Discuss Detroit » Active Archive » Which e-way did the most damage, least? « Previous Next »
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Detroits_own
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Post Number: 52
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 5:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What's your opinion on the most damaging freeway, least damaging? Which freeway do you think may have actually been good for the city, if there is such a thing.
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Detroitnerd
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Post Number: 862
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 5:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Edsel Ford and Lodge. Edsel ford because of the crosstown devastation, and the Lodge because it tore up downtown's last graceful vestiges of the 19th century and replaced it with a speedway and the Jeffries Projects.
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Jams
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 5:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'd vote for I-75/375.

As well as tearing the heart out of the Hastings Street business community, it created a divide in the SW community that has never been overcome.
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Bob
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 5:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I-375 due to Hastings Street being destroyed.
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Ddaydave
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 5:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Didn`t Detroit lose its china town to the Lodge ??? I believe It was on forth street ..
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 5:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I-75 is a good choice, although I realize I thought of the devastation being spread over three freeways, Chrysler, Fisher and I-375.
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Mikeg
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 6:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Just imagine what would have happened if the Federal highway planners of the 1950's and 60's decided that their policy would be to only fund and build the Interstate highway system on routes outside the city limits of major cities. Politicians would have been in an uproar over having their cities by-passed in favor of more rural areas on their outskirts (everyone still remembered what happened to those towns on the Great Plains that were bypassed by the railroads less than 100 years earlier). Residents and commuters would have complained that such freeways funnelled heavy inter-city truck traffic into and out of the city on specific arterial surface streets instead of having them spread around as in the old days. New industries would have located on the outskirts of the city anyway, just to be closer to the limited access highway network.

Like it or not, the Interstate system or a similar national network of privately funded toll roads would have been eventually built. Instead of bemoaning the past, we ought to be focused on what needs to be done to improve the hand we have been dealt.
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Bulletmagnet
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 6:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I still remember all the noise over the construction of I 696 as if it were yesterday It seem like the later these expressways went in, the more consternation it caused. I think I -75 is still the worst, because it gave such easy access to the north country for city dwellers needing room. Now it seems you can drive forever and never leave the city. It’s like a 200 mile traffic jam on the week ends. The Lodge is the best because it just gets you cross town in a hurry. But it doesn’t get you out of town fast enough.
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Jams
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 6:49 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mikeg,
Excellent point.

This thread brings back a conversation with a co-worker this week about a route from Downtown to NW Detroit. He was horrified by the route I drew out for him using surface streets rather than the freeways, despite the congestion he would deal with at that time of day.
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Dustin89
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 8:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm in High School and as a result can't remember the construction of I-696. Was there a focal point/area for opposition to I-696? It seems like there must have been some heavy community opposition in the Woodward/I-696 area, what with Pleasant Ridge neighborhoods and the zoo being so close.
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Mikeg
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 8:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My uncle was the Water Dept Superintendant for one of the Macomb County suburbs along the I-696 projected routes. It was around 1959 when he brought the alignment drawings for the proposed routes over to our house, since one of them could have taken our house. Ultimately, the Macomb County route chosen avoided our home, but it would be twenty more years before it would open for traffic and thirty years total before the entire freeway was complete.

The primary concerns that delayed the project involved the Pleasant Ridge/Zoo issues and the need for Jews to be able to walk to their Synagogues in Oak Park on the Sabbath.
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Vic_doucette
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 8:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

And the other odd thing about I-696: Where else would they build the two ends of the freeway first, then spend about 20 years in court fights over where to put the middle?

When all was said and done, I could throw a rock from my Mom's back yard to I-696. And I was working three part time jobs and living there at the time. The noise and my odd hours sure made it hard to sleep in those days.
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Lmichigan
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 8:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mikeg, you can't deny, though, that downtown's don't need to be circled in freeways. And not just that, Detroit was a playground for this experiment. There are quite a few major cities thoroughly served and serviced by interstate freeways that don't rape their inner-city areas in the way Detroit's freeways did.

For me and quite a few others, this has never been an argument of freeways vs. no freeways, it's been on of haphazardly planned freeways tearing apart the fabric of historic inner cities vs. well-planned interstate freeways that effectively service a city without tearing through its inner city neighborhoods. There are quite a few freeway spurs into inner-city Detroit that weren't needed then, and not needed now, especially.
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Ray1936
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 9:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Interestingly, the Southfield Freeway (M-39) didn't hardly require the demolition of one single building, at least in the Detroit section. Before the freeway was built, Southfield was a divided roadway not unlike Telegraph Road, if a bit narrower.

