MDOT to host meeting on I-375 on Dec. 5

Officials will present alternatives for the Detroit freeway

Two alternatives will be evaluated in the 2018 environmental assessment

The Michigan Department of Transportation will present its two "practical alternatives" for I-375 in Detroit to the public Dec. 5.

The open house-style meeting will begin at 4 p.m. at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Adventure Center at 1802 Atwater St. MDOT and city of Detroit Planning Department officials and consultants will present the plans and hear public feedback in a pair of presentations at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.

The state, city and Federal Highway Administration will analyze the proposals in its environmental assessment to be completed next year. MDOT says changes to the freeway are necessary to meet the progress of developments downtown and improve the existing transportation infrastructure.

The plans stem from a list of six alternatives yielded after MDOT, the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy and the city of Detroit in 2014 commissioned the Planning and Environmental Linkage study that revealed the freeway is outdated and in poor condition. One of those proposals would turn the freeway, which connects Jefferson Avenue to I-75, into a surface street.

About 80,000 vehicles use I-375 daily, the state said. The freeway is a main east-side link to I-96, the Lodge Freeway and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

In January 2016, officials delayed a decision on whether to radically reshape I-375 or do nothing with the milelong stretch beyond maintaining it. MDOT said at the time that said any future decision on the I-375 options may be influenced by the East Jefferson/Riverfront study by the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, Eastern Market's long-range plan, redevelopment of the Brewster Douglass site and Gratiot Avenue possibly becoming a bus rapid transit route.

I-375 was built more than 50 years ago as a "gateway to downtown Detroit." Its construction led to the razing of Detroit's noted Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods on the city's lower east side, preceding the 1967 uprising.