Hey there,

It’s Kiera again. Welcome to the first edition of The Watchlist. This is the first of a series of emails we intend to send out whenever it makes sense to update you on what’s happening around Washtenaw County. If you didn’t know, we actually keep a running list of local stakeholder organizations and ongoing projects that affect the urban environment. Below are what we think are the most important things you should know are happening in the next month or so.

If you think there’s something we’re missing, email it to us at contact@gowashtenaw.org.

MDOT US-24 / M-17 Open House

Thursday, Feb 1 | Noon – 2 PM | 4 PM – 8PM | Morris Lawrence Building Rm 105

MDOT is hosting an open house to allow for feedback on the US-23 upgrades and M-17 (Washtenaw Ave) redesign. I highly suggest you attend if you want to prevent them from adding lanes to US-23 or making an even worse mess out of Washtenaw Ave. This is an open house so you can show up and leave at any time during the noon to 2pm or 4pm to 8pm sessions.

From MDOT… M-17 project information:

Through the M-17 PEL study, MDOT and community partners are developing a vision for Washtenaw Avenue through a collaborative process that seeks to improve mobility and quality of life for those who live, work, study, explore, and travel within the corridor. The study area encompasses M-17 from the US-23 interchange to Summit Street in Ypsilanti. Visit the virtual open house at https://washtenawpel.com for more information.

WaMI’s Thoughts:

Practical Alternative C is the best of what MDOT has considered here. Note that the multi-use pathways are 12ft wide which provides ample room for pedestrians and cyclists to share. Additionally this pathway could be striped to provide separation between cycling paths and pedestrian areas. This is also great for winter maintenance because the path can be cleared with a regular snow plow. However, there still are some substantial issues. First is the excessive number of driveways and crossroads. Michigan law apparently does not allow MDOT or local municipalities to reconfigure existing commercial driveways. This renders both the bus lane and the proposed multi-use pathways effectively useless in the short-term due to the number of conflict points. The buffered bike lanes on Hewitt Road to Oakwood Street are a dramatic improvement from what is currently there (nothing) but has the same issue. I will be asking MDOT a lot of questions at the open house about how the plan to work around these issues (such as raised crossings on driveways and crossroads and plastic or rubber-curb delineators for bus and bike lanes to prevent violations).

From MDOT… US-23 project information:

Through the US-23 improvement study, MDOT will prepare road and bridge design concepts along US-23 from I-94 to M-14. A federally required environmental assessment (EA) is underway to identify operational, environmental, and social impacts. Visit the study webpage for more information.

WaMI’s Thoughts:

MDOT seems pretty determined to add more lanes despite not really providing reasoning on their online materials. My guess is to supposedly solve the insubstantial delays during rush hour traffic. Moreover, these delays ONLY exist for a very short duration during rush hour. However, one look at Google Maps traffic data indicates the issue isn’t the size of the highway, but rather people merging onto the highway at the interchange. More lanes would actually make this worse because it would encourage even more lane changes. This happens to be the exact same as issue as I-94 during rush hour. The question we should really be asking is, how can we reduce or redirect vehicle traffic on this route?

As for things they should be looking into… US-23 needs noise abatement walls as the noise from the highways surrounding Ann Arbor is overbearing. Longer on-ramps and merge lanes would improve safety without adding additional travel lanes. Retro-reflective striping and additional lighting would improve visibility. The SPUI interchange does seem like the best option for this area as its more compact than the current cloverleaf. However, they need to signalize the right turn slip lanes similar to so pedestrians can safely cross, similar to the slip lanes installed on US-12/I-94 in Ypsilanti.

Public input:

In addition to the open house, comments and input can also be submitted online through the M-17 comment form, the US-23 mapping tool, or by using the contact information below.

MDOT Contact:

Monica Monsma
MDOT Environmental Services Section
MonsmaM@Michigan.gov
425 st Ottawa St.
P.O. Box 30050
Lansing, MI 48909
517-335-4381

Sign up to receive project updates on the M-17 PEL study.

Sign up to receive project updates on the US-23 improvement project.

Ann Arbor Comprehensive Plan

The process of creating Ann Arbor’s comprehensive plan is underway! This plan aims to make Ann Arbor more affordable, equitable, and sustainable. However stakeholders are still working to determine exactly what each of those goals means. This plan will guide many of the land-use policy decisions made by City Council for the next 30 years. While that sounds scary, many good things are happening so far! Most notably to me, Ann Arbor seeks to simplify its zoning code. This is a great step towered allowing a more natural development pattern in the city and will simplify many aspects of developing residential and commercial property in Ann Arbor for the average person. I sit on the steering committee so we’ll try to bring you the most up-to-date information on this process.

Learn more about the Comprehensive Plan on the project website and get everyone you know to take the Comprehensive Plan Survey.

Downtown Sports Resort???

We don’t endorse Line It Up A2 as we don’t think this is the conspiracy they are claiming it is, but they do bring up something that perplexed me when routinely looking through City Council meeting details (something you can and should also do!) a few months ago, which was a proposal to build a Sports Illustrated Resorts Hotel and Conference Center on the Kline Lot. I’m all for redeveloping parking lots, but I was under the impression that Ann Arbor was intending to build affordable housing on this property. If not affordable housing, I think this area should to be split into multiple point access block sized properties which would better suit the downtown area and be more accessible for small independent developers. Of course that may or may not require revisions to the Ann Arbor fire code…

Either way, I don’t think this would be a positive development for downtown. If it made the city a lot of money in tax revenue and leasing, it might be a worthwhile sacrifice. But it doesn’t. In fact I think the city would be losing money on this.

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This was a long one so thanks for sticking with me! If you have thoughts, email us at contact@gowashtenaw.org or attend one of our upcoming events!