The section between 7 mile and 8 mile was not divided. Heading northbound at 7 mile, the divided roadway merged into one four-lane roadway in the center. I can't recall what it was like north of 8 mile road, though.
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Detroitplanner
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 9:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I-96 really did a number on lots of neighborhoods, and cut off houses from businesses and the bus lines along Grand River.
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Burnsie
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 10:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The section of I-96 with the "Local" and "Express" lanes is especially obscene in its use of land and gigantic swath cut through the neighborhood. On the other hand, except during some rush hours you can sure move along fast! So goes the love/hate relationship we have with freeways.

A section of freeway that caused a "least worse" amount of damage might be the part of the Lodge that was originally the James Couzens Highway. It was divided highway with median big enough that the businesses on both sides were preserved during freeway construction.
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Japes
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 10:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

275 and 696 did the most damage in the past 20 years, they are suburb freeways; allow you to miss the whole city.

The Lodge also did a lot of damage in both what was torn down, and that it was one of the first commuter freeways people could live in the suburbs and commute to the city.

So many freeways around Detroit were never finished, M-10, M-39, M-8, M-59, M-53, 275.
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Mikeg
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 10:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Below are same-scale maps of Detroit's city center, along with those of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Houston. These cities all have at least two separate expressways servicing their downtown area.
Perhaps Lmichigan can explain how their interstate freeways effectively serviced these other cities without tearing through their inner city neighborhoods?
What better alternatives could have been suggested for Detroit? The "encircling" effect could have been reduced if I-75 could have instead followed Fort St. and Jefferson to where I-375 terminates today, but the presence of the railroad yards and Civic Center would have required an ugly and/or expensive alignment along the riverfront. Alternatively, it could have shared the I-96 and I-94 roadway from Michigan Ave. to the current I-75/I-94 interchange, but then there would have been only one expressway route servicing downtown.

Detroit


Pittsburgh


St. Louis


Cincinnati


Houston
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Cambrian
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 10:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't understand why Freeways need to be wide open trenches that gobble up millions of acres. Why couldn't they be underground tunnels? Sure I can see for safety's sake you'd have openings every quarter a mile or so to act as escape routes for fires. But that would have been so much better for Detroit had these e-ways been burrowed under.
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Fareastsider
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 10:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

There are some plans like that I have in a book cambrian for Detroit. I have to ask though "What about the cost?" impossible. Big Dig.....
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Gistok
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 11:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Well the original question is a no brainer... the answer is I-96. It is double the width of the other freeway (except maybe I-75). They took out a huge swath of west side Detroit to build it.

The Freeway that is most beneficial IMHO is I-94. I also think that I-94 is more integrated into the fabric of the city on the east side than the west side because it follows the contour of Harper Ave. During much of the way there are service drives that connect the freeway on & off ramps easily with the Harper Ave. business district. I-94 on the west side dumps you into neighborhoods, with fewer service drive options.

Another reason I picked I-94 is because east/west traffic thru Detroit is rather poorly developed, especially east of Woodward. There's no east/west cross town roadway from I-94 up to 6 Mile going thru the middle of Detroit (even the Davison Fwy takes you up to 6 Mile), and even 6 Mile is closed near City Airport requiring a drive up to 7 Mile. That distance is about a 4 or 5 mile wide gap that really isolates parts of the city from each other. I-94 funnels a lot of that cross town traffic.

6 Mile = McNichols Ave.

(Message edited by Gistok on April 29, 2007)
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Peter
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Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 11:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Cambrian- the property values in the city have never been high enough for it to make sense to build the express-ways underground. Here in Boston the big-dig initially made sense, and had they been able to accomplish their goal on time, on budget, and properly it would be a great project. The world of real-estate is far different here and in other major cities than that of Detroit. For example an apartment in Detroit that might cost between 500-700 a month would probably be around 1500-2000 a month.
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Detroit313
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 12:08 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

^^^not on budget^^^

I think the Jefferies, and Ford should've went underground between the Lodge and Fisher. And no freeway should go south of the Fisher into downtown. The worst damage.......all of the above!!!313
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Huggybear
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 4:37 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Far and away, I-96. Biggest geographically, most expensive to maintain - and most destructive to a functioning commercial corridor. We moved here in 1977, when they were finishing it. When it opened, you could watch, on what almost seemed like a daily basis, the rapid deterioration of businesses and property along Grand River Avenue.

[Grand River was a 3+1+3 road with long lights and a left turn lane that turned into a directional express lane during rush hour. It had a ton of traffic but seemed capable of handling it - although people had a tendency to use my street as a bypass].

