Detroit
Streetsblog Basics
To Destabilize Detroit’s Fragile Renaissance, Go Ahead and Widen I-94
A recent report by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group, “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future,” examines 11 of the most wasteful, least justifiable road projects underway in America right now. Here’s the latest installment in our series profiling the various bad decisions that funnel so much money to infrastructure that does no good.
September 30, 2014
7 Photos Show How Detroit Hollowed Out During the Highway Age
While searching for images of highway interchanges in urban areas, I came across these historic aerial photos of Detroit on a message board, showing how the city fabric has slowly eroded. It's a remarkable record of a process that has scarred many other American cities.
June 24, 2014
How Sprawl Got Detroit Into This Mess
It wasn't de-industrialization that bankrupted Detroit, wrote Paul Krugman in a New York Times column yesterday. If that was all there is to it, then how do you explain the fact that Pittsburgh, once so dependent on the steel industry, is now recovering? No, what brought Detroit to this low point, more than the loss of factory jobs, was decades of unsustainable development patterns.
July 22, 2013
Highway Revolts Break Out Across the Midwest
The evolution of state and regional transportation agencies is painfully slow in places like Missouri and Ohio, where officials are plowing ahead with pricey highway projects conceived of decades ago. But plenty of Midwesterners have different ideas for the future of their communities, and they aren't shy about speaking up.
June 28, 2013
Detroit’s Regional Planners Need to Kick the Highway Habit
They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But the people who shape the future of greater Detroit -- despite all the urban flight, sprawl, and decline they've seen -- just can't seem to acknowledge that they have an addiction to big highway projects. On the agenda Thursday for the regional planning commission, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, are two highway expansion plans that will cost an astounding $4 billion combined.
June 19, 2013
Shifting Political Winds Begin, at Last, to Favor Transit in Detroit
On Friday, state legislators in the Michigan House of Representatives made a momentous decision to approve a regional transit system for metro Detroit.
December 10, 2012
Detroiters Serenade Lawmakers to Put Unified Transit System Over the Top
This morning, as lawmakers inside the Michigan statehouse heard testimony on the creation of a regional transit system for greater Detroit, supporters held a musical demonstration outside, singing "Ain't no mountain high enough to keep us from getting a regional transit authority." The singers, who hailed from the city proper and its suburbs, are hoping the divided metropolitan region can finally enact the transit unity that has long eluded it.
November 28, 2012
The Hypocrisy of Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” Campaign
I'll admit it: I love the Chrysler ad campaign "Imported from Detroit," which debuted in February's Super Bowl spot starring Eminem.
November 8, 2011
GOP Gov Rick Snyder Has a Plan to Expand Michigan Transit — and Pay For It
It's common knowledge that the gas tax is too low to pay for transportation infrastructure needs. But nobody's holding their breath for Washington to solve the problem. If you're looking for leadership on transportation, maybe the better place to look these days is Michigan.
October 27, 2011
Feds Call “All Hands On Deck” For Detroit Transit
For the last two days, transit experts from around the country have been hunkered down in Detroit to devote their collective expertise to making the Motor City a better city for transit.
August 10, 2011