The next Woodward: More bikes, more walkers, more green

If a group planning changes on Woodward Avenue gets its way, what is arguably the metro Detroit's main street could look much different in coming years.

Protected bike lanes connecting Detroit and Pontiac, more crosswalks and other amenities could be coming to Woodward Avenue as part of plans created by the Woodward Avenue Action Association.

The Woodward Avenue Complete Streets plan, recently approved by the association's board, proposes changes from where the M-1 streetcar project is under way in Detroit all the way to Pontiac.

In the M-1 Rail vicinity, for example, bike traffic would be redirected west of Woodward to Cass Avenue, but pedestrians along Woodward would see improved crosswalks and mid-block crossings.

What the association describes as a “Parisian boulevard” is envisioned from McNichols in Detroit, north through Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Huntington Woods, Berkley, Royal Oak and Birmingham, to Quarton Road in Bloomfield Township. It would provide lanes for rapid transit buses — assuming they are eventually implemented — in the center lane, and then spreading outward in both directions would be three lanes of traffic, a wide curb for trees or bioswales, a slip road for slower traffic, parking spots and protected bike lanes, or cycle tracks, at the same elevation as the sidewalk.

For Pleasant Ridge City Manager Jim Breuckman, it’s about not waiting for a plan that could take years to develop but instead focusing on the small steps his Oakland County city can take now.

The city has closed off lanes on Woodward, Main Street and the service drive south of I-696 as part of a pilot project to determine how traffic on those streets responds to fewer lanes. The lanes are expected to reopen Monday.

"Basically, were testing a hypothesis that there’s overcapacity (of traffic lanes) out there right now,” Breuckman said, noting that if that proves to be true, the city could consider converting some traffic lanes in its study's design to bicycle lanes. “Complete streets is very important to us. We’re trying to figure out ways that we can implement this in a rational and fair way.”

In Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills, there would be four lanes of traffic in each direction, but buses would run with traffic rather than in separate lanes. No on-street parking or slip roads are envisioned, but there would be bicycle lanes and a sidewalk.

And in Pontiac, the Loop, which directs traffic around the downtown, would be converted to a two-way traffic configuration.

No cost estimate has been provided for the plan, which expects improvements to be “significantly completed by 2025.”

Although proximity to Woodward Avenue is a key feature of living in Pleasant Ridge, the road presents a challenge for city residents.

“For us, we’re basically split in half,” Breuckman said of the way Woodward bisects Pleasant Ridge, describing the road as a big hurdle for pedestrians and cyclists trying to get from one side of the city to the other.

Breuckman said people have used bicycle lanes when they have been installed in other parts of the country, and that it helps less experienced riders feel comfortable. If it eventually comes to Woodward, he said, “you don’t have to be a guy in Spandex to ride your bike from Detroit to Pontiac.”

All along the Woodward corridor, the plan envisions changes tied to a future that is less auto-centric and more concerned with general mobility, but one that also emphasizes consistent layout of street plantings, storm water management and branding of Woodward.

But there are at least two major hurdles standing in the way of the plan being implemented: funding and timing. No funding source has been tapped, although the Woodward association did manage to get a variety of sources to pay for the almost $713,000 plan. But full implementation would be dependent on the Michigan Department of Transportation.

MDOT spokeswoman Diane Cross said in an e-mail that the agency is “generally supportive if the communities are supportive.

“The costs would need to be shared somehow, but our contribution would come whenever we redo Woodward, which at the moment is not in the near future."

With approval from the 34-member association board, discussions from the association’s steering committee will turn toward the questions of funding, implementation and maintenance, and later to seeking endorsement from the communities along the route.

Although endorsements could be expected from the 10 communities in the Woodward Avenue Action Association, which also includes Wayne and Oakland counties as members, one community in particular is likely to be a tough sell.

Bloomfield Hills is not a member organization, and City Commissioner Sarah McClure, a former mayor who sat in on the association’s steering committee as it was developing the Woodward Avenue Complete Streets plan, indicated that her community could be resistant. She said it is premature to comment on the plan because officials there have not seen the final version yet, but she stressed that it would violate the community’s 2009 master plan, which was reaffirmed last year.

If it means “cutting down hundreds of trees, retaining walls, our master plan would not have anything like that,” McClure said, adding residents there also would be against the extension of sidewalks along Woodward.

Deborah Schutt, the association’s executive director, said the group believes there are few issues on the east side of Woodward, but it will review aerial photos along the west side to pinpoint any potential conflicts before appearing before the the Bloomfield Hills city commission. She said the placement of some older existing rock walls could be an issue, and additionally, if retaining walls need to be added, the group would look to make them consistent with what the city requires.

Breuckman, the Pleasant Ridge city manager, however, noted that master plans are “living documents,” which communities must review every five years, and the conversation regarding Bloomfield Hills could eventually change. He acknowledged that Bloomfield Hills has a more suburban feel than the other communities on the corridor and that understanding that context is important. But he added that the plan can work there as well.

But despite McClure’s position, she may not speak for everyone in her wealthy community, which also is one of dozens of communities in Wayne and Oakland counties that opts out of regional bus service SMART. City Commissioner Patricia Hardy said she hopes the city changes its position and goes along with the Complete Streets plan “because it’ll be wonderful for the region.”

Schutt said McClure was very vocal that Bloomfield Hills did not want any of the changes envisioned in the plan to be used in Bloomfield Hills.

The association board, however, ultimately approved the plan.

“The board’s position was you start at what’s best for the corridor in your planning,” she said. “You don’t negotiate down in a plan, not in your vision, not for what’s best,” Schutt said, describing the board as visionary in its approach.

The impact of not including Bloomfield Hills in the plan would affect more than just that city. It would effectively cut off Pontiac, which is trying to bring its own major complementary initiative to fruition.

The 2014 Downtown Pontiac Transportation Assessment reimagines the major traffic feature at the northern end of Woodward — the loop — changing it from its current one-way configuration around downtown into a two-way route.

Philip Wojtowicz, president of the Downtown Pontiac Business Association, said the loop is killing the city’s downtown.

“It’s just a bad plan. It might’ve made sense in the '40s. It doesn’t make sense now,” said Wojtowicz, who represented Pontiac during the Complete Streets meetings.

Wojtowicz said the Pontiac Transportation Assessment, which also includes changes to other streets to make the downtown area more accessible, and the Complete Streets plan both serve as economic development engines, and he suggests Bloomfield Hills could be doing a disservice to its own community be resisting changes that can better connect workers to job centers.

As with the Complete Streets plan, funding for the Pontiac Transportation Assessment plan — estimated at more than $6 million for the loop portion alone — is unclear. Still, Pontiac City Administrator Joseph Sobota said the city has included phase 1 — preliminary engineering and environmental study work — in its budget for this year.

Wojtowicz, however, noted that making the project a reality is contingent on MDOT, and he expects the desire for additional studies and the agency’s own funding challenges to pose problems.

“I don’t know if it’ll ever come to fruition. I’m a little disappointed by that,” he said.

Cross, the MDOT spokeswoman, acknowledged the agency’s own uncertainty with what Pontiac wants to do.

“The Pontiac loop is something that requires more study. We are not necessarily opposed, but the work done to date did not look at the larger impacts on traffic outside of downtown. We are working with the city and county to figure out the scope of the additional study right now,” Cross wrote in an e-mail.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence.

Association members

The members of the Woodward Avenue Action Association are Detroit, Highland Park, Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Huntington Woods, Berkley, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Bloomfield Township, Pontiac, Wayne County, Oakland County.