Although people get riled up about 75/375 (Vernor Highway and Hastings), destroying Grand River was a much bigger feat - on the same level as destroying Woodward Ave. The real tragedy about 96 is that it looks like the express lanes primarily existed to serve a Chrysler headquarters that went away. Or to serve a Davison that never reached its natural conclusion on the east side.
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Danindc
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 10:11 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Cambrian- the property values in the city have never been high enough for it to make sense to build the express-ways underground. Here in Boston the big-dig initially made sense, and had they been able to accomplish their goal on time, on budget, and properly it would be a great project. The world of real-estate is far different here and in other major cities than that of Detroit. For example an apartment in Detroit that might cost between 500-700 a month would probably be around 1500-2000 a month.



The property values were and are irrelevant to the Big Dig Project, as very little of the land formerly occupied by the Central Artery is slated for development. The impetus was two-fold: improve traffic flow on the Central Artery, and eliminate a deteriorated, expensive-to-maintain structure. Secondary motivations were to reconnect the North End to the downtown and improve access to Logan Airport. There was never a justification to develop the land and use the proceeds to finance the tunneling project.

Public sector infrastructure projects aren't sensitive to land values like private sector building development is. Freeways could be tunnels in Detroit (and elsewhere) if the State of Michigan could come up with its share of money.
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56packman
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 10:22 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Do a a little reading re: Robert Moses and the placement of expressways in the metropolitan New York (Manhattan and the five burroughs.
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Hornwrecker
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 10:38 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Detroit Expressway Planning circa 1945
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 11:09 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

We are so lucky that federal highway planners of the 1950s and 1960s decided to fund and build the Interstate highway system routes inside the city limits of major cities. It's a good thing. There were those who said we shouldn't, that running freeways through our inner cities would result in desolation, architectural ugliness, and the flight of working people from our cities. Nonsense! We are lucky that freeways chopped their way through the delicate urban fabric, or else we never would have all the benefits they have brought us. Politicians were in an uproar over the idea that rural areas on their outskirts should have access to other cities and not their own. New industries would have located on the outskirts of the city, just to be closer to the limited access highway network.

Luckily, however, we built our freeways into the inner city. And look at what wonders it has brought! A higher standard of living! Increased real estate values! A better school system! A truly united region of people who feel comfortable with each other, regardless of creed or race.

Thanks, o clairvoyant highway transportation planners of the 1950s and 1960s. Thy work here is done.
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Danindc
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 11:21 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

^^^Actually, from what I've read, the federal highway planners never intended the Interstates to enter into central cities, knowing what the consequences would be. Recall that the Interstate highway system was designed by each state, so in this case, the State of Michigan would be at fault.

Regardless, it was the local governments who petitioned and lobbied to get the interstates extended into downtowns. I'll try to find a source for this.
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 11:29 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

There's a good story about that in ASPHALT NATION, where Eisenhower is trapped outside of some corn belt city and is stunned to learn only then that they're building expressways into the central cities.
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Iheartthed
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 11:42 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Is it just a coincidence (or ironic rather) that the most healthy of the older cities today was the ones who successfully fought having their central city carved out by expressways?
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Danindc
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 11:51 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

^^^Not coincidental so much as the result of deliberate planning.

Here's an introduction on the development of urban highways in the U.S. Really interesting comparison between the British and American mindsets in approaching the same problem:

quote:

The highway system that the government-industry partnership built was, to a unique degree, urban. In other countries with extensive highway networks in the late 1950s--Great Britain, West Germany, France and Italy--the roads avoided urban centers. American roads steered for them. The difference stemmed from the unique degree of private participation in U.S. transportation policymaking, and a federal policy that treated all transportation problems as matters for highway engineers to solve.22.

Industry, not government, took the initiative in proposing that highways go downtown. Eisenhower's coalition was composed of industries "associated with the highway problem" and "interested in highway development," in the words of the Clay Committee report. Although the Clay Committee conferred with the American Railway Association in drafting its report, this group was the only one of twenty-two trade organizations consulted which had an interest in rail transport. Fourteen of the groups consulted were expressly concerned with roads.23. But these industries were not simply developing a highway policy. They were in fact drafting a national transportation policy.



http://etext.virginia.edu/jour nals/EH/EH38/Norton.html
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Ptpelee
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 12:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Building the Lodge must have displaced many people. My Grandfather said that Hamilton Ave. was lined with apartment houses. Just before demolition the city fenced them off and for a small fee you could go in and take material out of them. He built our cottage in Ontario with the doors, windows and plumbing out of these buildings. High quality material too, most of it is still in place!
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Mackinaw
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 12:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The construction of I-75/375 (south of 94) and the slum removal which resulted in low density housing east of downtown to Mt. Elliot completely transformed the city and raped us of more urban fabric than anything else.

If we are looking at roads alone, then the Jeffries itself ate up more neighborhoods than any other freeway. It's just so huge. On the other hand, there's the Ford freeway from the eastside, which disrupts the neighborhoods over there very little, as Gistok mentioned.

