John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press

A recommendation on what to do with Detroit's aging I-375 expressway, originally expected more than a year ago, has now been delayed indefinitely.

A lack of consensus and money has pushed off a decision for now, Kelby Wallace, a senior project manager with the Michigan Department of Transportation, said Monday.

Wallace was informing an advisory committee of stakeholders of the need for more study. Stakeholders involved in the project planning have included representatives of the City of Detroit, the regional planning agency SEMCOG, major property owners such as General Motors, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, DTE Energy, Rock Ventures, the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, and philanthropic funders including the Kresge Foundation and Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

Wallace said six options outlined two years ago remain on the table. Those include rebuilding I-375 as is as a below-grade expressway or replacing it with a surface street that would connect better with the rapidly redeveloping east riverfront district. The various options would cost from about $45 million to $80 million for design and construction.

"We actually made a determination that we are not announcing any recommend alternatives," Wallace told the Free Press this morning. "It doesn't make sense really to rush this decision at this moment because we've got a lot of other things going on and our funding picture isn't there."

The effort to rethink I-375 has been hampered by a number of events, including the distraction created by a failed 2015 ballot proposal for road funding that diverted MDOT's attention, and the revamping of the City of Detroit's planning efforts coming out of the city's bankruptcy. In addition, the city's new planning director, Maurice Cox, hopes to do more studies on what to do with sites near I-375 including the demolished Brewster Douglass housing project, and a decision is still needed about what to do with the delayed Wayne County Jail project.

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Planners also hope to learn the future of possible mass-transit options under the Regional Transportation Authority before moving forward on I-375.

"Let's allow some of these other things to come together so we can use that information to make the best decision," Wallace said.

As a result, MDOT will continue to repair bridges over I-375 and other bits of the aging infrastructure pending some future date when a full-scale recommendation will be made.

Of the various options for I-375, the ones that excited the most interest were the ideas to rip out the expressway and replace it with a surface street. If Detroit did that, it would be just the latest major city to remove expressways built a half-century ago when urban expressways were thought essential to building efficient routes for commuters.

But since then, many cities and their planning staffs have rethought those assumptions. Urban expressways are now viewed more negatively, requiring the displacement of neighborhoods like Detroit's long-vanished Black Bottom district. Advocates now say that replacing urban expressways with surface streets allow for more pedestrian friendly urban environments.

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Wallace said the preliminary studies showed that removing I-375 for a surface street had lots of appeal.

"It definitely is feasible and there definitely are different types of benefits that the freeway does not present," he said. "You have additional connectivity, you're opening up some areas to access that previously were not accessible." And the impact on the movement on traffic is tolerable, he added. "Traffic doesn't operate quite as well but it still operates in an acceptable manner for our accepted traffic standards."

Built in 1964 at a cost of $50 million, I-375 runs for slightly more than a mile along Detroit’s east side and is now reaching the end of its useful life. When the study of alternatives for I-375 began, planners said they initially hoped to make a recommendation among six alternatives by mid- to late 2014.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.