Complete Streets could change the look of Michigan cities

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

SCW bike lane Front St

SCW bike lane Front St, photo by TART Trails.

Today’s post comes courtesy of the Grand Vision in northwest Michigan…

The Detroit Free Press has a report on a law passed this year that could have a big impact on the future design of Michigan’s cities. The Complete Streets act directs transportation planners in the state to plan for streets that accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists along with cars and trucks.

It means that Michigan is now on the record acknowledging that it is a mistake to build roadways just to move high volumes of vehicle traffic as fast as possible. Designing healthy cities means considering all potential users of a street, regardless of their age or ability.

Ultimately, complete streets could produce road designs that accommodate sidewalk restaurants and the like, and intersection designs that allow pedestrians to cross in safety, not in fear of their lives.

A complete street, in other words, would be designed to handle pedestrians, people in wheelchairs, families pushing strollers and bicyclists. It also would meet the needs of retail and commercial users for wider sidewalks or slower traffic speeds.

See this photo by John Robert Williams bigger in the Smart Commute Week set.

3 thoughts on “Complete Streets could change the look of Michigan cities”

  2. Thanks – glad you liked it! The article talks about how Detroit might change based on applying this law:

    This whole topic of complete streets has informed much of the discussion lately about how to reinvent Detroit. Many Detroiters now acknowledge that we have too much road capacity in the city for the amount of traffic. That’s an opportunity to repurpose at least some of our streets for more environmentally-friendly uses.

    New uses might include running a light-rail line up some streets (as is now planned for Woodward Avenue). And it can mean we’ll see a lot more of those bicycle lanes that are starting to turn up here and there around the city.

    Complete streets also can mean bus-only lanes, or wider sidewalks created as part of the network of greenways — nonmotorized transportation venues — that Detroit is slowly creating.

    I would assume the same could apply to Flint. Plus you’ll be needing to do something about sidewalk size … at least based on this photo!

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