I-75 still remains the biggest crime. Instead of a downtown buttressed by neighborhoods, neighborhoods which would be prime for redevelopment now, we have a downtown surrounded by highways and un-urban housing and streetscapes.

I also believe that I-75 in the SW side disrupts the neighborhoods a lot, but Mexicantown is still very vibrant in spite of being cut off. Look at how well Bagley Street is doing...it's great to see that street overcome the impediment of the freeway.
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Bearinabox
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 12:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Why were expressways constructed at such odd angles to the street grid? I think that destroyed more of the neighborhood than almost anything else. For example, I-75 just north of the Davison runs almost parallel to Riopelle, but tipped slightly more northwest-southeast (of course, the whole street grid in that part of town is tipped northwest-southeast, but I digress). At the corner of Riopelle and Modern, there are two or three complete lots on the west side of the street, but from there south to the Davison interchange the rest of the land on that side is all useless partial lots with a slanting side. Probably doesn't matter much anymore, since the whole neighborhood is a bombed-out prairie anyway, but it seems like that stretch of I-75 would have had less of a negative impact if it had been built exactly parallel to Riopelle and the train tracks on the other side instead of slightly tilted.
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 1:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bear: I bet if we saw a 1951 or 1953 Sanborn map, we'd see what they were avoiding.

I was doing some research on the Square D plant. It's on a little piece of Rivard left behind the I-94/I-75 interchange. It had been there since around World War I. To think that they built the freeway a hair's breadth away from the property line and then the business split the city a few short years after the freeway was built. But the building is still there.

I'm all for turning this into the usual DetroitYes! aerial-photo fest at this point.
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Fareastsider
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 1:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

speaking of wierd angles if you look at I94 N of 23 Mile rd out here the angle puts it through countless rural intersections all the way out to Port Huron. The roads are grids along section lines and wherever the roads cross more often out there they hit intersections. It severed a lot of rural crossing out here. I dont know why they didnt move it over 1/8 mile and at least build a couple of more bridges. Here in Chesterfield I94 completly severed the community. I have met more than one person who lives west of 94 and didnt even know that New Baltimore existed to the east. Plus there are only 4 crossings not including the border roads in the township and none of the 4 have sidewalks. No skywalks either. The township was offered money to build a bridge for the 24 mile crossing which there isnt one and they denied it because they had to front some money themselves. My vote for Detroit would be I-96
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Professorscott
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 2:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They didn't build skywalks over 94 in Chesterfield when they built 94 because nobody lived out there (well, not very many people; you know what I mean).

Now that people have been killed trying to cross 94 on foot in Chesterfield, they don't build them because nobody gives a damn.

Incidentally, why does Chesterfield have to put up money for a ped xing? No townships had to contribute to I-94 chopping them in half in the first place.

Remember, this is Michigan; cars and trucks are what matter, not people.
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Dustin89
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 5:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Last summer I became interested in freeways and their effect on urban landscapes, and read Robert Caro's "The Power Broker," a 1000 page plus book about Robert Moses and especially his planning for New York City. It's a large volume, but anyone here discussing this topic might enjoy it. It's interesting to note that the Davison was really the first US freeway, with what is now known as the Pasadena Freeway in Los Angeles having been built at about the same time. I think all of the Detroit freeways were very destructive , but I-375 seems especially bad, and not only b/c of the Hastings Street destruction. It breaks up Jefferson and cuts downtown off from the Lafayette Park development. At one point this year I heard something about a plan for capping I-375 to re-connect these areas, similar to what was done with a freeway in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Realistically, though, it will probably never happen.
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 6:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah, The Power Broker is a great book. Gives a glimpse at the ins and outs of induced demand. As usual, at bottom of our social struggles, it's all about power. Nobody was more about power than Moses. Except for a few driving lessons, the man who trapped New Yorkers in their cars never spent much time behind the wheel.
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Dustin89
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 7:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The part that I thought was most damning towards urban freeway development was the segment about residents who were in the path of the Cross Bronx Expressway. The sections about the deteriorating apartment buildings, increasing crime, and eminent domain process in action painted a clear picture of the impact of a freeway being rammed through a dense urban area. And of course the Cross Bronx Expressway today is a horribly congested road that makes the air quality in the surrounding area near-toxic. I'm not sure that any freeways in the Detroit area were quite as devastating; I can only go by my own observations, as there does not seem to have been much written about our freeway network and its impacts on the community.
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Parkguy
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 7:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I have recently realized how destructive the freeways are as you get closer to downtown. A good example is the way that Woodbridge is severed from the Cultural Center area. But it is not just the freeways... the wide avenues (in the case of Woodbridge-- Grand River)do essentially the same thing these days. They are high-speed thoroughfares that partition neighborhood from neighborhood. Check out historic photos of Woodward or Gratiot before the massive widening projects-- the scale of the street and its relationship to the buildings and pedestrian traffic is totally different. Here in Rosedale Park, Grand River doesn't have a traffic light between Fenkell/Southfield and Warwick. Speeds commonly average 40-50 mph. Just try to cross the street on foot!
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Focusonthed
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Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 10:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Parkguy, every city has boulevards. Cross at a crosswalk.
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Professorscott
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Post Number: 309
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 - 12:58 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

