The Lodge Freeway opened on this day in 1959. A different era for Detroit, and, in many ways, the beginning of the end, as it marked the beginning of the gradual car-ification of the city. The once-great Department of Street Railways (predecessor of DDOT) and other city transit options were in decline by that point.
Beginning before the postwar era of suburbanization, Detroit transit had to contend with the advent of the modern Davison Freeway in the 1940s, the temporary and eventually permanent displacement of streetcar lines by rush hour car traffic, the advent of mass commercial aviation (mostly in the 1950s from DTW), and an increasingly pro-car, pro-suburban leadership.
In another age, when I wasn’t working twelve hours a day in my newfound insanity of professorship, I might have the time to write a lengthy treatise about what it would require to completely cap (or scrap?) the Lodge Freeway, most of which is buried at a lower depth than the surrounding areas. This was a hallmark of many urban freeways built during the Eisenhower era. We can dream, certainly! Ah, the Handbuilt of old!
Not so much today, just a fun photo someone posted on Detroit Reddit. Not sure who these people are, honestly, but they’re certainly not around today to see how disastrous the effects of car-centric policy were for the once-multiple-types-of-motors City. Thinking about the things we might again have one day in the future if Detroit’s leadership could be bothered to prioritize bold visionmaking instead of Reaganomics and petty feudal politics. There is discussion of covering over I-75. Doubtful whether it will actually go anywhere, though, as we seem to prefer the six lanes of access roads and the six lanes of freeway in this part of downtown.
