Posts about Michigan

And...: Think your place is small? Check out this 17 sq. ft. Paris apartment, rented out for $442 a month. (NPR, Steve S.) ... One Seattle website wants users to redesign the light rail map. Sound familiar? (Crosscut) ... One Michigan group has (jokingly) found the answer to all the state's ills: more parking. (Streetsblog) (Comment)

Bicycling

Lessons from biking in Detroit

by Veronica Davis • November 6, 2012 2:18 pm

Although people may not associate Detroit with biking, there are a few things Washington can learn from the Motor City. I recently got to ride 2 new trails that include features which could work well in our region.

Photo by Dave Hogg on Flickr.

The Michigan Trails & Greenways Alliance and the Detroit Food & Fitness Collaborative recently invited me to Detroit for a bike tour and to talk about biking in the nation's capital. My tour guide, Todd Scott of Michigan Trails & Greenways Alliance, showed me the Detroit Riverwalk and the Dequindre Cut Greenway, a rails to trails project in the heart of Detroit.

Detroit is still in the beginning phases of building a bike infrastructure, their trails already sport some excellent features.

Separate bicycles and pedestrians

The trail is wide enough for a bike lane in each direction plus a wide pedestrian lane. For the most part, everyone stayed in their allotted space. I was on the trail during the middle of a weekday, so I can't speak for when the trail is busy on a weekend.

Dequindre Cut Greenway. All photos by the author.

Make wayfinding and signage clear

Immediately I noticed the signage along the trail. Below is the sign at the beginning of the trail that serves as wayfinding and provides the rules of the trail.

Sign at the entrance of the Dequindre Cut.

The trail mile/kilometer markers are spaced every 0.1 mile. In the background there are banners on the lights. I didn't get a good photo of them, but they say things like "play," "bike," and "fun."

Mile Markers along Dequindre Cut.

Incorporate public art

Public art gives an area a sense of place. There are murals all along the Dequindre Cut on the walls and bridge underpasses. Some range from graffiti to elaborate works of art. This mural was my favorite.

Ensure security and safety

I saw security guards patrolling the trails. In addition, there are emergency lights about every 200 feet along the trail. They have security cameras and an emergency button.

I really enjoyed the bike tour of Detroit. They have aggressive plans to implement new bike infrastructure, including a new bike sharing program. If they can keep expanding the system, bicycling could become a real travel option for a great many Detroit residents.

6 comments

Tags: bicycling, bike trails, Detroit, Michigan

Detroit goes for cheap: With a office vacancy rate of more than 25%, Detroit has ridiculously cheap buildings. Detroit's third highest building sold for $5 per square foot, very minimal compared to DC rates. (RPUS) (Comment)

Seniors suspended for cycling: Students at one Michigan high school school biked to school together on their last day of senior year, and were promptly suspended for causing a traffic delay. The principal also called the biking "a safety risk." Parents later rallied in support of the biking students. (MLive, Atlantic, Tim F.) (Comment)

Pedestrian malls through time: Pedestrian malls have a mixed history of success in the US. Some malls have thrived while others have reopened to traffic, including the country's first in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which was initially successful. (Atlantic) (Comment)

Back to the land in the city: No city is a stranger to vacant lots, but no city knows vacancy as well as Detroit. To combat the problem, citizens are planting gardens and taking over neighboring lots, largely without the city's approval. (Free Press) (Comment)

Detroit swaps light rail for buses: The Motor City ditched its planned downtown light rail for much larger BRT to the suburbs. Downtown businesses favored rail, but the city couldn't afford the $10 million estimated annual operating costs. (WSJ, T. Goodman) (Comment)

And...: A driver struck a cyclist in Arlington. (ARLnow) ... Zimmerman explains induced demand. (WTOP) ... How does removing parking meters close a deficit (and make a city "friendlier")? (Detroit News) ... A higher Maryland gas tax is very likely. (Baltimore Sun) (Comment)

93 days in jail for a vegetable garden: Oak Park, Michigan ticketed a homeowner for growing vegetables in their front yard and is now seeking a penalty of 93 days in jail. (The Agitator, Andy W.) (Comment)

Local officials partly to blame: The county executive of suburban Oakland County, MI, admits, "I love sprawl. I need it. I promote it. Oakland County can't get enough of it." Michigan blog m-bike blames such local officials for fostering the car dependence that makes a spike in gas prices painful for their residents. (m-bike via Streetsblog) (Comment)

Transit

Weekend video: Streetcars in Grand Rapids

by Matt Johnson • May 7, 2011 2:17 pm

Grand Rapids, Michigan might not be known for its transit today, but it once was.

Here's one resident's look at the history of streetcars in Grand Rapids. And his encouragement for residents to vote to support better transit there.