A boulevard has a median. Grand River where Parkguy is talking about is a pedestrian nightmare, as is much of Detroit. Michigan Avenue, Gratiot, Woodward, Livernois, all of these are a horror to cross on foot.

Livernois north of West McNichols now has a boulevard median and it makes it much nicer to walk around there.

Detroit and environs were built for cars, not people; so it is a nice place to live if you are a car, but not if you are a person.

It's no better in some of the 'burbs. Try crossing 'graph on foot, or worse yet, the disaster we call M-59 in the Shelby Township area. Shit, try crossing that in a car.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 310
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 - 1:08 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Incidentally, freeways are not enough to kill a city. There are lots of vibrant cities that have freeways. If you want to kill a city you have to do more than just build freeways; it's necessary but not sufficient.

If you own a city and you're trying to kill it, do as many of the following as possible (in addition to building freeways):

1. Make sure your city runs water and sewer lines out to the far reaches of farmland, otherwise people won't be able to build millions of houses far away from town.

2. Destroy your public transit, or at least reduce it to just buses and make it unpleasant, infrequent, slow and inadequate. Rip up the tracks so nobody can use them later.

3. Tax the City residents to death, so they'll have more reasons to want to live in the 'burbs.

4. Make sure your zoning is totally car-friendly. Require one parking spot for every possible visitor to every business. Cars, cars and more cars, that's what we want!

5. Make sure your state laws require agricultural communities to allow subdivisions and a population explosion whether they want them or not. Don't allow urban development boundaries; that's Communism!

6. Set up your regional planning agency in such a way that exurbanites get many more votes per capita than City folk.

If you can somehow figure out a way to do all that - and I don't know if it's possible - then you can probably destroy your city.

Good luck!
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Blackhelicopter
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Username: Blackhelicopter

Post Number: 8
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 - 2:02 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

In response to MikeG's examples of encircled cities earlier, Houston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, these last three are in a region in serious decline (Midwest / Rust Belt), so maybe you have examples of cities that have thrived with the encircled model, e.g. LA? What about Chicago and New York?

Seattle is definitely not encircled and has only two freeways that cut through the city, I-5 and Route 99. It's a prosperous city that doesn't seem to have been hurt by not finding reasons to build more freeways, and given the damage wrought on Detroit's neighborhoods by their construction, it seems reasonable to imagine that the city would have been better off if it had been more like Seattle and not exchanged neighborhoods for freeways.

I grew up next to the Southfield in NW Detroit -- while useful for going long distances quickly (e.g. to Dearborn or Oak Park), it was extremely noisy and depressed our property values (if freeways are so great, shouldn't they increase property value the way that transit lines do?). I definitely would have preferred to live without it (and that was one of the less destructive freeways).
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Parkguy
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Username: Parkguy

Post Number: 12
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 - 6:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

>>It's a prosperous city that doesn't seem to have been hurt by not finding reasons to build more freeways...

Two of Seattle's top transportation planners are from Detroit!

As far as crossing Grand River in Rosedale Park goes, there are plenty of corners, but no crosswalks! It is literally 6/10 of a mile in a business district with no signal, no crosswalk, and no boulevard. The GRDC has gotten some grants from the state to improve this situation, but the best they could get approved include a couple of small boulevard islands at the existing signals. I think the construction on the islands is supposed to start this summer, but with the status of the state budget, who knows. I want traffic calming!
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Quozl
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Username: Quozl

Post Number: 522
Registered: 07-2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 - 6:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jeffries Freeway did the most damage.

Southfield Freeway did the least damage.
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Eastsidedame
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Username: Eastsidedame

Post Number: 116
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Monday, May 07, 2007 - 5:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mikeg, I can tell you why the expressways in Houston didn't cause the devastation that they caused in Detroit.

First, before 1950 when the freeways began to be built, air conditioning was rare and expensive. So, not many people lived in Houston when they began building freeways. The population was only 596,163 in 1950 compared to more than 1,800,000 in Detroit at the same time. After 1950, air conditioning became more prevalent, so more people and businesses started coming. No state income tax helped, I'm sure, as well. But the real boom didn't start here until the late 70s. By then, everything was built except the Sam Houston Parkway, which was built around the already existing beltway of roads surrounding outer Houston.

