting that he mentioned the need for our road networks to let cyclists get where they need to go anywhere within the Metro Region (Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and St. Clair counties.)

Perhaps the biggest change Greg made was having MDOT take back responsibility for the I-275 bike path. After languishing without maintenance for 30 years, the bike path is getting repaired section by section. Money was spent to develop a plan on how to repair it, re-open the connection to Monroe County, and properly maintain it. Money is allocated to extend it north to Pontiac Trail.

Another huge change that is a little less evident is the MDOT Metro region’s trail bridge policy. When trails needed to build bridges over MDOT roads, there was always the question of who would maintain the bridge. Local governments often lacked the resources to even handle the inspections. Greg set the region policy where MDOT took responsibility for these bridges. This certainly helped trail bridge projects like the new Macomb Orchard Trail’s over M-53 and planned bridges like the Clinton River Trail’s over Telegraph.

And we can’t forget MDOT’s committment to bike lanes on future road projects involving Michigan Avenue and Fort Street in Detroit. Greg played a big role in making those happen.

And one final positive change. The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy received a $29 million earmark from Senator Carl Levin. Since earmarks require recipients to jump to additional (and often unfamiliar) hoops, Greg committed MDOT to designing and managing the construction of new Riverwalk segments.

So even though Greg is leaving the top position at MDOT’s Metro Region, he’s not leaving MDOT. He’s moving up. Greg has accepted the position of MDOT Chief Operations Officer. And while he expects to maintain his interest in many of the projects listed above, he also hopes to spread the Metro Region’s non-motorized transportation message at the higher levels in Lansing.

Best of luck to you Greg!

We previously discussed the plans for the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) bridge and whether it will accommodate bicycling.

Yesterday, the Federal Highway Administration made the following announcement:

Plans to build a second border crossing between Michigan and Ontario have received the necessary environmental approvals from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The “record of decision” (ROD), signed today by U.S. officials, represents the Detroit River International Crossing’s (DRIC) final environmental clearance and allows Michigan to begin right-of-way acquisition and construction planning for the bridge.

If completed, the project – including a plaza where tolls and U.S. border inspection activities will occur, and an interchange connecting it to I-75 – would span nearly seven miles. Under current estimates, the new crossing is expected to be open to traffic in 2013.

Prior to this announcement, MTGA and other groups (including the Detroit Mayor’s Office of Energy and Sustainability) submitted comments that encouraged biking and walking on the bridge.

These comments generally asked:

• How does this project positively impact Detroit greenways and the City’s non-motorized plan?
• How does the bridge accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians?

MTGA comments noted that not all of the greenways in the DRIC’s vicinity were included, nor was there any mention of Detroit’s non-motorized plan.  MDOT said they “will investigate ways to integrate these projects.”

MTGA also asked for clarification on how bicycle would be routed on the bridge.  (There is a sidewalk planned for pedestrians.)  MDOT  responded:

The accommodation for bicycles on the new river bridge is likely to be the right shoulder. When exiting the bridge, a bicyclist would remain to the right of traffic and proceed to a separate building near the primary processing booths for vehicles. After processing, there would be an exit to Jefferson Avenue. All of this is subject to the determination of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its Canadian counterpart to allow bicycle use of the new Detroit River bridge.

That last statement could be a deal killer, though it’s difficult to imagine how a bicycle could be any more of a threat than a car or truck.

Still,  it may make sense to involve folks like Senator Carl Levin early on.  Senator Levin has been a major supporter of the Detroit Riverwalk and there’s every reason to believe he would go to bat for allowing bicycling across the bridge.

An improvised bike rack in the New Center

The Detroit Free Press has a brief article noting the new bike racks and other streetscaping that’s coming to New Center.

Woodward will see new trees, decorative light fixtures, trash containers, benches and bike racks between I-94 and Baltimore and between West Grand Boulevard and Euclid. The Michigan Department of Transportation is partnering with the city of Detroit and the New Center Council on the nearly $2-million project, aimed at making the area more pedestrian-oriented.

These racks will certainly complement SMART’s bus bike racks and DDOT’s new bus bike rack program.  Woodward is the busiest bus transit corridor in Michigan.

Bikes are not allowed on the Ambassador Bridge or in the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.  They certainly aren’t allowed on the railroad tunnel beneath the Detroit River.

If you’re lucky, you might be able to talk the Truck Ferry operator into a ride.

Or you can take the Windsor Transit Tunnel Bus.  But, unlike all the other buses in the Windsor fleet, you aren’t allowed to use the bus bike rack.  You must disassemble your bike, put it in a bag, and carry it on the bus — not a practical solution.

Groups like Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision (SDEV) and MTGA are working to add a better option with the proposed new bridge over the Detroit River.  (The bridge is more properly called the Detroit River International Crossing or DRIC.)

The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) says:

The new bridge over the Detroit River and the plaza will be engineered to accommodate bicycles and pedestrians. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and its Canadian counterpart (Customs and Border Services Agency) will determine whether this traffic is allowed.

That’s a great start.  MTGA and others have submitted comments in support of making the new bridge a practical non-motorized connection between Windsor and Detroit.

Imagine the boost to cycling tourism.  Imagine how valuable an international connection would be between two cities both developing bike and greenway networks.  Imagine the Tour d’Troit heading over to Windsor on a new bridge.

The FEIS also includes more good news:

Bike lanes will be added to both sides of Jefferson Avenue and Clark Street, linking the Rouge River Gateway Master Plan Trail and potentially the proposed West Riverfront Greenway. Non-motorized paths will be included in the buffer zone surrounding the plaza.

Some of our friends in Windsor are also pushing for this crossing as well.

In the meantime, efforts are underway to determine if and how the Transit Windsor Tunnel Bus could better accomodate bikes.

EDIT: There is a Yahoo! discussion group dedicated to this topic.

There’s been a big push by many groups to get Green projects in the Obama economic stimulus package.  We’ve already mentioned the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s push.  The DNR Parks division has submitted about a quarter-million in infrastructure projects.  The Detroit Greenways Coalition has their trails submitted as well.

That’s all the good news.

The fear however is this stimulus package will also fund a significant amount of road expansion.

From Bloomberg.com:

While many states are keeping their project lists secret, plans that have surfaced show why environmentalists and some development experts say much of the stimulus spending may promote urban sprawl while scrimping on more green-friendly rail and mass transit.

“It’s a lot of more of the same,” said Robert Puentes, a metropolitan growth and development expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington who is tracking the legislation. “You build a lot of new highways, continue to decentralize” urban and suburban communities and “pull resources away from transit.”

And decentralizing/sprawl also hurts bikability and walkability.

Some local concerns involve planned expressway expansion, notably I-75 in Oakland County and I-94 in Detroit.  Neither project made financial sense long before the recent declines in vehicle miles traveled.  Now they make less sense.

And they’re certainly not green, but they might get in the stimulus package.

The I-94 project is especially bad in that it would remove nine bridges over the expressways — permanently blocking bicycle routes within Detroit’s non-motorized transportation master plan.

And because the highway expansion was planned before the non-motorized plan, MDOT is ignoring the latter.  However, reading their Final Environmental Impact Statement only shows that MDOT wasn’t going to let non-motorized priorities get in the way of an expressway expansion.

That said, there’s not too much we can do until MDOT’s economic stimulus list becomes public and we see what’s on the list.