Luckily, this week's vote to fund transit passed by 136 votes.

6 comments

Tags: Michigan, streetcars, transit, video

And...: The DC metropolitan region is now the 9th largest in the country. (UrbanTurf) ... A baseball fan wants the people of NYC to "take back the Mets" including upzoning and filling in the wasted space around Citi Field in Flushing. (ESPN) ... A Detroit group is promoting light rail plans in the Motor City with rap and Legos. (TrainsDownTheMiddle) (Comment)

Detroit fills grocery void with independent markets: Since no major supermarket chain has a store in Detroit, independent grocers fill in the void. Can the same happen for the area's food deserts? (CNN Money, Eric Fidler) (Comment)

Healthy employees are happy employees: The City of East Lansing, MI—home to Michigan State University—is starting up a bike-sharing program for city employees. Local bike advocacy organization Share-A-Bike has placed eight donated bikes at five prominent locations throughout the city, and employees can check out bikes via their work email. Helmets are required, but not included. (City of East Lansing website, Geoff H.) (Comment)

Saving through a lottery: 8 Michigan credit unions found a way to get "unbanked" people to start saving: a lottery. For every $25 saved, each participant got one entry into a $100,000 drawing, plus smaller monthly prizes. It brought in 11,000 new savers, and unlike the regular lottery, nobody loses. (Post, Chuck Coleman) (Comment)

Obama hyping sprawl to cut ribbons: President Obama declared the era of sprawl is over, but then immediately set up a photo op touting Virginia's ~~widening~~ extension of the Fairfax County Parkway. Now, he picked an enormous interchange widening in ~~Minnesota~~ Michigan to mark the stimulus having funded two thousand projects. There are still plenty of transit projects, not to mention existing job-creating transit service, that are still starving for funds. (2 comments)

De-sprawling in Flint: Flint, Michigan is contemplating scaling back city services to abandoned neighborhoods. Youngstown, Ohio also recently discussed shrinkage. Why shouldn't sprawl work in reverse, too? (Michigan News, Cavan) Update: Rob Goodspeed analyzes the issue in more depth for Detroit. (2 comments)

Parking

Weekend reading: taxes, fees, and the effect of bad planning

by David Alpert • November 9, 2008 10:03 am

Port Huron, Mich. Photo by k.l.macke on Flickr.

Gas tax comeback? Congressman-elect Gerry Connolly (D-Fairfax) suggested raising the gax tax to close huge budget gaps. With Mary Peters and her seemingly-irrational opposition to the gax tax in all forms on the way out, gas prices low, and budget deficits high, this makes some sense. (WTOP)

Not going to help: Port Huron, Michigan and Hollywood, Florida are both removing all parking meters to boost flagging. Parking Today thinks that's a mistake: employees will take up most of the spaces, parking still won't be more attractive than at the mall, and the cities won't even have money to use to improve downtown.

Greening our "unnecessary garages": Today's Post prints an op-ed by Ingrid Specht endorsing lower parking minimums for DC. "In fact, employees should receive benefits for not driving to work." Specht suggests the Columbia Heights garage could be better utilized if it stayed open later for restaurant goers, filled in some of the empty space with bicycle parking, or added Zipcar spaces, "rather than hoping they are someday filled with personal vehicles, promoting pollution." Tip: Michael P.

Paleolithic road planners: Dr. Gridlock considers a right-turn lane on Georgia Avenue at Spring Street (probably not a good diea) and reveals some ongoing old-fashioned traffic thinking at the Maryland State Highway Administration: "Their goal, [SHA traffic planners] say, is to get the most vehicles through the area in the most predictable way possible." Even pedestrians aside, the goal should be to get the most people through the area, not the most vehicles. It's an important distinction, since one bus carries as many people as a whole lane of cars.

And... The NOAA headquarters in College Park is indeed transit-unfriendly; Great Streets and the 11th Street Bridges may be on the budgetary chopping block; a Welsh translation attempt leads to a hilarious result.

13 comments

Tags: 11th Street bridges, car dependence, College Park, Columbia Heights, DC USA, Florida, free parking, gas taxes, Gerry Connolly, links, Maryland, Michigan, parking minimums, traffic

Bicycling

Silly car company antics of the day

by David Alpert • August 27, 2008 4:51 pm

Prince of Petworth noticed this "green" truck:

Using ethanol to power a big Chevy pickup is far from green in many ways: a big car uses a lot of energy, and ethanol isn't any better for the environment anyway.

Meanwhile, Streetsblog discoverd a "Bizarre News" article on a Flint, Michigan news station's Web site. What's bizarre? Bike sharing in DC. In Michigan, that really is bizarre. The more ironic part? The story carries a Chrysler ad.