Houston's expressways were/are built either on already existing roads with very little development or through relatively unpopulated areas of town. In fact, there was a lot of complaining at the time that these expressways were "roads to nowhere". Growth did catch up with the roads, eventually.

Lastly, many of the freeways are elevated, especially over high-density areas and intersections. Not only does this prevent a lot of urban destruction, but protects the road in the event of flooding. This is how Austin preserved a lot of their historic neighborhoods and even the State Capitol. You can drive "over" Austin for miles and miles. Rarely, if ever will you see a expressway in a "trench" situation in Houston like in Detroit. However, the elevated sections are the ones that freeze first, as we discovered in this past January's rare ice storm there.

In my opinion, all of the expressways sucked the life out of Detroit, up to and including 696, which ate through 11 Mile Road in Warren like cancer. No wonder my Grandpa hated Eisenhower. Tunnels might have been a better idea, perhaps?
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Urbanize
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Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1154
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Monday, May 07, 2007 - 5:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

M-10 and I-75 (both Chrysler and Fisher). Don't think at the rest did too much damage. I think that I-94 did the least damage. It didn't tear the fabric of the neighborhoodsup and it's a major transportation interstate in and out of the city.

(Message edited by Urbanize on May 07, 2007)
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Detroit_stylin
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Username: Detroit_stylin

Post Number: 4042
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, May 07, 2007 - 5:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'd have to concur with the fact that 96 did the most damage. There is no denying how many neighborhoods it had torn through as it winds through the west side. I mean really, is there a legitimate reason why it passes under Grand River three times between downtown and Shaeffer?
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Eastsidedame
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Username: Eastsidedame

Post Number: 118
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Monday, May 07, 2007 - 5:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Urbanize, you must not be an east sider, or Italian. I sent my mother a link to this thread; I'm sure she has some strong opinions about what I-94 did to her neighborhood, including destroying her magnificent parish church, San Francesco.
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Urbanize
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Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1155
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Monday, May 07, 2007 - 5:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm an eastsider. IF I had to choose however, I-94 is second in the city when it comes to least damage in reality.
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Rod
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Username: Rod

Post Number: 13
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Monday, May 07, 2007 - 11:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I recently had an idea: Why not consider tearing up 1-2 Freeways in Detroit?. I know the initial cost to do this would be a bit much, but in the long run we wouldn't have to maintain them. It certainly would free up and possibly re-unite some neighborhoods. It seems to me that when I'm in Downtown, I often miss the most direct route to any particular Freeway. I end up driving three blocks further to catch another entrance ramp, or another Freeway that will get me to my destination. (I suppose this is what Dustin89 talking about regarding Columbus above)
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 332
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Monday, May 07, 2007 - 11:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That's an interesting thought, Rod. Has that been done anywhere that we know of?

It seems if it were possible, if we had real leadership, the corridor would be too valuable to just fill in. Maybe reuse as a transit corridor, with pedestrian space and kiosk shops or something. (Think for instance of all the abandoned rail lines in the suburbs that have become bicycle paths.)

I realize this sounds pipe-dreamy, but only because we have no actual leadership in this region. If we could get some, imagine the things we could do.
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Sirrealone
Member
Username: Sirrealone

Post Number: 12
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 - 12:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't understand that idea of de-commissioning a freeway.....it's not like we're a ghost town where we have freeways that are under capacity. There's congestion on every one as it is. Where do you propose all the cars go? What, should we force people back on the side roads? The extra money spent on gas and increased maintenence of those roads would be greater to the taxpayers than just keeping the freeways and maintaining them.

Even though the current system probably should have been designed better, we have to live with what we have. I think it's probably too late to start re-designing the whole system, and I can't envision any "leadership" ever suggesting such a thing.
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Parkguy
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Username: Parkguy

Post Number: 19
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 - 7:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here is a link to a page that lists several freeway decommissioning projects. I think the Toronto project will replace the Gardiner freeway with a parkway-style route. The article link you'll find on this page didn't work for me.

http://www.tstc.org/bulletin/2 0010122/mtr30106.htm
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Focusonthed
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Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 957
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 - 11:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They shouldn't tear up freeways, they should tear up exit/entrance ramps. Make it so you can't get on the freeway to travel a half mile.
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Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg

Post Number: 828
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 - 11:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

They shouldn't tear up freeways, they should tear up exit/entrance ramps. Make it so you can't get on the freeway to travel a half mile.



A solution in search of a problem....
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Eastsidedame
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Username: Eastsidedame

Post Number: 122
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 12:39 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

No, Urbanize, you didn't say I-94 was "second" anything. You said:

"I think that I-94 did the least damage. It didn't tear the fabric of the neighborhoodsup.."

As an fellow east sider, born and raised, all I can say is: What are you thinking? Maybe you should ask your relatives what they, or their friends & neighbors went through during this time, since you don't seem to know. Maybe you were just very young at the time. Change your contention or defend your statement "that I-94 did the least damage" with a few facts. You're just plain wrong on this one.
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Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok

Post Number: 4276
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 12:49 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

ALL the freeways did damage to neighborhoods. But I-94 on the east side is probably the best freeway integrated into the neighborhood. That is largely thanks to the fact that if followed Harper Ave. There is easy on and off access (thanks to an extensive service drive system) to the Harper business district as well as the neighborhoods nearby. Many other freeways are not so well placed.

When accidents happen on many other freeways, the neighborhood streets are clogged with traffic since there is a lack of service drive. But on the east side, I-94 has both service drives and Harper to help handle the situation.

It's not ideal, but it is much better that what I-96 and Grand River Ave. contend with.
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Kville
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Username: Kville

Post Number: 28
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 5:53 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's hard to remember a Detroit without freeways (or expressways as we called them). I94, the first, only went to Michigan Av and then later Livernois when I was a kid. The first time I saw the Lodge, I was surprised to discover there was another expressway in the city besides the Ford. The Lodge only went to James Couzens for quite a while. The Chrysler only went from I94 to downtown for a long time too, and then later there was that big bottleneck through Hazel Park where it stopped at both ends for years as they argued
about the route. Of course 696 was the same way as it ended in the middle for a long time. It seems that once these things got finished one at a time, freeways were popping up everywhere.

I never lived on the west side, but would have to agree that the Jeffries cut the largest swath through the city. It's almost like crossing the Ambassador Bridge to get from one side to the other. The Fisher is probably a close second. I remember I94 coming through my far east side neighborhood, but with all the overpasses (Moross, Morang, Cadieux, Whittier), it didn't seem to isolate anyone. An exception was that little corner of houses east of Conner and just west of Chandler Park (Norcross, Barrett, etc.)
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Dnvn522
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Username: Dnvn522

Post Number: 243
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 9:23 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Believe it or not...there is a difference between a freeway and an expressway.
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Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1171
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 11:24 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thank you very much Dnvn for being literal.
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Cambrian
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Username: Cambrian

Post Number: 1070
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 12:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I got to thinking about my tunnel freeway idea. Yes the initial cost is more, but wouldn't it be cheaper to maintain? Being that most of the road bed is not exposed to four seasons of weather?
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Sirrealone
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Username: Sirrealone

Post Number: 13
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 12:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

But because of the upfront cost they would never do it. It's the same reason that they don't put in thicker roadbeds, which would probably double the life of freeways...because the upfront cost is too much.

Plus, with the way that they build roads around here, could you imagine? You'd probably be dodging falling concrete every time you drove.
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Dnvn522
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Username: Dnvn522

Post Number: 244
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 12:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

You're welcome Urbanize. Thank you very much for being sarcastic.
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Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok

Post Number: 4277
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 - 12:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

And then there is the issue of trucks carrying flammable or hazzardous materials. They are not allowed in tunnels, or even the cement canyons of the Lodge between Wyoming and 8 Mile.
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Eastsidedame
Member
Username: Eastsidedame

Post Number: 130
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 4:54 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Cambrian, yes, and excellent point about maintenance. Other places have highways in tunnels quite successfully. There's the huge tunnel under the English Channel, for heaven's sake. And, oh, yeah, we have one, too.

And regarding trucks carrying flammable or hazardous materials, many cities (particularly in Europe) do not allow them on the expressways within city limits or heavily populated areas. They are to travel the main streets, not quicker, just safer. There are no HAZMAT vehicles permitted on the Autobahn, thank goodness!

Some areas have different speed limits and requirements. The State of Alabama, for example, requires that all HAZMAT vehicles keep a 55mph speed limit, and remain in the right hand lane. Tunnels in certain areas where demolition would be too economically or socially destructive would be feasible with proper planning, monitoring and yes, maintenance.

Yeah, I-96 was awful...I agree that's probably number one and a good candidate for tunnels of varying lengths in certain segments. The technology was certainly there...the Detroit-Windsor tunnel was completed in 1930. But I-94, though it tried to follow Harper, didn't always, and many Harper area residents and businesses paid the price.

No one really knows how Detroit would have developed, changed and grown had the expressways been planned and executed differently. What if a tunnel was built under Paradise Valley/Black Bottom, instead of being demolished for I-75? Would racial tensions have been minimized? Would resentment among all groups have been abated? I suppose now questions like that are for the historians and sociologists to sort out.
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Dustin89
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Username: Dustin89

Post Number: 15
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 1:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I disagree with the supposition that we shouldn't de-commission freeways because they are congested, or that we shouldn't force people back onto surface streets. I personally would not like to see freeways de-commissioned only because of the cost and difficulty in transforming that area back into a surface street. One of the reasons for Detroit's decay is certainly that traffic in the city has so many options to bypass the surface streets and thus does not patronize businesses. Once again, it doesn't seem realistic to rip out a freeway now, but I do think it would be nice to force commuters back onto surface streets.
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Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest

Post Number: 13
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - 4:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This is a dumb topic. First of all how many of these areas were that nice. I mean there are a bout a million neborhoods that could use help in Detroit and you guys talk about some neborhood that was not that great. This sounds tread sounds a like a excuse to bad mouth the city thats they now
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Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1224
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 12:30 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Dbest, these freeways were built in the 40s and 50s (remind you when Detroit was looking it's best). You can't compare the historic, STRUCTURED neighborhoods that were destroyed in their time to the present day ones. You're saying that Chinatown and Paradise Valley were not that great? Please do explain.
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Detroit_stylin
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Username: Detroit_stylin

Post Number: 4120
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 8:57 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Dbest that post sounds like it is in serious need of someone with a decent grasp of basic English...

(Message edited by Detroit_stylin on May 16, 2007)
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Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest

Post Number: 15
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 6:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What im saying is that a freeway is something that a city has to have. Every city has had one that took away a major neighborhood. Detroit no matter how much some wish it was is no exception to any rule of urban planning.But a Chinatown does sound cool, was it like the one in Chicago or New York?
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Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1227
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 8:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"What im saying is that a freeway is something that a city has to have. Every city has had one that took away a major neighborhood. Detroit no matter how much some wish it was is no exception to any rule of urban planning.But a Chinatown does sound cool, was it like the one in Chicago or New York?"

LOL D_s. First, you claim we were complaining about us boo-hooing over spilt milk, now you saying Urban Planning is important, no matter how obscured the blueprint may seem. So in other words, "Urban Planning must destroy the prime areas of a city if you want to grow" is what you're saying?
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Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest

Post Number: 16
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 9:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

well did it destroy Indian Village,Woodward Ave,Greektown.Sorry to say this but this seems like more talk about things that had to be done not something that helps Detroit take its rightful place with Chicago,New York,and LA among the big 4 cities
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Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1228
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 9:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Sorry to say this but this seems like more talk about things that had to be done not something that helps Detroit take its rightful place with Chicago,New York,and LA among the big 4 cities"

That's actually what the thread was about. Besides, Detroit will likely never reach the heights that CHI, NYC, or LA have. So you shouldn't be comparing us to them. Also, those other cities (LA questionable) had a Mass Transit as well and their prime areas weren't destroyed in the process of them building their cities. What you're saying is just wacko basically. Those other cities didn't destroy famous neighborhoods, (diverse cultural neighborhoods at that) for their expressways, which is why they're still doing peachy.
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Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest

Post Number: 18
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 9:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah they did maxwell street was a street that "the chicago blues" started on and many other things, anyways this great street was destroy along with big parts of Little Italy. It was destroyed for The Dan Ryan and UIC.
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Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1232
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 10:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

BUT, those neighborhoods are still around and thriving today, aren't they? Where's Paradise Valley and Chinatown?
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Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest

Post Number: 19
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 10:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Maxwell street is gone off the earth and despite hype the area around UIC is still a somewhat bad area. Little Italy is triving but not like before Dan Ryan. The thing is that the DR was a must just like the ones in Detroit
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Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1233
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 10:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Question: Are you arguing that we shouldn't complain about the lost areas or the need to freeways? Actually, if it wasn't for freeways, Detroit may possibly still be in better shape than it is now, as they enhanced the desire of life away from the city.
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Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest

Post Number: 20
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 10:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

U can complain all u want i cant stop u, but just realize that the highways needed to be set up. But this is not about the past this about now.
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Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize

Post Number: 1235
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 10:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That's the problem. What you're not getting is that this Thread is looking back at the past. It said the which Freeway DID the most damage, not DOES. All the freeways are built and they did a lot of damage.
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Focusonthed
Member
Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 978
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 12:37 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Maxwell Street and Little Italy were destroyed by UIC construction, not by the Dan Ryan.

The only expressways that truly, irreparably damaged neighborhoods in Chicago (at least that is evident today) are the Eisenhower and the Dan Ryan. The effects of the Dan Ryan were intentional...the Eisenhower, probably just a product of putting what amounts to a 12 lane ditch through the city. At least Chicago put mass transit in their medians.
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Dbest
Member
Username: Dbest

Post Number: 21
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 1:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I was wrong Little Italy was reduced by the Eisenhower not the Dan Ryan. Anyways Detroit should be on the same level of chicago and new york

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